adjensen

Wow, nice attitude. I'm sure that stealing from the church plate is okay, as well. It is indeed my "problum." I guess that I shouldn't spend $10 on a geocoin and release it, so that others might enjoy seeing and logging it. Might as well take the ten bucks and throw it in the trash, eh? Maybe you've seen this topic millions of times because someone who buys something isn't happy to have someone come along and put it in their pocket.

Here's what I do (I have an iQue, though -- has integrated GPS, so some of these steps are optional) 1) Figure out where I'm going (often the hardest step []) 2) Run a pocket query on the area and/or route 3) Download and upzip the pocket query on the PC 4) (optional) I sync the PC address book (empty) to the Palm, in "overwrite" mode, which erases all of the addresses on the Palm (you probably don't have to do this -- the iQue uses the address database to show caches on the GPS map. If I don't do this, I wind up with multiple copies of each cache after step 14) 5) Run the GSAK program on the PC 6) (optional) I delete all of the existing entries in the GSAK database, cause they're likely out of date and/or duplicates 7) In GSAK, import the pocket query (File menu) 8) (optional) Dink around with the entries, deleting ones you don't want, etc. 9) Export the entries in Cachemate format (File menu) 10) Quit GSAK, hook up the Palm, sync 11) On the Palm, open the Cachemate program 12) You'll get an alert, regarding the stuff it's about to import. In the alert, select "Not Found" from the lower popup menu 13) It will read all of the caches in, you can then review all of the information 14) (optional, iQue only) Select the EXP button, which will move all of the caches from Cachemate to the address book, and then they'll show up on the GPSr map I've seen and tried other ways of doing this, but the GSAK + Cachemate combination seems to work best for me, my GPSr/Palm, and the way that I cache. Your mileage may vary, of course!

Awesome. I think I'm gonna steal your picture, if you don't mind.

The only problem with that was that the guy who handed it off also kept it for way too long, and it took a couple of emails to him to get the coin moving. I realize that this coin is pretty cool, but short of images of someone pawing and preening over it daily (ala Gollum and his "precious",) I don't see why these guys don't just get the dang thing moving again.

One of my coins has found its way into the hands of a hoarder, or at least someone who seems to have about a dozen coins and bugs that he's picked up since July. Doesn't seem that he's in any rush to drop any of them in caches, either. He's finding new caches every week, but never leaves anything. He went to a event cache this weekend, but seems to have left his "collection" at home. I have emailed him twice, politely asking if he would place my coin in a cache, since he still seems to be going to them. He never replied. I added a message to the coin, to the effect that I released it to travel, and if it's being logged from someone's collection, it's stolen. That didn't seem to do anything. About all I can think to do is change the name of the coin to "THIS COIN IS STOLEN!" so that it shows up in his and my list that way. Doubt that will do much, though. Any thoughts on how to get this coin back in circulation, from someone who picked it up over two months ago, ignores messages, and isn't a noob? Thanks!

I've been reading a few threads regarding ratings, standards, and the like, and I've come up with some new ratings I'd like feedback on. The primary change is splitting between urban and non-urban caches, because standards are much different for them. I've also removed the "Special Equipment" is an automatic five star rating. That should be an attribute. Here's my idea: Urban Caches Terrain * Flat, even terrain, accessible to all, including the wheelchair bound. ** Located in a park which may include rolling hills, curbs, and other obstructions that may impeded non-mobile cachers from the Glad container filled with Happy Meal toys. *** Micro located on a window ledge of a thirty story building. No indication of which floor, but coordinates do seem to point to the south wall. **** Cache is a PVC pipe hidden on the grounds of a police station, court house or Federal building. Logging requirements may require waving it about or laughing maniacally while replacing. ***** Cache is located in a "bad part of town" and the cacher is advised to wear red or blue prominently. Whether this will improve the situation or not is left to the whim of the hider. Difficulty * Cache is located in McDonalds drive-thru. Order taker may or may not be aware of this, but asking them to "hold the pickle, hold the lettuce" on your Big Mac qualifies you for the find. ** "Stop and Grab" located at popular local park. Cache is a decon container attached to the underside of the only bench in the place. Beware of muggles. *** Pen cap micro thrown in a storm sewer or taped to the bottom of a dumpster. **** Puzzle cache, requiring finder to solve sixteen Sudukos, "Price is Right" guessing games and mathematical proofs, each result getting one number of the coordinates. Cache is located at the home of the owner, at said coordinates, who will provide the cache when you ring the bell and ask "where's the stuff?" Encrypted hint reveals the hemisphere (western) to "cut down on all the questions." ***** Cache is a tiny container, built on the atomic level, on the side of a bolt. Box is thirty atoms by thirty atoms. Said bolt then inserted into random picnic shelter in Indiana. Cachers are advised to bring their own electron microscopes. Non-Urban Caches Terrain * Flat, even terrain, accessible to all, including the wheelchair bound. ** Rolling terrain, which may require short hike on uneven surfaces. With optional boulder field, snake infestation or rappelling required, depending on local expectations. *** Cache may involve any of the following: 10 mile hike; overnight stay; special climbing equipment; paying park "entrance/extortion" fee. **** Wife, husband, dog, or other voice of reason announces that they'll "stay in the car for this one." ***** Cache is located under Mt. Everest, in the Mariana Trench, or on the moon. Difficulty * Cache is in plain sight, having not been hidden by the last finder. Who also left it open, to make it easier for the next guy. ** Cache is hidden under a three foot pile of sticks. In the desert. *** Cache is in one end of a log. A wasp nest is in the other end. Choose wisely. In bear country, cache may be coated with honey before placement. **** Multi cache, thirteen stages; six pine cone micros, three fake sticks, two ammo cans and a decon container. Final stage is hidden in a Mountain Dew can -- log may be damp. ***** Cache IS a log. Finding requirements involve pressing a sheet of paper from said timber, and making your own dadgum log to sign. I've got too many other caches to hide.

I'll sure agree with the regional/underrated bias. Did one last month in Idaho that involved a 1/2 mile hike through snake country, a shorter hike through head high weeds (with the continued option of snakes,) and then a ten foot climb up a cliff face (non-vertical, but still...) Terrain on that one rated a two! Around here, it would have been a three or four.

Quite possibly. Certainly less experienced in the nuances of the game. If they bothered to log 47 finds, it's not too likely that they've another 1011 that they didn't log. Certainly not, "deserves" being the operative word. I've been doing this, off and on, for the past five years because I enjoy hiking and exploring. I've been doing map reading, orienteering, cartography and other geography stuff since college in the early 1980s. This is just the latest itteration of that. I pretty much always do it with other people, which keeps my numbers low, but I'd rather take a whole day to climb a mountain with my wife and daughter to find a tough cache than do 15 micros in a day to boost my numbers. Hence the "slowest to 100" label If it's a game, you need some means of "keeping score," I guess. The numbers are said way. I don't geocache for that reason, but I see why some would. Probably a better way to keep score would be to factor in the difficulty of a cache in the score, but that's a whole other can of worms I personally stay away because it's confusing, and when I've tried to sort it out, it looked rather boring.

do most cachers in your area really carry/have access to portable blacklights??? I purposely listed this cache as a five star difficulty, do to "special equipment needed." Here is the cache in question. Call me stupid ("You're stupid!") but I don't see anything in the description that says I need to bring a blacklight along. I do see the "special equipment required" bit, but no indication of what said equipment is. I'm 99.9% sure that if I did the cache, with the information provided, I wouldn't have a blacklight with me. And even if I'd just been looking for cat stains on the rug and happened to have one with me, not very likely I'd think to use it. (As an OT aside, there needs to be another way to indicate that special equipment is required. In this case, the boost to five is obvious, but is it a boost from one or from four? That's the baseline that I use in deciding to consult the clue, or abandon the search when I've spent enough time. If I can't find the thing, but the difficulty is a four, I know I'm probably never going to find it without help.)

I've seen several where the cache is behind the counter of a store, and see no problem with that at all. I was particularly appreciative of one in Puerto Vallarta, which gave us a "safe" place to drop a few bugs. We were never asked to buy anything, and the woman in the shop gave us some great advice of things to do!

I wonder how that would stand up in court.... I can't help but think that you're twisting logic way past its breaking point. I think it's a reasonable assumption that if the cache owner did have permission, he would have the sense to put something on the cache page to that effect, particularly if questions have been raised. Deleting the note with no response, public or private, would indicate that the owner does not have permission, and wants the issue to "go away." I'm not sure that a "Needs to be archived" is the call of the finder, but at least it puts someone in authority on the issue, who hopefully will not be ignored (though if he is, can archive it directly.) At the very least, were I said reviewer, I'd require the owner put a "Private property, permission granted" note on the page, if that's the response he gets.

Playing for the numbers might impress a lot of people, but it ultimately satisfies only one (if that.) I've been here since March of 2002, and now have 75 finds. I commented on that to my wife recently, and she pointed out that, of those 75, perhaps 5 of them have been "solo". For all of the rest, I've taken someone else with me, and that has made it pretty slow going. I'm probably on track to be the slowest active player to hit 100 caches, but I'd sooner climb up a mountain in Idaho with my wife and daughter to find a neat cache with a million dollar view than run up a trail collecting easy find after easy find to bolster my numbers.

Nice to see that he doesn't seem to have a "comment" function to point out his spelling and grammatical errors. Or to ask him how he thinks his "GPS toting terrorist" is going to open the emergency exit door of a pressurized plane by hand. Moron.

THIS IS A TRAVELING COIN!! Do not add this to your collection! If you are logging this coin as part of someone's personal collection then it is stolen!! I added that to the description page. Will have to see if it knocks it loose. Thanks for the idea!

I wish I had bought more than two! I already turned down one trade offer for my spare, and won't let it go except for something special. I bought three of them, kept one for myself, stuck one in a drawer and (foolishly) stuck the third in a cache, with a label saying that I thought it was really cool and people should pass it around to share. A guy picked it up and hung onto it for three months. Repeated proddings loosened it, unfortunately, he gave it to another guy who's had it since early July and hasn't responded to emails asking that the coin be put in a cache.

Just to follow up and further mystify this issue, we took the Magellan on a road trip to Minneapolis two weeks ago, and I ran over to Wisconsin to do a couple of caches. Elevation about what it is here (maybe a little lower,) and the "Extreme low power, shutting down" problem happened 100% of the time. Back in Grand Forks after said trip, and it works fine. Maybe it gets homesick I'm a little peeved that my email to Magellan support on this thing (which I sent on August 18th) has been ignored. Not even a "sorry, that sounds really stupid" reply.

Yes, Google Earth would be a good idea, if you were looking for a specific cache (something that I don't really do anymore, with PQ and my iQue.) Using the previously mentioned Tennessee cache (GCMK7Y) as an example, the google map takes on a whole new perspective when you look at the satellite photo instead of the map! (I'm not sure that "few steps from plenty of parking" bit was there when we did the cache. At least that's the story I'm sticking to )

My favourite was one in Tennessee, where we simply had a printout with no maps or anything beyond the "general area". Parked where I considered to be close to the cache -- by my eye, it was right on top of that ridge right there. We bushwhacked up the hill, and, upon reaching the top, saw that we'd need to do a little more bushwhacking to get down the other side, to the cache. Which was hidden on the edge of a very large, very busy, parking lot.

If anyone asks, we generally tell them what caching is all about. I'd say it's about 1/2 and 1/2 people thinking it's interesting and people wandering off with a glaze in their eyes.

I would say you should contact the person that left it. If they've made an online log on the cache page you can email them from their profile. If they haven't logged online (?), and you know their user name you may be able to look them up. Yes, that's the problem -- they haven't yet logged it, I don't remember who it was that signed the physical log (I had a pocket query from earlier in the week on my iQue, so I didn't know that it hadn't been logged) and I'm not likely to go back to that cache (it's in another state.) So I guess I'll hold for a reasonable period of time, and if they never log the cache find, I'll just activate the coin myself and get it out there for others to enjoy. Part of this comes from aggravation of my own geocoin that I put out earlier this year and which has managed to make it into the hands of very few people, largely because two of them have hung onto the coin for what I consider to be inordinate amounts of time (and ignored emails I sent asking them to put the coin in a cache.) Thanks!

I picked up a geocoin from a cache yesterday (Geocoinclub July 06) but when I looked at the cache page, the coin wasn't listed. The person who had (according to the physical log in the cache) put the coin in there had done so the day before, so I figured that they just hadn't had a chance to log the find/drop yet. I figured I'd ask them to email me when they logged the coin in, but the only way I had to contact them was through the coin. However, when I went to the "Track" page and entered the code for the coin, it hasn't been activated yet. I guess that I can go to the geocoinclub page and get an activation code, but then I'm the "owner" and I don't want to take it away from whoever is the real owner. So I figure I'll just wait some period of time to see if the person who dropped it in the cache logs it, and find out what they want me to do if they just log the find and don't drop the coin. On the other hand, I don't want to take this out of circulation, so I don't know how long to wait. Thoughts? Thanks!

Is that map mode of the GPS/PDA or additional software that allows it to act like a GPSr? Im still trying to visualise what is needed with a PDA/GPS/Receiver to allow the GeoC abilty I have of my (loaned) GPSr? Where for instance would you change a datum? The software is what comes with the iQue. It's standard, and you install the maps when you first setup the unit. Depending on memory (it takes SD memory expansion cards, I have a 2gig,) you can put lots of maps on there. You can change the datum in the Preferences>>Location screen. It looks to have over 100 different options in there.

** One last bump, in case someone else recognizes this problem. **

Yes, that refers to the mapping view. You can (and I do) use the nav mode to see direction and distance to the cache, right down to 0 feet, but I prefer the graphic display of the map. As of a week or so ago, the iQue is all that I take caching. It has all of the descriptions, hints and past logs that I would normally have printed out, and I can use the auto-routing to get my car close to the cache, and then I use the map / nav mode to walk to the spot.

Hm, my understanding from talking to a clerk was that this is not an issue with the iQue and that you can get the same granularity on it as a GPSr... What iQue do you own? What map were you using? Reason I ask is because I am seriously considering the iQue. It's an iQue 3600, bought about three months ago, with the maps that it comes with (installed off of a DVD) although the maps should be irrelevant, as it's the mapping software that's limiting (there's a pop-up menu of "zoom factors" and it only goes to 120ft) the zoom. Unless I'm missing something, it's a hard limit (with no real reason, so far as I can tell... aside from screwing up someone who didn't know what they were doing, I don't see a purpose for the limit.)