qlenfg

And a huge Dodge Sprinter van I don't have a current photo of.

Sams Club has a 2-pack of single LED lights for about $35 from time to time. Great light, but the power switch tends to get pushed in your pocket. Runs a long time on 3 AAA batteries. If you want the best light, get one of the big MagLight rechargeables. Not small, but very bright and you can adjust the beam. For walking a trail at night, a head-mounted light is the best. keeps your hands free and the light goes where you look.

Sams Club has a 2-pack of single LED lights for about $35 from time to time. Great light, but the power switch tends to get pushed in your pocket. Runs a long time on 3 AAA batteries. If you want the best light, get one of the big MagLight rechargeables. Not small, but very bright and you can adjust the beam. For walking a trail at night, a head-mounted light is the best. keeps your hands free and the light goes where you look.

Perhaps the key would be to put the URL for the GC website on the outside of the cache, as well as the G code. I know you would have to make a second trip to the cache to put the G code on it, but I'll bet it would reduce issues with it being mistaken for something bad. There are a couple around here I have found or looked for that were in bad places, in my opinion. In a field behind a house, next to their fence, is not a good spot. Especially when every dog in the neighborhood goes nuts when someone walks out there. Also, putting a cache in a public hunting area and not advising the cacher to wear orange and leave his ball cap with deer horns at the house is a bad thing.

Just to clarify, the "premium" membership gives you access to member only caches, as well as allowing you to download a list of caches. It also helps pay for the site itself. If you have the software and a cable for your GPS, you can take this list file and upload it to the GPS. Beats the heck out of entering the coordinates by hand. You may have to convert the file to the proper format for your GPS software, but there are all sorts of free tools available. By the way, I have one of the cheapest GPS units on the market, and it works just fine for finding caches. I simply switch to the screen that shows the coordinates when I get close, and after I walk around a bit I can figure out where the cache should be within 5-10 feet. Finding it is a whole 'nuther story!

The problem with WiFi is that many high-speed internet providers give away a wired / wireless router with their DSL or cable modem, and by default security is turned off. SBC Yahoo! seems to ship their 2Wire routers with WEP on, but others do not. Many manufacturers have added features to make setting up encryption easier, since it seems to be difficult for the average user. I recently surveyed our neighborhood patrol area to do a presentation on WiFi security, and within about an eight square mile area I found 855 access points, with almost half unsecured. Most of the remainder had WEP enabled, and a few were using WPA or some of the other shared-key encryption schemes. Most had SSID broadcast enabled -- less than 1% were what I would call very secure. As for SSID broadcast, while NetStumbler won't see them, there are other tools that will snag the SSID if you monitor long enough, and even work out the MAC addresses of all devices attached to the network. If they are using WEP and have a considerable amount of network traffic, you can even eventually get the WEP key -- it may take a hours to days though.

Programs like Netstumbler are active WiFi scanners and DO attempt to access the network. They also don't find networks with the SSID turned off. Other non-WinDoze tools do a passive scan -- the WiFi card only listens. Using another's WiFi connection without permission would be the same as finding a phone plugged in on someone's back porch and making a few free calls. A public WiFi hotspot is the way to go.

I ran across one that was a small plastic tube (maybe 3/8" diameter and 1 1/2" long) with a cork stuck in the end. Inside was a narrow strip of paper rolled around a piece of coathanger. The end was taped to the coathanger to make it easy to re-roll. Just hanging on a tree in plain sight.