HJS

I trade wheresgeorge.com bills. The bills I take are entered and spent in commerce. Out of the marked bills I have left in caches (I guess about 20 bills)only one has been cache hopping. The other ones have been spent. Another reason I like to pick up marked bills is that they introduce me, by way of profile, to new people. I have picked up bills from 2 well known cachers from New Jersey that vacationed here in Virginia. It was fun "meeting" these folks, and whenever I read one of their posts I know who they are. I first heard about geocaching in the wheresgeorge forums.

benchmark. I was hunting for a benchmark that was described as 6 inches below the surface. On my first trip I located the witness post and measured out the exact spot. Left that day, meaning to return with a "scraping" action tool to get to the marker. I returned about 2 weeks later. Someone (I think a survey party) had exposed the marker. Turned out that just under the grass surface was a PVC tube, and 6 inches down was the survey marker. No digging required. I would not log a find unless I actually saw the marker. Good hunting HJS

I would prefer a cache that is relatively easy to find at the end of a 3 mile hike (somewhat shorter hike in difficult terrain). I enjoy finding a cache. I am often disappointed in how close the thing is to the parking lot.

My Etrex Venture shuts off on its own. I was going for a cache and my venture kept shutting itself off. I went back to the car and got new batteries. Still same problem; I turn it on and it searches for sattelites. As soon as it aquires them it shuts itself off. I could not get the dadgum thing to stay on. I must have tried at least 20 times. Now earlier I had noticed on my last 3 caches that the unit shut off, but I had turned it on early, still driving when that happened. Once I got to walking it stayed on the whole time. The day after the thing shut off I tried it again at home and it would shut itself off again. So the question was going to be, why does my etrx Venture shut itself off? But yesterday (at home) I turned the thing on and it worked fine. Stayed on for an hour. Then I shut it off. Now I have 2 questions for the GPS experts in the forum. 1. why does my etrx Venture shut itself off? 2. Should I trust it for the next cache hunt? I bought the Venture in July. I used it but never abused it.

that would be a good virtual cache. Better than most virtuals.

I tried to be first to a cache. Turns out the guy who placed it was a new cacher a couple of thousand miles from home. The decrypted hint was incomplete and misleading and the coordinates were 3 miles off. I found it because one of the clues got me closer than the 3 miles. I was mad and I won't do any more like that including the one named Vacation Cache in Virginia Beach.

I'd like your opinions on this. A geocacher returns to a cache he has already found for the purpose of collecting the travel bug that has just been placed there. What do you think about that?

I had the same problem trying to interface using the serial port. My HP computer with XP loaded wouldn't recognize anything on the serial port. Found an insert in my computer manual that has the steps to configure the ports to allow XP to find them. Once I went thru the procedure it worked. If that turns out to be your problem, post a reply and I'll dig out my manual. I can post the steps here or e-mail them to you.

I have been a casual wheresgeorge player for two and a half years. Kept reading about geocaching, so I tried it and got hooked. Right after I started geocaching a couple of malcontents on the site were needling the owner of wheresgeorge to tag geocache bills. They objected to guys trading wheresgeorge bills in geocaches and hitting them, and it was decreed that geocaching is not natural circulation. Having been a georger for a long time and a newby geocacher, I was quite disappointed at the turn of events. And the timing. I'm still somewhat miffed and usually do not mix wheresgeorge bills with geocaching.

... in horseshoes, handgrenades and geocaching. One of the first caches I did, my GPS led me to what the GPS said was the spot. When I couldn't find the cache I walked away and shot another approach, took me to the same spot. The coordinates matched the cache coordinates. When I backed off and came in again I turned off the trail about 50 feet earlier and walked right to the cache. And I got the same coordinate reading as I had before. I would say give it 100 feet before posting your different coordinates. I had to correct one cache hider. I was the first to the cache. Had to correct his coordinates. He was off by 3.05 miles.

Thanks Azog, works just like you said. Here is where I screwed up! I think I had EasyGPS open twice and one file in each. Transfer didn't work, but as you describe it it works fine. Thanks

I read a while back in a thread where someone talked about moving waypoints between files. Talked about opening both files and then dragging or copying the waypoint into the other file. I tried that and it didn't seem to work for me. Any pointers??

I was planning to start a thread about "urban benchmarks" and the fact that their described location from about 30 years ago is now a paved driveway, missing culvert, somebody's flower bed (private property) and so on. Had 7 in a row like that, but I'm not giving up. I realized during that 'losing streak' that the benchmarks lose as well. Hope we can keep this thread going, I find this to be an intriguing part of benchmark hunting.

Glad to see all these technical solutions. My (less technical) solution has been to copy and paste the necessary text into a Word document and printing it from there. Works every time!

I also own an etrex venture and I am quite satisfied with its performance. A word of advice. Do not rely solely on the compass on your GPS.. When I get close in to a cache I use a regular compass to keep my bearing to the cache. The GPS compass doesn't update well if you're moving slow or in circles.

On topographical maps, a benchmark is listed as BM####, where #### is the elevation of the benchmark. To verify, check the elevation of the contour line.

On topographical maps, a benchmark is listed as BM####, where #### is the elevation of the benchmark. To verify, check the elevation of the contour line.

I recently did my first benchmark hunting trip. I went to a nearby Army installation (Fort Eustis, VA) with a list of benchmarks and landmarks. The four landmarks on my list were all last recorded in the late 1950's, early '60s. I found the main watertower intact and right away. The item labeled as an "Aluminum Tank" turned out to be a water tower. Did they build a water tower on the site of the tank or was it mis labeled?? I don't know, but an interesting question. The other water tower (building 216) was torn down, but the base of the former tower was roped off as an environmental hazard. The fourth landmark on my list was a 100 foot smoke stack. It still shows on the topo map I have. Says me to myself: "I don't remember this thing being here back in 1981" Since it is (WAS) located next to a major road I assume it has been torn down over 20 years ago. I will make a follow-up trip to the Facilities engineers office to get a definite answer. Also the trees that grow there are at least 20+ years old. I thought hunting those landmarks was meaningful and fun. And I logged the two water towers as a find.

I downloaded EasyGPS to a machine running Windows XP Home Edition. Works just fine. I did have a hardware problem with the GPS interface. I had to re-set my serial port for the interface to work properly. But that was a set-up problem, not a software problem. Are you having problems with your interface???

First reaction was , NO. Thought about it, a cache at the State Fair, 'hidden' in a booth, with a 10 day lifespan. Heck NO. On top of that, I believe any publicity such a cache might generate will only tell half the story, the wrong half at that. I would suggest to hide it at the nearby park. Any serious cachers who come from far away will notice the proximity to the fair and visit your cache a quarter mile away. My $ .02

http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.asp?PID=GV0556

From the benchmark description "1.5 FEET SOUTHEAST OF A METAL WITNESS POST, AND ON THE TOP OF A 4 FOOT COPPER COATED STEEL ROD THAT IS ATTACHED TO A METAL BASE PLATE. THE DISK IS 3 INCHES BELOW THE LEVEL OF THE GROUND AND ENCASED IN A 6 INCH CONCRETE PIPE THAT IS 3 INCHES BELOW THE LEVEL OF THE GROUND." I was at the witness post, which is just inside the treeline. Reading the description, is the marker buried under ground where you'd have to dig? If you dig down 3 inches, would you find a concrete slab with the marker in it? I guess scraping the surface wouldn't get you close. Now I said I was at the witness post, but my notes were to vague to start looking. This was my 3rd unsuccessful try to find a survey disk, so bear with me if my ?? isn't all that smart. Help in translating this is appreciated. I think after I have seen a couple of these the description will get clearer. Thanks

"Note, for the navigation arrow to work, you must be moving fairly quickly. What happens to many novices is that when they slow down as they approach the cache site, they find the needle starts pointing all over, which is confusing. If this starts to happen walk back about 50 yards, the walk briskly in the same direction you had been. The directional arrow should then straighten out and you should see the distance to the cache decreasing." When I get close where the directional arrow becomes unreliable I use a compass to keep me going in the right direction. That works for me. Seems like the direction is what fails to update as you slow down.

What I mean is, run your zip code and remove the caches listed on page 1 from your watchlist. Then you can occasionally run your nearest caches and read the logs off that page. You would have to go to each cache page, so I guess it would be time consuming.

I kept seeing geocaching mentioned on the wheresgeorge website. Finally curiosity led me to check out the website.