bigredmed

Before you invest in a lot of PVC and plumbing tools, check your land use regs that govern the area you want to place it in. I googled pvc and geocache to find a picture of one for a talk tomorrow night. I found about 7 listings for various state and city parks around the US that banned these cache types. (Just on the first page.)

It smells like VICTORY! lThe tag line from the famed movie, The Deercacher...

I was in Boston last November and was amazed at the number of multis that started in downtown, but ended in some park in suburban Boston. Out of the first cache page, I found one trad. Mass cachers must go in streaks.

Definitely add some of Starbrand's caches. Chimney Rock and Courthouse Rock caches are particularly enjoyable as is the cache at Toadstool park.

If this is copyrighted, and it seems it has a Creative Commons license now, then I want a cut of all royalties to go to geocaching, if not to myself, as many of us made substantive contributions to the geocaching creed and should get usage as co-producers and a cut of all returns on this. Since it was developed using GC's resources and as GC is well known as a private company since at least the days of its own copyright flame wars over the geocaching logo, they should get a cut for providing resources to enable to principal authors to put this together via their forums. In other words, a good lawyer with nothing else to do should be able to punch a bunch of holes through it. I wouldn't get too worried about the CCL as this is basically an agreement as to authorship and fair use. It is actionable, but like a regular copyright, its just a ticket to file lawsuits, not to win them. It is an increasingly common form when the use and the form of the IP is to be protected, but the authors can't or don't want to worry about getting paid for it (scientific journals are copyrighted, clinical teaching materials are CCL'd). In this case, it would be very near impossible to make money on it, and the line of people who contributed to it and want to get paid for their work is very long and very well documented, thus any money that did get made would disappear into a flurry of lawyers.

A second factor. Cacher 1 puts a TB into Cache X Cacher 2 finds the TB and takes it, but doesn't log it. Cacher 3 doesn't take it as its not there. Cacher 1 sees cacher 3's log and wonders why they didn't take it.

That is bad form. If the cache isn't placed yet, an approver note should be sent to the approver so that they know not to approve it yet. --Marky Both bad form. Caches that are theoretical, or are on the edge, should be discussed BEFORE the placement, rather than approved in theory. Approvers should not be FTF, in any case. The importance of being FTF is lost on me, but as its important to some, the approvers should respect that element of the game and hold back.

Have you tried ACME mapper?

I wonder if you could use UV paint or glow paint to soak a fine piece of thread, then tie said thread in a manner that would cause the thread to be at a perpendicular angle to the correct trail, but be at enough of an angle from an incorrect trail that it wouldn't reflect enough light to show the way to the searchers. If you used some fine thread, it would be virtually impossible to see during the day, and would glow quite nicely in the dark.

The type of data that this place could support would require such a large number of users per individual cache that in normal conditions, it would not be valid. (likkert scale) The type of data that could be stored in a log would be of the same limitations that the current logs have.

The only POSSIBLE qualification to the statement that HAM is more expensive than Geocaching is that you can do HAM as a homebrewer. I have yet to find a good kit for a homebrewed GPSr (though I keep looking....) Although, I agree that there is a lot of ways to blow a lot of money in HAM radio. Its the same kind of thing as a casino. When you get your first DX (mine was at Field Day last year), you get the same kind of hooked that the old ladies who play the slots get. Talk about an expensive hobby....

Small: Can hold a travel bug ID without alteration and with log book etc. Can also hold trade items that are greater than 2.5 cm in diameter. Micro: Anything too small to meet the small definition.

Depends on what you think is a lame cache. If I thought a lame cache was a Micro with a terrain rating of 1 or less, then ya Pocket Queries would help a bunch. But if I did that I would be missing out on some great hides down here. No matter how the pocket queries are twisted and filtered, you're either gonna get some lame caches, or you're going to get rid of some non-lame caches. To me the only way to fix this would be to implement some sort of rating system. I hesitate to even bring it up, because I know how well that has gone over on these forums before. But I think until we do, we are going to be cursed with a bunch of lame caches. --RuffRidr Local groups agreeing as to what is a good hide in their area. If you are in an urban area, micros may be the best you can do. We have a park in Kearney that is heavily used and trads just don't stay around well there, but micros are fine. Locals know this sort of thing, and we need to start getting them into the mix more. Ratings that could be handled by the website would be a numerical score like a Likert scale. These have to have large numbers to be valid and we have many caches that don't come close to basic validity in terms of number of finders. Intrinsically ratings systems are flawed when you confine yourself to what this site could support.

If Garmin had the low bid they would still be lost on the mountain Stuck until they could get out of the trees and find direct line of sight to the satellites.

To be nice to you, this topic has recently been discussed to death, thus all the annoyance in earlier posts. In brief, a lame cache is one in which the hider has made no effort to create coolness in the cache. The location isn't cool, the hide isn't cool, the container isn't cool, the cache page itself isn't cool. There are too many examples of these cropping up. We worry that the game will be diluted by them and new cachers will get the idea that this is the standard and from there, the lame factor will snowball. Hope this helps

Since you will buzzing right past it, stop and find the lauritzen gardens cache, and see the gardens...

Some of the Nashville'rs seem to be starting to make that effort (joking around about it a bit but not really joking), and in areas such as where I'm based in So. Miss. and where CR is based in Charleston, SC, we're working with local hiders and newbs to try to encourage "cache quality" (yes, I know, some would call it "bullying", but in the end it's still about a well-meaning effort trying to MODERATE the types of hides in a given area...sadly, by sometimes using other areas as examples of what NOT to do). -Dave R. Good going. Please let the forums know how things are going and what seems to work for you in terms of motivational tools. Edit for additional content. Spews or bombing of a city by micros, or any cache format, that are done badly lower the quality of the game for everyone and as has been said before, it is taking the game in a direction that we don't think it should be going in.

In addition to the effort/cash needed for trads, there is a subordinate problem with micros. Everyone of us has limited resources. Some more than others, but all have finite resources in terms of free time (and the % devotable to geocaching), money (and the % devotable to geocaching) and imagination when it comes to figuring out where we want to hide something. Given that there is a limit to cache placement for cacher X of A units of time, B units of money, and that a trad takes 10 times the money that a micro does, and takes 2 times the time, there is a limit function on how many trad caches cacher X can place. Factor in the survival time for a cache is about 1 year (average), a city could reach an equilibrium between the number of trad caches placed, the number of cache locations that remain unused, and the number that die and are then open for reuse or that open surrounding areas contained in the 0.1 mile radius. With 10 times less cost, and half the time, this won't happen if micros are factored in, especially as the micros can block all caches within 0.1 miles of themselves. Bottom line, we can see how a given location with a fixed number of really good cache locations, and a load of micros could really get clogged up if the micros were spewed. Not to get onto a micro bashing rant, as there is nothing intrinsically wrong with micros, when done well, they can be highly entertaining. The micro format simply has a flaw in that due to their low cost and low time needed, they can be spewed and ruin a city. If GC and local cache groups would get active and deal with the spew issue, the lame micro would be less common.

This sounds good. The only drawback I see is that it would make it easy for plunderers to target caches with higher dollar values. As it is now, finding really valuable swag in a cache is usually hit or miss. Good point, this might be addressed by the cache placers at the time of placement by making the caches that have really expensive things (a small minority of caches) VERY difficult. This might improve the odds of caches not getting plundered. Accidental or unintentional plundering is another thing. If a family hits a cache and everyone takes something, 2-4 things could be taken. If the family doesn't replace in kind, the cache could be rapidly depleted. Perhaps a better way would be to discourage really expensive things and encourage trade items to be in a given range ($2-5) or less, but that a per-item trade floor still be in place below which is not acceptable. Again, as this trade regulation gets more complicated, it may be the best course of action to simply stop the trading aspect of the game entirely save for travel bugs and other travellers.

Trading up wouldn't be necessary if we all accepted that there was a trade floor. I would set this on a cache by cache basis. Trade item classification: Group 1: Expensive things (CD's, cameras, radios, SD cards, etc (>$10)) Group 2: Moderately expensive things (AA batteries, good pens, etc ($2-10)) Group 3: Inexpensive things (McToys, cheap pens, low denomination foreign coins, etc (<$2)). Then we could saysomething like: "Trade only travel bugs, sig items, and Group 2 trade items" on the cache page.

Greetings Starbrand! I agree with some of the earlier posts, in that location and physical condition of the cache and container mean a lot. To be a lame cache you have to demonstrate a real lack of effort to make your cache something special and or a real lack of effort to make your cache something that would make a great first find for a new player. Think back to your early days in the game. How pumped would you and your kids be if the first cache you found was some moldy tupperware full of trash? How happy would you be to have your kids go dumpster diving for some magnetic key holder behind a Kwik shop? If this is what my first finds were like, I would have found something else to do with my GPS real quick. I want a cool location, a good walk (especially on a seldom used trail), a cool container (though ammo cans are good too), or something that sets the place apart. You have a cache that is located east of Chimney Rock where you can see the rock and see the viewpoint of a famous painting of the rock. This was for me the only necessary ingredient of a cool cache. I have a cache on a pedestrian bridge over the Platte, I have seen two bald eagles, a great heron, several geese and ducks, and a had many wonderful meditative moments watching the river flow. This is a good cache. This is what I am trying to accomplish with the ones I place from now on. (I am going for fewer, but better ones.) Cheers!

How about this? A loop of airplane cable (3 mm) around the branch loosely (so you won't limit its growth) and a piece of rubber hose around the cable part way (like arborists use to tie up a sappling). Then from the loop, hang a rubber bungee or a pair of regular bungees that would be able to hold the cache in the air, but be able to be stretched to allow the cache to be pulled to the ground. You can get braided cable and the metal clamps that close them into loops at most hardware stores, the tubing could be a piece of old hose, and you could be in business.

Did you have the paper cache sheets with you? As mentioned above, you could have given these to them. I would be shaking still today if two FBI agents stopped me.

The concern about virtuals being replaced with lame micros is a real one. The concern about the proliferation of lame virts is a documentably real historic fact. We had these lame virts and that was part of the reason for their being restricted as a whole class. The thing that bothers me about all of the threads about poor quality caches is that we never seem to be willing to go to the root of the problem. A given cacher seems content to spew garbage caches and ruin an area, and GC seems perfectly content to let it happen. When ever someone brings up any kind of quality control suggestion, either the "no rules" set will scream at them or TPTB will squelch the conversation. Do good virts belong? Sure, but does a tennis shoe in the woods qualify as a good virt? No. Do good micros belong? Sure, but does a cacher really add to the game with 20 cut and paste cache pages all referencing keyholders under garbage cans? No. Do good trads belong? Sure, but does a cacher really add to the game with a cache that is a drive by, stop, walk 20 feet along some nature trail, look behind the tree (Oh, and did we mention that we aren't supposed to leave the trail?) to find the box? No. Lets start seriously working on some meaningful cache rating system or some local control system so we can avoid imbalance of types and we can counsel lame cache hiders to start hiding better ones. Back in the day, we ran into the lame virt problem because there were so few cache approvers that 3 or 4 did all of North America. There was no way for them to research the cache sites effectively and no way for them to do any QC checks on caches they had approved. We have more approvers and we have more cachers that are experienced enough to be recruited to either add to the ranks of approvers or help the approvers check out caches. The labor problem should not be a barrier today. Back then we didn't really have a good definition for a given cache type as to what was and wasn't a good example. Now we do. We can point to examples in most any city and certainly in any state of good practice in the design, and implementation of most any cache type. Back then we didn't have as many local groups and the ones we had were small and just getting started. We have more local groups who could take on the role of teaching cache placement to new players. We need to get at this.

I post this knowing that it will sound disturbing to some, but here goes. There are highways in the Sandhills of Nebraska that travel east-west and when traveling along these roads, certain reggae music begins to harmonize with the scenery. The beat goes up and down as the hills do. (Especially highway 2 at about 60 miles per hour from Ravenna west.) If you knew a stretch of similar road, you could specify a song, and have them count the beats from a certain set of coordinates to a second set of coordinates and then use that number to find a third set of coordinates where the cache was.