junglehair

Ok, my travelbug Smokey is ready to go. He can't wait to make his cross Canada journey. -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

Oh ya, one more thing, (as they pop into my head) any decisions on the entry fee if there is one? -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

One comment on the rules as well. Why limit to 7 of the 10 provinces? The way I see it, the best option then would be to pick up the bug in BC and mail it to someone in Ottawa. Then it would only have to travel through QC, NB, NS, PEI and NF to win. I know that there are not many caches in the prairie provinces, but this might stir some interest there and get more people involved. I'm looking for a good travelbug to enter now. Actually, I will probably convince my brother (Marvin_from_Mars) and my mom (The_Old_Bat), both in Manitoba, to submit entries as well. -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

quote:Originally posted by boreal jeff & sons:If anyone could direct me to a good map of Canada/North American I could use for tracking. The one being used for the Cannonball Run race would be great but it doesn't show enough of Canada. If you have only a few travelbugs entered, you might consider using Microsoft Streets and Trips to create the maps. It is a relatively inexpensive program, and allows you to output directly to an HTML page. The benefits of that program is that it lets you hyperlink directly to the travelbug's page. The drawback is that it does not allow you to label the bugs on the map. Here is an example. This only shows a portion of Canada as well, but you just adjust the extents of the map to show Canada instead of the USA. If several bugs are in the same cache - which will happen at the beginning of the race, then it only links to the top bug's page. -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

quote:To: junglehairI would like to personally thank you for your advice to the cause here. I think we will definately need your expertise going forward. Feel free to email me if you like. I'll try to help out as best I can. You can use the email link through my profile. One thing that I forgot to mention in my previous (rather lengthy) post, is about the end cache. We have a special cache set up for the destination cache. From my understanding, it is designed something like a mail box - you can place things in, but can't get anything out. That way, a cacher can't remove a bug that may have arrived there first. Once they place a bug in the cache box, there is a flag that they will raise. The flag is visible from the cacher's home. He will watch for the flag to go up, then go retrieve the bug so that it can be properly logged. After that, he will place it in a box for outgoing travelbugs, or mail it back to the owner if that is what they choose. -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

I just found this thread today. I have been helping with the 2003 Travelbug Cannonball Run race from New York to California (I update the maps). It seems that things are progressing nicely for your race. I can tell you a few things that we have learned from our race. 1) Require all entrants to be new travelbugs. If you want to have prizes for most miles travelled, etc. then it is easier to keep track of that way. You don't want to have to worry about if that bug had original miles on it that would need to be deducted. 2) Figure out the rules ahead of time. Trust me, there has been quite a bit of contention in the forum for the Cannonball run about if bugs are following the rules or not. Having them stated as clearly as possible at the beginning of the race should help. 3) When Brogan thought of the idea, he expected maybe a dozen bugs or so to enter - we have 74! Be prepared. 4) Choose your start date wisely. We started our race on March 8 in Western NY. It was still pretty cold, with snow on the ground. As such, it took quite a while for the bugs to get moving. You will want to start the race when/where it is warm so there will be lots of caching activity. 5) In our race at least, people seem to enjoy interfering with the bugs progress more than helping them achieve their goal. In some cases, this is seen in good humour, in other cases it is not. For example, one cacher has grabbed about a third of the bugs and moved them to remote caches in Northern NY - almost eliminating them from competition. You may want to place limitations on the amount of interference allowed. 6) Our rules allow the same cacher to move the bug as far as they want, as long as they log them into a cache in each state along the way. This may not be such a good idea. The leading bug has made it all the way to Arizona, through only 4 cachers, and has caused a bit of a stir. I think people want to see that rule changed for next year's race. 7) Our rules also state that anyone with a bug entered in the race is not allowed to touch another racer, or face disqualification of their bug. I think this will change for next year, since the entrants want to be involved too. I would prefer to see restrictions placed on how long they could hold onto the bug, or how far they could move them backwards. For example, any cacher with a travelbug entered in the race would be able to grab another racer, but could only hold on to them for a max of 10 days, and are not allowed to move them more than 100 km backwards. 8) We have our own server hosting the stats page. We had help from several people on this. One cacher developed a program to track the movements of all the bugs entered. I am manually updating the maps, but would like to change that to a more automated process next year as well. 9) Our rules state that Travel bugs are allowed to move only one state at a time, states must share a common border. Any bug that skips a state intentionally or not is required to backtrack to the last continuous state that it was in (not necessarily the same cache) and begin again from there. The same holds true for any bug leaving the country. This is not that easy to keep track of - especially with 74 bugs entered in the race. For a Canadian race, I would suggest a requirement that the bug needs to be logged in each province, but not necessarily in order. 10) You may consider ordering some sort of tag, similar to the travelbug tag, that would identify the travelbug as being a contestant in the cannonball race. It should include the URL for the stats page. 11) You may also want to consider an entrance fee to cover the cost of prizes, and the cannonball run tags. Check out our stats page for the 2003 Travelbug Cannonball Run And if you allow entrants from outside of Canada, I will be sure to send in a racer. Then again, if your requirements are that they must be Canadian, I still qualify! (I'm from Winnipeg, but living in NY now) Good luck! -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

Shelly Team probably visited that cache on April 1, but only logged it today. I would guess that they still have the travelbug, and only logged it there to show the mileage. I am willing to bet, however, that they will now drop it in a cache in New York, go home and try to log it, only to realize that they don't know what the travel bug number is any more. Any takers? -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

quote:Originally posted by Eric K:What happens in the case of a bug like this one? Someone moved it from NY to Florida. Does it just have to come back to a state adjacent to NY before moving towards the goal? The rules state that: 1. Travel bugs are allowed to move only one state at a time, states must share a common border. Any bug that skips a state intentionally or not is required to backtrack to the last continuous state that it was in (not necessarily the same cache) and begin again from there. The same holds true for any bug leaving the country. Therefore, this TB would be required to return to New York, and then continue from there. The travelbug in question, however, belongs to Dekaner - one of the organizers of the race. It is not eligible to win the race anyway. -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

He's adorable! -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

quote:Originally posted by billboardguy:Im new to this, what is a tb goal and where does one make it known? First you need to order travel bug tags through Groundspeak. When you receive the tags, you go to their website www.Groundspeak.com to activate them. That will set up the Web page for your travel bug. Then you edit that page to list the goals for your bug, upload photos, etc. -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

Sounds like a perfectly good goal to me. How about uploading a picture of your travelbug? -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

quote:Originally posted by WARedBear:Is this the HTML code I need to change the background from green to a tile picture? <body background=" file:http//img.grondspeak.com/cache/XXXXX_XXX.gif"> of course the X's will be the actual file name and I insert this at the top of the main test section. WARedBear remove the "file:" part, and spell Groundspeak correctly, and that should work for you. Of course, you have to upload the image you want to that cache page, and then view it to get the proper URL in order for that to work. For example: <body background="http://img.Groundspeak.com/cache/66389_600.gif"</body> See my latest cache as an example. Other than that, you have to select the "Yes I am supplying the HTML" check box. The HTML tag for the background can then be placed anywhere in the description. Hope this helps. -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

quote:Originally posted by welch:Only if you have pictures.... http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cachelog_details.asp?ID=217078&L=1310146 pict.1 - CITO t-shirt, long hair, standing up by the bar - that's me! -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

quote:So shouldn't they have updated more recently than the 24th? And on a side note, Who gave you permission to be away? I'm not sure why the stats page wouldn't have updated during that time - although I see it has been updated now. I'll mention it to Dekaner so he can check to make sure things are working properly. As for being away, I was at a geocaching event yesterday, logged 12 caches, AND passed the 100th cache found mark! Am I forgiven? -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

quote:Originally posted by welch:_stats question_ How often does/should? the stats and map on the offical site update?? I'm asking because the date given as the last update is the 24th.... is something busted? or have has nothing changed since then or what?? The stats page on the official site is set to automatically update every 4 hours I believe - Dekaner/Egnix are looking after that part. The map requires a bit of manual effort to label the bugs in their current position. I try to update the map on a daily basis, but I was away the last two days and not able to get to it until this morning. Thanks for keeping me on my toes! -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

I kind of like the "temporarily unavailable" idea for your cache if one of the travel bugs happens to land there. It's a devilish plan - and in the spirit of the Cannonball Run. I agree with Leprechaun that the no trespassing signs would cause more trouble than it's worth. -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

I love my Garmin Legend. It is true that it has trouble with the dense tree cover, but it has always guided me to the cache - sometimes it just takes a little longer than others. I really like the road detail that is built into the Legend and the fact that you can add more detailed maps to it if you want to. I have used mine to place several caches as well - almost all in heavy tree cover, and the people that find them usually comment that the coordinates were very good. Amazon.com has the Legend listed for $139 (after a $50 mail in rebate) now - which is a great price for it. To be fair, I've never used a Magellan unit, so I can't really compare the two. All I can say is that I have had my Legend for over a year now (and 97 caches) and I am very happy with it. -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

Wow, this is the most rediculous discussion I have seen on the forums to date. I would like to point out that I have used both mapping grade GPS (Trimble) and recreational grade GPS for Geocaching. I have 97 finds, which at last count was 4 more than Johnnyvegas has found. So maybe he will find some credibility in what I have to say. Basically, Johnnyvegas is wrong, Kerry is right. You may think that Kerry knows nothing about geocaching since he has zero finds. However, the discussion on effect time of day has on GPS reception has more to do with the theory of GPS - which is something Kerry obviously knows a great deal about. (Kerry, I'd be interested in hearing what you do for a living and why you know so much about GPS). By the way, thanks to Poindexter for the link to the free Planning Software. I have been wondering if there was something out there that I could use at home. Time of day definitely has an effect. The satellites are in 11 hour 58 minute orbits, which means that their position in the sky changes every day. The system is designed to provide global GPS coverage of at least 4 satellites at any given time, 24 hours a day. The planning software used by professional grade GPS users, applies an elevation mask (usually 15 degrees from the horizon) which basically means it only takes into account those satellites which are above that. There are short time periods when only 3 satellites are visible - and this is under optimal conditions. If you have buildings, or trees, or cliffs or anything else blocking the satellites, you will not be able to lock on to all available satellites. These block out times are short though - only about 20 minutes or so. It will vary by location and as I have said before, it will vary by day. Now even in geocaching, you have probably found that there are times when you have a hard time getting a signal - even when you have an unobstructed view of the sky, but it doesn't last long. It is not as big a deal as it is for the mapping grade GPS when you want to make sure that the data you are collecting are within a certain tolerance of error. But to make a blanket statement that time of day has no effect for recreational grade GPS, is simply wrong. Johnnyvegas, you mentioned that you are giving advise to customers on GPS. If that is true, you should invest some time learning how the system works! -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

I will admit that the eTrex has some difficulty with the tree cover, but it has gotten me through 97 finds so far. I've heard that some of the more expensive Garmin models perform better with that (Garmin 76, 3+, etc.) Interesting to hear that the Mag 315 works under tree cover as well. Good luck with your decision. -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

quote:Originally posted by solohiker:I followed someone's suggestion and created my own maps with microsoft streets. I had to perform some cut and paste with EasyGps and Adobe and then some editing in excel, but what else does a geek do for fun? If you are using Microsoft Streets & Trips, you can use EasyGPS to download the caches. Then use GeoBuddy to convert the .loc file to a comma-delimited file (CSV) which can be directly imported into S&T. The links from the Geocaching home page will take you to the download for GeoBuddy. I tried this the other day, and it works great! -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

I have to say that I am partial to my eTrex Legend. If you shop around, you can pick them up for around $150 now (after rebate). That's only slightly more than the geko, and it includes basemap detail of the main roads. It has 8 MB of memory available too so that you can add additional mapping (detailed roads, topo, etc. if you want to). The existing base map is useful if you want to use it while driving. It can at least tell you where the next major road is. It comes with the download cable as well. The Geko is small, but other than that, I don't see much advantage to it. To me it looks like a kid's version of a GPS. I have never tried one though, so I can't offer much of an opinion on its functionality. As for the best place to buy, if you are comfortable with buying something on the Web, there are lots of options for where you can get one, and you can search to find the lowest price. I find that the retail stores sell them at a higher price (can be up to $250), but of course you have the unit immediately and don't have to wait for it to arrive in the mail. -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

quote:Originally posted by Cracker7M:Since I'm the one that moved Dreamweaver and Captain America to their stall points in York, PA. I took the liberty of emailing both parties and politely asked when they thought they might get placed....The next day, Dreamweaver got placed in WV... I havent heard from Captain America though... Sorry, Junglehair... Art http://www.yankeetoys.org http://www.BudBuilt.com http://www.ttora-ne.mainpage.net/ I have tried emailing him a few times myself, but have not heard back from him yet I've checked his caching activity, and while he did do a few more caches after picking up Captain America, he hasn't been out since the end of March. pjh: I was checking some stats on Dustoff21 a while back, and he doesn't seem to be holding on to bugs for too long (with a couple exceptions), he just seems to like to move them to remote parts of northern NY. I am going to a geocaching event this weekend in Auburn, NY. If any northern NYers want to help these bugs out by collecting them and bringing them to the event, I could at least get them moved back to Rochester (close to the starting point). Disqualifying my own travelbug seems to be a moot point now. -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

Oh dear, it looks like Oscar's Express has moved way ahead again - he's in Arizona already - just one more state line to cross!!! -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

Being in NY, I know the "geoclone" site that you are likely referring to. My understanding of it is, the other site was founded due to some personal differences on the way the geocaching site was being run. When I set up a new cache, I try to remember to post it there as well. I agree with you that the other site is difficult to navigate, therefore I always use the geocaching site. -Junglehair There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.