scottpa100

I use a palm to go paperless caching too. I think you might just be looking for an ideal world! And we don't live in one! I've managed to do plenty of caches without the requirements of pictures / photos. The worst thing is when you crack a hint and it says 'Refer to spoilers'. What is the point of that? The hint should be decent (in my belief) because a geocacher is often a geo-traveller and may not be there, in that location, ever again. It is then upto the morality of the geocacher in question if they want to cop out and use the hint. Besides, you must have a new palm. Mine doesn't do pictures at all!!

Depends where you buy it from. I have the 60CS, its 14 months or so old now. I bought my mine via eBay from the US. I ended up buying mine for 250 pounds including all the taxes imports etc. Unopened, still in its box. It had the American basemap, but no great loss for me as with geocaching, the little country lanes you go rattling up you need a detailed UK specific map anyhow. Anyhow, I bought my 60CS when cotswoldoutdoor.co.uk was still retailing the 60CS at over £500!! You could get on the net from a UK supplier for about £350 or so. So my eBay purchase was a substantial saving.

If TPTB had an IP address they might be able to do something a bit more definite.. I was thinking that last night. It is highly likely that record that has been updated in the database will have an IP address referring to it. Every computer has one to access the internet and its unique. Geocaching.com should be able to trace it (if they still have a record of it), you provide that to the police, the police use it to go to the ISP, the ISP tells you who it is, the police go around, smash the front door in, turn up the sofa and ask"Well, how do you like it?" Or something similar. However, Groundspeak may not pass the IP address because of data protection laws and all that. Different country, different legislation. Hmmmm, say if the British police did take it in, I guess this psycho trasher could be done for damge or destruction of property?

Not so keen on the idea proposed. Myself, but I lvoe the idea of a logbook for 15 minutes. Just a square in a town somewhere and the thought of oooooo, 70 people turning up just to sign a logbook and everyone else just standing around wondering what on earth was going on, and then 15 minutes later, the square all quiet again. The locals just standing around in a bemused way "What was all that?"

When I go out caching, I usually go out for the day. Easy and hard, traditional or multi, I do them all. So after I've found a cache, all I do is is Find the next nearest one. Pull up the details on the PDA cos of paperless and its all there. No prior planning about which specific caches I'm going to do, just wack em all onto the GPS and wack the same blurb into the PDA and that's it. Job done. Not only saves trees, but just saves bags of time faffing about which caches you want to do.

Wow! I like how this topic has started off with a fairly nice and easy help type question and its gone into a really big Tefal expert answer! [] Don't get me wrong its all quite valid. And it helps reminds us what a great job they've done with GPS and routing etc the fact it is a consumer item but we forget about all the clever maths and technology that tick away behind the scenes.

Yep - delete them. You've imposed some conditions - you've set the cache. You've done your part of the deal, others have to do their part. If you just delete them... whilst I know that people will notice that their total has gone down, how are they going to tell its your cache tally that has reduced their total? I mean, I've done afar fewer number of caches than others and whilst I enjoy going through my history so I can compare other people's adventure against my own to get a cache. If someone deleted one of them - I wouldn't be able to tell, remember which one has gone...

I've not read all the logs so forgive me if I'm repeating (I need to get to work!) but this is nothing to worry about if your GPSr does not have bluetooth. Your normal handheld Garmin, Magellans, Lowrance (I think...) do not have bluetooth. It is the people who have got car type GPS / sat navs. These tend to have bluetooth, and all the thieves are doing are walking around cars where people have not switched of their GPS units properly and if detecting a bluetooth network, the fact there are people unlikely to be around and bluetooth only has a range of about 10 metres, its a pretty sure thing that there is GPS / laptop / mobile on nearby. Possible stashed inside the car. Ready that, with the 10 metre variance, its sounds like a rather more illicit version of geocaching!

Wadders I'd love to help as I have both spoilersync and cachemate.. But my cachemate runs on a palm and since it don't display pictures.... I've never used spoilersync on it. Just gawped a the images on my PC thinking 'That would be a really useful utility' but I'm waiting for Father Christmas (or perhaps, at this time of year, the Easter Bunny) to deliver a lovely Windows PDA...! Sorry!!

I think this is important as I think there is an amountof balance to strike. If you were to complete the entire BIG Quest cache, then you're obviously a person who likes a challenge (and has time, money... ) but the thought of say going around half of the counties to get a small tupperware box stuffed in a nameless hedge somewhere... there is no point of that! Surely each county / regional / whatever should be trying to be near something unique to that area that you wouldn't get elsewhere? Otherwise what's the point of that journey?

If you can't find it, then I'd log a DNF. A cache locally to where I live, the difficulty was reviewed after a number of people logged DNFs. It was always there, just very VERY well hidden. SO the cache owner upped the little stars a bit. It also helps the owner know how popular a cache is, and also lets future visitors know that it can be a bit tricky.

We'll let you become an honorary Gog for the week!

Adders aren't rare (as in endangered) but they are not common. In my years (like I'm a billion years old or something) I've only ever seen one. Walking down a track, high up on the mountains. Lovely sunny day. Very warm. In the middle of the track was a snake. Approached it quite, I dunno, robustly, because I've seen grass snakes quite a few times and that's what I thought it would be. Me and my mates were all looking really close, like wow, a snake, oooo. Then all three of us at the same time noticed the V shape on the back of the snakes head. V for viper. Without any prior practice or choreography training, all three of us took one very large step back!! The snake didn't do a thing, just did the tongue thing. So we took a photo and carried on our hike.

List of Counties is here. Note the English counties are on the left hand side map. http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/uklocalgov/localgov.htm The Welsh county maps on the right hand side map as we don't have separate county and borough councils in Wales. They are unitary authorities which do the job of both county and borough. And the Scottish and northern Ireland ones. http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/uklocalgov/localgsi.htm Don't know about the Eire ones. I like the idea of the IOM having the final cache or Rockall? Saw the note by the JerseyRoyals - we can't forget about the channel islands down there either!!

I can definately do a cache for the County of Conwy. I tentatively could put my name down for Gwynedd and Denbighshire but I'm sure there are plenty of cachers out there who would love to be part of this project!!

I F the multi-caches were to be British Isles County Challenge or something similar, I think the list of counties should be based on legislation and use the counties that actually D O exist. Don't get me wrong, I understand the passion that people may have about the Wirral, but as Rutson pointed it is a borough. Its just that we start getting people saying that we should use Middlesex, which has not existed since 1964. Or Cumberland - not existed since the early 70's, Caernarfonshire - not existed since 1974... we've gotta be careful! I found a list of Councils on a central government website but that would still sorting out into counties and what not.

Yes it will put some people off but it is meant to be a challenge! Basing it on the US model, they've got Hawaii and Alaska which are not linked to the main continental USA. They're not going to be the easiest to get to...

I use a Handspring Visor Edge, which uses the same OS as your Sony so at least you can transfer your cachemate software on to it. What I really like about my Visor Edge is that has a metal cover, all around, and a metal cover protecting the lid. All aluminium though so still quite light. Another advantage compared to modern PDAs is that because the interface is quite old, ithe interface to your computer big and clunky (but still small enough to fit in a cradle). What is the advantage of that you ask? I can sling the PDA into my pocket anytime, anywhere, not fearing if crumbs, cookies, etc are getting to get stuck in any interfaces. If they do, the interface is big enough for me to clear it out. My ten penneth.

For the first time ever, Daddykins and I were rained off. I don't know what it has been like elsewhere and we knew the forecast was bad but in northern Snowdonia (caching area for the day) it was relentless. We got down there, went to a few shops in Betws-y-Coed, grabbed a coffee and a cake then called it quits. Boooooo- OOoooooooo!!!

Ooops - wrong number - I think number 15 could be Six Continents?

15 - Apple Computers... or Apple Incorporated I think its called now.

I think 10 is British Gas which is still a trading entity on the global markets. Just not within Britain!

I read this story the other day, and I thought of the number of caches that I have done that are in or near graveyards and or churches etc. Regarding the news story, I imagine its probably less to do with the stash that was hidden, and probably not even the location. Just a combination of the stash, the location and the 10's or 100's of people who all converged at the same time to find the coin. If you have a cache where 100's of people are visiting in one day, then something is wrong somewhere!

Its a shame when people don't read the cache pages. I go paperless caching but when i call up the co-ords of the next nearest cache I will read the page. Mainly because, quite often, the reason why a cache has been located somewhere is because the cache owner wants to bring you to a point of interest. Often the cache owner has also gone the extra mile and put some historical blurb on the cache page just helping to enrich the experience. Cache with vigour, search with tenderness. Then go to the pub...

Tis indeed a good pub. I had a meal there when I was on a course in the area back in October or so. TynyMynydd and I were caching every evening - and the one near the Cunning Man we did just gone past midnight! My first midnight cache! Have a good event - I won't be going. I live blummin miles away!