and1969

Without knowing the details of how he re-hid it, I'd be inclined to reserve judgment. His more subtle camouflage can't have been much worse than "Tescoflage", which was the state in which I found one cache, in a white carrier bag in some woods. Initially I had thought the bag contained dog poo or had just been carried by the wind from a nearby road. I re-hid the cache using stickoflage, as subtly as possible considering it had been muggled once before. Whether or not my own actions were competent, is for others to judge, but it is is some relief to know there have been two subsequent finders.

Glad you posted this, as the thought of increased exposure to diseases like Lyme's or Weil's - another thing anglers need to be careful of - has occurred to me since I took up the hobby. Only on Friday I found a cache which (according to a log by the CO) had previously been attacked by rats. Contact with grass or other things that rats have urinated on, is a common method of catching Weil's disease. Due to a medical condition I have to have up-to-date vaccinations for tetanus, Hep A and Hep B, and feel somewhat safer as a result when camping or caching. In terms of health risks, the British Isles are a lot safer than many parts of the world and not just the obvious ones such as Africa or south Asia. In eastern Europe there is a problem with tick-borne encephalitis and although a vaccine has been available since Soviet times, it is still not available free of charge on the UK NHS. I am tempted to pay the £80 or so for a course of TBE vaccinations just to feel safer when I next visit, as I'll undoubtedly be doing some caching while there.

Hi, A TomTom can be used, but it is NOT easy. A modern handheld GPS will not only store the cache coords (many thousands of them) but also display an arrow pointing to the destination (ground zero). From my experiments with a TomTom I had best results with the diagnostic mode. On the One XL this is got by touching the satellite signal strength bars - but then you're watching a pair of numbers changing. It is for good reason, that many of the instruments in an aircraft cockpit - such as the altimeter - have an analogue readout in addition to a digital one - even on modern electronic displays. This is to give the pilot a quick idea of the rate of change of whatever's being measured. My advice is to try the TomTom - if you find no caches then you need to make alternative arrangements. If you find ten you'll definitely know whether or not you need to find alternative arrangements . BTW I use a Garmin satnav for caching, but it has an off-road mode and also allows upload of alternative maps, showing footpaths etc. It might also be relevant, that Garmin also manufactures handheld receivers, so has an eye on the walking and cycling user communities, whereas TomTom concentrates on the automotive GPS market.

It doesn't help that some TomToms have a habit of switching themselves on. First of all I wondered why the battery was often flat. The first time I found out the reason, I was just about to fall asleep, and the room was bathed in a pale light...

Hiya Piczo, You might like to keep an eye on the UK/Ireland board, as this is where any events will be announced first on these forums. With regard to placing caches - as others have already suggested, you really need to find a few dozen, to know what makes a good hiding place, before even considering putting your own down. I haven't placed any yet (but have one or two ideas ). One consideration of a 'good' hiding place, is whether it will work throughout the year, given that plants grow and die back according to the seasons. Unless your local cache reviewer knows the places you have placed the caches, he/she will be placing a lot of faith in your judgement.

It's only "recently" (2 years?) that it was increased from 500 to 1000. With the arrival of the API I wouldn't expect a further increase anytime soon. You can avoid overlaps by filtering on conditions which don't overlap, such as placed date. My day job involves working with XML files, of which GPX files ("PQ's") are an excellent example of the genre. Because of this I can safely say that - in theory - the only technical limit on the size of a PQ, is the size of Groundspeak's database, or the disk that will hold the file, whichever kicks in first. One of the minor caching sites allows download of a PQ with 5000 caches, which in their case, for a query centred on Britain, covers most of north west Europe. That PQ, which I downloaded earlier this evening, was 20 megabytes. I can understand Groundspeak's caution in increasing the limit above 1000 caches. People would always ask for the maximum number of caches and this would place more demands on their servers, which would prompt an increase in our subscriptions. Also, if people could download an entire country's (or US state's) caches, an unscrupulous individual - possibly the same type of chap that swaps ammo boxes for cheaper containers - could upload the PQ to a torrent site and this would damage Groundspeak's income, and cause an increase in subs from the rest of us who do stick to the rules.

I share your outlook (including not putting them in caches) and wish it was more widely held. That debate apart, there is also the more practical question of whether the condom is still fit for purpose. It could have had a pin put through it or been accidentally damaged in some other way. Even if it's intact, condoms do deteriorate in extremes of heat and cold. This alone makes condoms unsuitable as 'swag', even before the potential to cause offence or embarrassment.

As a UK resident I would estimate that US$30 corresponds to about £1.50/month in local currency. For people who drink and smoke (and unfortunately I do both), that relates to half a pint of beer a month or one cigarette a week. The more intellectual cachers in the UK could buy two local weekly newspapers a month from what they would save by not being premium members. After finding 3 or 4 caches I began to consider the $30, to avoid typing in the coordinates by hand or downloading dozens of LOC files, good value for money, and do not regret this decision one iota.

Hi, further to the other replies, you have two options: 1. When you use Where To?->Coordinates on your nuvi there is a format option, letting you choose whether to type in the coordinates as either decimal degrees, degrees and decimal minutes, or degrees, minutes and decimal seconds. Choose whichever you're most comfortable with. Most cachers seem to use decimal degrees or decimal minutes. or 2. On the cache listing page, you can click on "other conversions" to see the coordinates written in the above 3 ways. They all mean the same thing. Let us know how you get on. BTW sometimes degrees west of longitude are written as a negative amount, so 42.95837 -81.19091 as in your example.

Of the caches near me that have been big enough to hold "swag", it has been very much a mixed bunch. The best tend to be in low-muggle areas. As for swag - I attend a number of conferences and have a habit of picking up "freebies" such as key-rings, post-it note pads, erasers (I use the term advisedly as the normal British word for these means something quite different in US English , stress-balls etc. Having accumulated quite a collection over the years, caching has turned out to be a great way to dispose of them. Obviously they should not be promoting organisations that are overly controversial or political/religious, or ones that kids could ask uncomfortable questions about. On the question of "pre-loading" the cache, this is a great idea and was suggested to a new cacher on the UK board who was trying to interest his son in caching.

I have a Garmin nuvi 1310 that I use for caching, quite successfully. On this model it is possible to enter coordinates directly by using Where To?-> Coordinates. There are of course ways of turning pocket queries and loc files into Garmin POI files but that's another discussion. For hunting the cache I use "bicycle mode" with Navigation set to Off Road and with the 3D map view. This results in a straight purple line that points toward the cache. Once I'm within a few metres of what the satnav thinks is Ground Zero, a message pops up, this will disappear after about 30 seconds. Also the satnav displays direction and distance to target (select the buttons down the side of the screen and you can change what is shown). The direction and distance will keep changing as you walk around GZ, you need to get the distance down to zero if you can. This is important as the purple line no longer appears. The walking mode might sound the more logical option but in fact it isn't terribly useful. I've attached a screen grab of a simulated cache hunt. Cacheing with garmin nuvi (note to mod - the mapping data is OpenStreetMap's, not Garmin's, and copyright is acknowledged on the image).

I've just done that change and all is fine, many thanks. I'm not sure what the problem could be, because European and US changeover dates are well publicised and haven't changed for the last few years. Whatever the cause, it is with the forum software rather than Groundspeak...

I am not sure the time zone adjustment is working, or else the server is set to the wrong time. Given that I live in the UK, I set my timezone to GMT (London, Dublin etc..) together with daylight saving time, but underneath it helpfully says "The time (including your current adjustment) is: 19 April 2012 - 02:16 PM" - and the actual time was 22:16 or 10:16 PM in old notation. Postscript: the post is timed at 09:20 something PM suggesting that the timezone gets respected but not the daylight savings checkbox. Which poses another question: does the forum take into account the different daylight saving start and end dates in Europe and North America?

You'd have to decide the risk both from having the TB number on your car, or putting photos on the TB page. Anyway I'm sure the owner of the TB you saw will welcome a discovered log. For my car (TB4KPRH) I have the details in a tax disc holder on the front windscreen, and a larger sign (30x10cm) that I only put in the back window when on a long journey or out caching. The 'tax disc' looks like a parking permit, which are often made the same size as UK/Ireland tax discs so they can fit in the plastic holders, available from post offices or newsagent shops. Best of luck with your TB..