Red Squadron

Commendable action to think of others less fortunate than yourself. I am disabled but it is not a physical disablement that would stop me from a 2, 3 or even 4 rated cache. And in my opinion, I dont think you should organise your cache to suit the disabled if it is a high rating. There are quite a few pitfalls in doing this, not least the 'loophole' which some unscrupulous cacher would usurp. There are plenty of wheelchair accessable caches out there, without making a high rated cache available through some re-setting of the puzzle or whatever. It is nice to know that you are thinking of doing this, but my advice is dont. Just my 2p worth

Good for you Eckington, we all know how hard you work and a little slip of the keyboard finger is perfectly acceptable. Keep up the good work.

Hi, and welcome to Geocaching. I have a garmin Legend and I have some spare Maps. They are on 3 Cd,s Email me if you want to chat about it.

What started out as a good idea for a cache has turned into a debate about icons and pictures. How about we get on with hiding some boxes Quite true, I will shutup and wait for the off !

Mine too, you are not in the minority. My speedo seems to be about 3 or 4 mph slower than the GPS (TomTom 510) readout.

Point noted McKryton and duly put down in my Annals of History book. You must agree though, that the theme that all the Geocaching lads and lasses are doing , is simply to make a logo. not a Flag, not a political statement, nor any statement other than a unilateral commitment by all to further the Big Quest, and that includes the N.I. geocachers. I wonder if we could have more input from N.I. about this logo. Unless they already have and I have missed the posting.

Well I have read it and the only parts that pertain to anything to do with Geocaching is (1.12) and even then it only refers to the flying of Flags on Govenment Buildings. The whole piece is only a surmising of the Irish peoples reactance to a particular Flag on a particular building at a particular time. At no point was there mentioned the banning of any symbol that was portrayed in a peaceful manner. I really dont know what McKryton means when he said we must all read this. Sorry old chap but i think you are making a mountain out of a molehill.

Sounds reasonable to assume that, also you have to remember that it is morning and i am not at my best until i have had my 3 weetabix...........Thanks

Just tried to add my email address to the Update form and our name is not on the list. Do i need to keep trying or will you be putting Red Squadron on the Update list ? Our name is on the Counties list under NORFOLK.

Here are a few of the Awards that were completed by me in my quest for Ham Radio Worked All Britain. The story goes like this...and see how close it comes to the BigQuest that is being compiled on the UKGeocaching Forum. 1. All the 10km Grid co-ordinates are used to compile the award. Whereas in GC only the Counties are used. 2. To enable everyone to have a part of this Quest there should be stages of completion. Because not everyone will or are able to complete it. If you set a Quest where you know most people wont be able to complete, then only a few rich and well travelled Geocachers will be able to complete it. And that I am afraid means most of the Geocachers in the UK. 3. To have an award system where all the UK Counties are designated for an Award and all the Scottish Counties have a seperate Award along with seperate awards for Northern Ireland and of course Wales. This will then give those less travelled the chance to be a part of this fantastic Quest without feeling it a lost cause. First of all go to my webpage and have a look at the BigQuest pics, the words below are just copied from that page. All you do is click on the link below. http://fire.prohosting.com/johnziss/geo/index.htm As you can see these Awards are geared towards the Worked All Britain (WAB) system but you can see how easy it is to get some to suit the Big Quest UK system. As far as cost is concerned then it should not cost a great deal to get blank awards printed, the number of awards will need to be determined. But I would say a run of about 500 for the Counties should be sufficient. Of course it will have to be arranged with the printers should you get say 535 orders. Not everything in this life is well ordered and simple. An award system divided amongst Wales, N.Ireland, Scotland, UK, and other Islands that have yet to be decided. On each of the awards you can see where the WAB stickers are attached, and these determine the extent of attainment. (Apart from the COUNTIES one where just a number was typed in.) I think the ISLANDS Award shows what I mean. I 'worked' over 90 Islands that are dotted around the British Isles. More were available but I stopped at 90. You can see where someone can get 45 counties and then for whatever reason cant do any more. It would be nice for them to have some recognition of what they have achieved by means of this award. On their award will be circles for all the UK Counties of which they will have stickers attached to the Counties they have done. This award system is really just collating the names of individuals and what they have achieved. What do you all think, and is it ok for me to pass this on to whoever has the means and resources to do this......or do I have to take this to the Court of Human Rights and fight for the next 15 years at a personal cost to me of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Isnt this fun, I am looking forward to the Start............

Hello Deryn, I have only been caching for about a year and so i cant give you any for or against with regards to which GPS to get. Other than to say I bought the Garmin Etrex Legend for about £89.00 with all the maps of the UK (Mapsource) The cables to hook up to the PC came with the GPS, so as far as i can see the Legend has most of what I need. Two things that are different from the more expensive models and they are .... increased memory capacity and colour screen. But it doesnt really matter to me as the Legend has everything else. Lots to choose from.......have fun

I used to be a member of a group on Ham Radio that had as its goal the collection (by way of radio communication) of all the Grid references in the UK,Scotland, all the islands around the UK, Wales and NI. When we had completed, lets say, 100 of these areas we had an Award sent to us with a sticker that had 100 on it and WAB on them (that stands for Worked All Britain) When we had completed 200 we then had the 200 award sticker. This continued until we had filled in all the areas in Britain. We then had all the areas on the award covered with the WAB stickers. I have still got some of my old Awards and i dont mind sharing them with someone who wants to see them for reference. Using a method such as this would give those who are not able to do the whole of the UK some sort of recognition for what they are able to do. What do the PTB think ? How do i post a picture of the Awards so you can see what i am talking about ?

We quite like the idea. If there was such a book/publication when we came into geocaching, maybe we would have had a better understanding of Geocaching in the first place. With so many Geocachers submitting all manner of 'wit and wisdom' it will be a mammoth task of collating and sorting through the stories etc. Good luck to you, we will be around should you need help.

The Red Squadron will be only too pleased to assist in the placing of a cache in Norfolk and even in Suffolk if needed.

Whenever I use Autoroute I convert the Geocache lat/long simply by using a calculator. N52' 33.772 I type in 33.772 divided by 60 = 56286 So autoroute Location Sensor sees N52'56286 E000'31.890 I type in 31.890 divided by 60 = 53150 So Autoroute Location Sensor sees E0' 53150 It works great If you use the co-ords above it will show you a point about halfway along Norman Drive in Whittington Norfolk

Surely as others have said it is Degrees, Minutes and Decimal Minutes, i.e. HDDD MM.MMM. To bring seconds into it is only confusing and has led some astray. That was me that said seconds, I do apologise and will learn from my mistake

The quick answer to your question is YES. The input should be Degrees , minutes, seconds.

Hi Littletent, First of all get this double checked just in case I am wrong. But this is how I got co-ordinates for you. I ran Autoroute 2007 and found Park Street Dundalk. Then I clicked on the Hotel Imperial that is right on Park Street. Then I went to options in Autoroute and chose the degrees,minutes,seconds option. Then I clicked on the Location Sensor. When I moved the sensor over the location of the hotel it gave me a reading of N54' 0,10 W 6' 24,9 I hope these co-ords are correct, please verify them before using them as direction finders. Good luck

Hi Radsem, As I dont know what is involved in placing a 'Lamp-post ' cache, can you enlighten me. How do you 'hide' a cache on a Lamp-post ?

Thats why I leave it on the back seat and let the wife use it. I can hear it just fine....Emily will say Take the second exit at the roundabout....etc etc Can you imagine what its like in my 'other' car...its an open top sports (Triumph Spitfire)

Well, if its any help to anyone...here is what I do. I plug my Garmin Etrex Legend into my laptop with Autoroute 2007 running. This gives me a nice big screen to look at plus I get Emily telling me where to go. I dont think the talking Emily is on the earlier versions of Autoroute though. Granted it is not as compact as a true Sat-Nav unit but it does give me the facility of all my caches on the laptop and it gives me Google Earth should i need it, Plus, having a laptop and all my map searching facilities on hand is great.

with the possible exception of a congrats thread (that I am happy to diaper in to obscurity), but that is just my opinion. My opinion too....I hate the durn things I have to open them to read the first line and then if I see a Congrats then I just delete it.

What a good idea...... There would be just one thing that I would mention though. If there are a number of caches (even if they are 'easy' ones) I would make a point of being able to do them all within an hour or three. The last thing that kids and families with young'uns in pushchairs want to do is take up a whole afternoon of trudging around town. You need to hold their interest and short interesting jaunts will do it. So.... as the others have said you will have to try and sort out your caches with everyone in mind (Very difficult to do). Good luck

Our sympathies go to Mr Snails, from the two of us. Although we never had the fortune to meet them.

Ok lets see if this question can be put another way..... I am in a wheelchair so how do I get ONLY THOSE CACHES that allow wheelchair access ? Its no good having to sort them out from 100's of ordinary ones that come up when you put in a postcode. Thats not what I want. I need ONLY THOSE CACHES that are wheelchair accessible. How do I do that ? (By the way I am asking this question on behalf of another geocacher, I am fully mobile) Also you can click on the KEYWORD and enter, lets say, woodland. You will get ALL caches that have woodland in their listing title. That may reduce the number of caches that come up.