Paul G0TLG

Not totally irrelevant - if this is right (and I've no reason to think it isn't), then there wouldn't be anyone with authority to give permission, although there may be some people who think they have! A cache near me has been temp disabled because the placer discovered they'd got permission from the wrong person: Probably the person who gave permission thought they were allowed to do so.

As others have said, I don't know Ewan - but it still feels like one of the family. There are no words that are adequate. Thoughts and prayers with Ewan, his family, and everyone who's concerned about him.

I did one in an unfamiliar area that was 1½ for terrain...I guess the extra half a star was because I only had one foot on the pavement when I found the cache! Difficulty is difficult to rate properly, especially on puzzle caches...what one person solves straightaway, another will take ages over. Similarly, how difficult a cache is to find depends on tree cover, how much the nettles around the hiding place have grown, how recently the last finder tramped through the long grass etc... As for hints, I try not to use them generally. But if the cache is in a high muggle area, I'll decrypt the clue to shorten search time and reduce the chance of attracting attention. I try to make hints complete giveaways - one of my multicaches was found by someone with good local knowledge by only using the hint - he didn't bother to go round collecting all the clues first!

I agree with the concensus - I haven't learned more than about 10% of what GSAK can do, and I still think it's brilliant. Remember you can try it for nothing - in fact you can use it for ever for nothing, if you can live with the nag screens - but it's so good, and so cheap, you'll be happy to pay up. Another satisifed user!

...AND a free pair of shorts!

Anyone'd think I was some sort of stirrer To set the record straight, yes Alistair knew where he was - unfortunately, "Somewhere in Belfast" wasn't quite accurate enough for our needs But seriously, I can confirm that "Kidsfun" and "Belfast Number One: Belvoir Forest" are both nice caches, accessible from central Belfast by bus, and the round trip can be done in a morning. Even if Alistair oops, I mean your caching companion - guides you by the "long route" back to the bus stop

I was introduced by Team Tate, with a bit of help from Paul Blitz. I've introduced Paws for Thought, G7PPG (who I don't think have cached for a while), and a caching team so new they haven't got a name yet! PfT have introduced a couple of people but I can't remember their name - so I'm a grand-dad too!

The "failed to terminate" problem with memory map sometimes hits, if you turn of the GPS THEN close Memory Map - next time you run MM, it seems to get confused. When I first got TT5, I had all sorts of problems with the Bluetooth GPS, all of which GPSGate solved. Even if you only plan to run one application at a time, it seems to be worth it, or it is for me anyway. Only problem I've found is that if you use GPSGate's "Log the GPS Track" function while using Memory Map, you get the "Saved File" icon on the map every few seconds, which ends up looking a bit messy!

I don't normally feel vulnerable, although I'm not very happy - as a single male who caches alone - with multis where you have to count things in playparks to get clues. Coincidentally, the only problem I've ever really had was this last weekend, doing a cache in a town centre park I was verbally abused by some louts who clearly believed that any man walking on his own in a park MUST be a paedophile. Needless to say, I walked on rather than risk exposing the cache, and I don't really care what people like that think of me - it just leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouth

I always used to swap out McToys, until I realised there are at least some kids who like them - now I leave them for the little 'uns :-) . The ones I've kept sit on top of my monitor to remind me of happy caching times when I'm stuck indoors working. Nowadays, like plenty of other people, I only swap if there's something I think I'll find useful in a cache, or something I really like the look of. The compass which always hangs on my belt loop came from a cache! It's a cheapy, but works well enough to give me a rough direction when the GPS is messing around under tree cover.

Like this?. G:UK does get you to pick your name from the drop-down box, but the different colours represent owned / found, not multi / other as the OP asked. If you do find that site again, let us all know

409 within 25 miles of central Southampton, including a few temporarily unavailables

I don't own any virtuals - and I'm not likely to now! - but if I did, and people solved it by Googling, I'd consider that fair game because I'd set a google-able question. If I spot a virtual which looks like it could be solved by internet research, I try to solve it, but only for my entertainment - I don't log it, unless I visit the location. But that's my rule, which I've decided is right for me - it's no judgement on how anyone else plays the game. Taking mjbvbjjb's point - there's a big multi I hope to do one day: I visited the first location years ago "before geocaching", and I've got a photo of me next to the plaque, which shows the information needed. Personally I think it's quite fair to solve the question from the photo and move on to the next few locations, especially as the cache page states that internet research WILL be required for some stages. Whether others agree with that or not, I'd definitely say for the NZ virtuals that if you've visited the location, and can answr the question, you've met the criteria to log.

It's up to you if you use the spoiler, but I definitely don't think it's cheating. Like the coded hint, it's a bit of info that the cache owner has provided to help your search, so it's fair game. I rarely use spoiler pics, but that's because I'm too disorganised to download them to the PDA, not because I think they're wrong!

I've just ordered, so if you can wait a couple of days I'll let you know :-) I've already got a legal copy of the software, but some of my map disks have been damaged (guess who was too daft to back up their disks? ), so even if it's only the maps it's no loss to me, as that's all I need.

I shouldn't worry Andi - every pastime has a few d***heads and you've just encountered one . The vast majority of us are nice though - really! Sorry that I'm at the opposite end of the country from you, but I'm sure someone will join up with you soon. Good luck, and enjoy it!

I've visited Sarah and the family this evening, they're being well supported by various friends and family, and will be pleased to hear that you're thinking of them. When it first happened (last Wednesday), at Sarah's request I spread the word among all the cachers they knew personally (or as many as I could think of), but didn't post it here because this is a public forum to which anyone has access - you never know who's going to read it . Apologies to anyone who's upset by not knowing sooner, but I'm sure you understand my reasons. The two Team Tate virtuals have been temporarily disabled because Sarah doesn't want the hassle of dealing with emails at the moment, they will go live again once she's got her head round what's going on. All the Team Tate physical caches are still up, and will remain so. If anyone wnats to know more, email me through my profile and I'll help if I can Paul

That's a really good point by Alibags - I always carry a few alkalines, in sizes to suit all of the equipment I'm carrying with me, just in case. Alkalines don't cost much really (compared to the annoyance of being 100 yards from the cache with a dead GPS), and last for ever in the rucksack as long as you keep them dry. On which point - the low internal resistance of rechargables means they can develop huge currents if they get accidentally short-circuited, which means they'll get very hot and can cause a fire: Be careful how you store them. The cylindrical ones are pretty hard to short circuit accidentally, but I learned the hard way not to keep a nicad PP3 in my shorts pocket with coins (edited for spelling)

I think it's amazing that if people get lost using a map, they (normally) blame their own mapreading: If they get lost using GPS, they blame the GPS. For heavens' sake, it's just a tool! A really useful, hi-tech, and rarely-wrong tool, but a tool nonetheless, and it needs the user to put some effort into learning how to get the best from it. I used TomTom all last weekend, driving around a town with which I was completely unfamiliar. At one point the spoken direction says "turn left" when the on-screen display and common sense both say turn right - in two or three years of TomTom use, that's the second time that's happened to me, which is a far better record than any human-led navigation could manage. It'll do for me :-)

I pay because I choose to. My business. Others pay because they can't, or disagree with the principal, or don't want premium services etc. Their business. Either option is a valid way to pursue the hobby, until the day that the site owner decides otherwise. End of. Except to say...yes, I know of at least two family teams of cachers who have dumped the hobby altogether because of forum nastiness, and another team who gave up for a while before their friends persuaded them off-forum to return.

I suspect the powers have indeed made their minds up. Past experience suggests that once they announce a decision, that decision is set in stone. There is a special "The Powers that Be" forum which the rest of us don't have access to, and it may be that some negotiation and representation goes on there. But I think that once a decision is announced, it's here to stay. Part of the reasoning was that there are some really rubbish virtuals out there, where people have stuck a virtual cache in where, with a bit of thought and imagination, there could have been a multicache. I can't argue that that's true, there ARE some rubbish virtuals, but then there are some rubbish physical caches as well! On the other hand I had a day out in London yesterday: I only had time for a couple of caches (work intervened ) but there are a lot of virtuals based on the plaques that tell you about the history of buildings etc, which made for an interesting tour, and I agree it's a shame these aren't allowed any more - especially as the chances of a physical cache surviving for long in these busy areas is pretty low. (edited for spelling)

I may do one day. I only started trigpointing when there were no caches within reach of an "evening-after-work" trip, so one day I might hunt round for an interesting waymark to do. But like others here, I've had a look, and there were at that time no Waymarks around here which were interesting enough to be worth making a trip to. I suppose it's a bit chicken-and-egg: There are never going to be interesting waymarks until someone makes the effort to create some. If we (the UK caching community) really wanted Waymarking to work, we could make it happen by putting effort into making some interesting waymarks. But we're all having too much fun caching, and placing caches, to divert our attention. I suspect the difference is that in the YooEssAy, there are enough people who care about numbers above all else to support a variation that generates big numbers at the expense of quality - look at the huge numbers of Walmart-parking-lot caches they have over there. The real shame is that TPTB felt we had to lose virtuals and earthcaches to kick-start the new game.

Did you? dadgum, I rather thought I was going to get that this month Ah well, there will be other chances

Thanks Simon, at first glance this looks useful. I'll download it tonight and have a play over the weekend.

I can't see anything anywhere about this upgrade being available for TomTom on the PDA - shame, the lack of co-ordinate entry is one of the things tempting me to revert to TT3. (edited for rubbish typing)