Geckolovers
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Posts posted by Geckolovers
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Thanks anyway, obviously something we need to work on later. We will just stay close to home today. Happy Hunting!
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If you've downloaded the individual caches as GPX files, do it the normal way (as parker313 says).
If you've downloaded LOC files, you're out of luck for the cache description. The info just isn't there.
I did what Parker suggested alreday, but I can't find the pdb file and when I try to open file that caches are in, it won't open. it says cannot open file here, folder does not exisit. But this is file I downloaded to gps.
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What software are you running on what kind of PDA?
Cachemate on a Palm M515.
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To make a long story short: how do you export cache info to pda if you don't have PQ but sent cache to GSAK manually. We are ready to go out, but...
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Lots of women cachers in SW Ohio, though of course they are outnumbered by men. Or maybe, not so much outnumbered, but we are not able to invest the time that the men do.
Before I go caching on a weekday, I make breakfast, pack lunches, start washer, take son to school, move wet wash to dryer, do some cleaning, make essential phone calls,and who knows what else. (Clean fridge, mop floor, scrub bathrooms, etc.) And somewhere in there I have to download waypoints and print off cache pages (although I am trying to go paperless) THEN I get to go out. But I have to be back at school to pick up son by 3pm, then there might be TKD, always homework, make dinner, fold laundry, finish up some chores, pay bills maybe, and find time to get back on computer to log finds. And this is only SOME of what I have to accomplish. Oh, and husband and son like to enjoy a few minutes of my company if I can fit them in!
And I am not bashing men. My husband does dishes every night, vacuums the whole house, and does all the yard work. And he encourages me to go caching. He says the dust can wait for a rainy day.
But I do think certain traditional roleplaying keeps women from caching as much as their male counterparts.
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Isn't there already a cache in a retired nuclear waste storage facility? I think it's in MD? You have to wear a protective suit to sign the log. That's nuts!
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Urban multi cache. First stage is located about 18 inches from the door of the hair salon I frequent. I now taunt my hair stylist (who is very interested in geo-caching and likes to hear my stories) about how close it is. I also discovered that the huge plate glass windows in the "color area" are great for seeing how your highlights came out in true light, but demand much stealth when trying to hit the cache!
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I frequently go out with another cacher, and he has two items that I keep thinking I HAVE to get. One is a LED flashlight and the other is this 2-3 inch round mirror on a telescoping rod that he purchased at an auto parts store. That mirror has spied a lot of sneaky micros and the telescoping rod was especially nice over the winter, when searching by eye or with a handheld mirror would have had us crawling in snow/slush/mud.
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That's very interesting that in Ohio you are limited on license frames. No one EVER tells us anything! I have a back license frame from my son's school and a front one declaring me an alumni of OU. I wsa thinking of switching out the back for a geo frame, except the way my truck bumper is configured, all you will see is the top part of the frame, "You are the search engine." Which means I will spend a lot of time explaining that. I am always having to explain my personalized license plate as it is.
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I agree, I'd like something more colorful, fashionable, girly---but wearable and durable for the woods. LOL---I don't ask much, right? Maybe something in soft pink or light blue that says "Geo-Diva"? Especially a hat. Now that we are moving into tick season, I'd really like a cute hat.
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Thanks so much for all the advice, and particular thanks to Sputnik for the tutorial. I can't wait to try out those instructions. I am excited with my eTrex and the ability to download waypoints. I don't know how many times I have been out and about and KNOW I am in the area a cache but didn't have a cache sheet with me. With my new GPS and the soon-to-be aquired PDA, I'll be unstoppable! (Although husband and son will wonder why a "quick run" to the grocery is now taking me three hours! LOL)
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I think I need to get to pocket queries but I can't find where that is! Even "search" doesn't help---just brings up posts with those words. Where do I find "pocket queries"?
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I just upgraded my faithful little Explorist to an eTrex Legend which is going to change my geo-life, I'm sure. Someone has shown me a way to download the waypoints to the eTrex, but I think there is an easy, less cumbersome way to do it. I am sure at some point, when it didn't matter and I wasn't really paying attention, I once scanned a post that gave detailed instructions on downloading waypoints. Does anyone have those instructions or a link to them or remember where the post is? Also, is there a free download of mapping software or do I need to buy some and what is recommended. And finally, I'd also like to go paperless with a PDA---will I ever need to connect my eTrex to the PDA or will my computer always act as a liason? (Seriel port vs USB port). Sorry for so many questions, not terribly computer literate.
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Just received eTrex Legend as gift last week. Reception under heavy foilage inferior to my previous GPS, a little Explorist 300, but obviously it has other advantages. I carry both with me.
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Father's Day gift. Father carries Garmin 60CS. What would you all recommend as best but reasonably priced PDA compatible with 60CS? Obviously memory and speed are important? And, because it's a male "more power" thing, probably color and mapping, right? So he can carry his cache pages with him, instead of printing them all off. Paperless caching, save the trees! TIA!
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Thanks for all the encouragement! I'm going to go ahead and get my first two set up and see if they will past muster with the reviewer. The third will be pretty intricate---heeheehee---and require me schlepping thru the woods with a variety of tools and props so a dawn foray will be required. I only hope it will be as fun a find as I envision. I know a cacher who says he lays awake at night plotting caches---I can see how setting them up can be as addictive as seeking them!
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There is a park near us---actually, right across the street. Just over 100 acres. About 2 thirds is heavily wooded with lots of meandering trails, the front third is picnic and sports fields. It was cacheless until a few months ago when I helped a friend place his first cache there. Now I have THREE caches I would like to place. The first two would be about 400 feet apart as the crows flies, but more like half a mile for cachers, because of land configuration, undergrowth and a creek that would force you to travel only one path. The third cache I want to place is waaay on the other side of the park. None of the three are near my friend's cache, which is near the back boundry. I'm not worried about being disallowed for saturation because by footpath, they are all well set apart---more so than some caches I know of. What I am concerned about is that I am being greedy by filling up the park myself. BUT---the park has been in existence since 1998 without a cache and no one has set a cache in there since the orginal one was placed a few months ago. Is it wrong to claim a park as your own personal caching ground?
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I know a cacher who caches in his old golf shoes. The cleats provide traction and I guess they are waterproof. The yellow and white saddle pattern are certainly styling, as well.
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I helped my Dad set up two caches. He's retired and travels a lot, so I will also be maintaining. He created the caches and I scouted and placed the hides. Both are in local parks. One required permission---easily received with one phone call to the district manager, who is a cacher! I can't understand why anyone would be reluctant because of criticism from other cachers. My worst problem was the lat/long. At one cache, I took three readings and each varied slightly; I returned the next day and took another---again with slight variances. After I studied forum responses to the problem, I averaged them out and added a craftily worded hint. So far, we have about a 80% find first try rate, with most cachers finding on subsequent visits. This is not because of the coordinates, but because my father created some sneaky containers! The other Saturday I innocently stood near one cache and watched as cachers literally put their hand right on the cache---and didn't know it. (The moral being---take nothing for granted!)
On his travels, Dad ran into a series of caches that he really enjoyed and whose concept has intrigued me. A cacher set up a series of caches in small, local museums---the kind most people ignore. (Obviously with the permission of the proper authorities.) Cachers visit, read the info cards to collect numbers to fill out the lat/longs that will eventually lead them to the cache. What a great way to get folks to visit museums that might often only be visited sporadically by school groups. Almost every small town in our area has a historical society with a small museum... So it might be ambitious for my very first cache, but I am going to be contacting the local powers-that-be...
I have found caches that were plastic, lidded bowls sitting at the base of a tree and I have a cache I call my "career cache"---four tries and still no hope. Yeah, maybe the former are pretty simplistic, but they are great for cachers with little ones. I always try to leave kid-friendly loot in them. I certainly criticize no one---I am just grateful someone took the time!
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I am a new cacher---just a couple of months---I am working with an Explorist 300. My friend has about the same tenure and the same equipment. Right now I look up caches online, print the "print-friendly" page, then go to Delorme Street atlas and using the lat/long, put it on a map which I then print off. If I am having a big cache day, I can go out with a lot of paper in hand. Plus for some caches, I am familiar with the territory, while others require a broader view map to get me in the area, and then something more detailed to get me in the cache vicinity. My friend was talking to another cacher who told him he should download GSAK and use it with a mapping program. Well, he can't figure out GSAK so he asked me to try, assuming (incorrectly) that I am more computer-literate than he. (It's just sometimes I get lucky with a lot of mad clicking.) I have downloaded GSAK, downloaded 8 caches from geo-caching.com, and now I am stuck. I find the manual about as understandable as the schematics for the space shuttle. Also, I am wondering, after wandering around the forums, if GSAK is of any benefit to us. As far as we know, we can't download anything into our GPS's. I can flag all my prospective caches on Delorme with info. So I guess my first question is: Is there any benefit to trying to work with GSAK with the GPS's we have now, as opposed to our present geo-caching.com/Delorme process? And my second question is: If there are benefits, can someone please explain in simple, child-friendly terms exactly what we need to do to experience these benefits? OH! My friend does have a laptop---right now he pulls up Delorme with the flagged caches on the screen, rather than printing the pages as I do.
TIA and HH!
Geocachers Get Bad Wrap In Appleton, Wisconsin
in General geocaching topics
Posted
I am surprised at the defensiveness of most of the posts regarding the damage to the park allegedly caused by cachers. I wouldn't be surprised if the damage had been caused by geocachers. As more and more people join the ranks of cachers, the ratio of ignorant or careless or bad-mannered cachers will logically rise. While most of us try to be respectful of our surroundings and personal property, there is always going to be that one or two who are not.
A poster from Cleveland mentioned a hollow log he felt was destroyed by cachers and everyone scoffed. This is my experience. There was a cache located in a heavily wooded park near my house. The hint indicated it was in a log. Coordinates brought you to an area well off the trail where there were three or four old fallen trees strewn across the ground---foilage kept you from getting a dead reckoning. The hint indicated the cache was a micro in a log. I DNF'd it once, twice...three times (okay, I admit I think I only logged one of the DNF's). There were a lot of DNF's on this cache, thanks to the bouncing signals. On my third or fourth visit, I found devastation. The groundcover around the logs was tramped dead, branches on nearby saplings and bushes were broken (they did have a tendency to poke you), someone had kicked or knocked part of the logs apart and torn loose the bark. I was aggravated. Not only because someone had torn up the cache site, but what if the cache had been stuck in one of those chunks of wood he/she dropped kicked ten feet away? I wanted to get the d*** thing logged as a find!
I thought part of the caching thing was to leave no trace. Break branches, grind grass and cover into the ground, track through too many times in the same pattern, you might as well put up a neon sign that says "the cache is here!" Where's the fun of that?
And I believe on my son's head that it was a frustrated cacher or two that tore up the site. Why would a muggle venture 40 feet thru brambles and thickets to this particular spot in a 150 acre park? When this place has lots and lots of fallen logs, a lot of them right next to the trails, if he/she had the urge to kick dead wood.
I think a lot of people are joining in the caching fun, but some of them are more about the hunt and find and not remembering about respect and good manners. If a newbie didn't read thoroughly the intro to caching pages, they wouldn't know that a cache is never buried---so to them, why couldn't the cache be under the flowers?
I am not saying cachers were responsible for the damage done to the little park, but I am saying that if we want to keep our sport respected and well-thought of, then we have to be willing to admit that there is a tiny percentage of cachers out there acting beyond the bounds of good caching etiquette and instead of saying "not my kid", say "I'm sorry, 99.99% of us are good guys, let me prove it to you."
BTW: cache owner eventually decided cache had been muggled and replaced it---and I finally got my find!