ohgood

I can go along with 1 and 2. I enjoy geocaching alone for seldom logged caches. agreed. the distant/infrequent caches are usually the best. you're on the right track.

the Oregon and Montana both had issues when we started on a 20f ride. they warmed up by lunchtime, and only froze (os crashes) about three times over a 120 mile day of riding. when the temperature dropped that night they were not usable again. we were riding dirt bikes. my five year old smartphone was fine during those instances, tracked the whole ride, plotted routes while the fire cracked back at camp. i don't have much confidence in units that crash that much. been using the same waterproof phones for years without issue.

Which iPhone app doesn't have the difficulty-terrain restriction on basic member? I thought was also part of the API limitation? Wouldn't a basic member be better off using Safari (internet browser), logging in to the geocaching.com site and use the 'caches near my location' search feature on the homepage? A member can log a find that way too. Or am I missing something? the apps are a lot easier to use (both online and offline) than the website it. as an added bonus, with the good applications, you don't have to pay for functionality like searching for caches.

1 you do not need to pay Groundspeak or Garmin to geocache , smartphones work great OFFLINE, without paying anyone for a subscription. 2 avoid all caches called "micro" or "nano". 3 make sure someone has recently logged a FIND for caches you plan to go after. 4 take a friend with you

I am using the Groundspeak Geocaching app. The map type I'm using is listed within the app as Google Maps... I mentioned Polaris Navigation because I tested it (it does not use Google Maps) to ensure my device's GPS is capable of an accurate location reading. you're on the right track about applications that do weird things. Google maps is notorious for hopping a quarter mile out of the way. "high accuracy" is a lie, it's really just to get you to allow Google to collect (and resell) positional data in real time to other companies like Waze/similar. think about it, how are Bluetooth or wifi going to improve positional accuracy? they can't. ;-) cellular will only improve the initial startup speed, IF IT'S NEEDED to update regional data. cellular "help" through agps is always misunderstood, a lot of people still think it works all the time. using just the phones GPS antenna means (device only) it calculates position instead of taking handouts (guesstimated) from wifi/similar. if you haven't tried caching in airplane mode, give it a shot. you'll want to see the limits of whatever applications you're planning to use, before you lose connectivity and your child gets annoyed by the slip up. ;-) future reference, the official app is pretty poor compared to others.

my phone is the best. do you want a simple handheld, or something that can easily navigate to your caches, as well as handle downloading them? less ? more? everything? there is a lot to choose from... holler what your preferences are and you'll get a better recommendation. :-)

my friends are buying Nomu s10, BlackView 6000, and similarly rugged devices for offline mapping and caching for about $100-150, instead of the Garmin tax that pushes prices for simple GPS units into the $400-800 range. The phones listed are tougher than most people realize, and the application choices for caching, navigation, and all things gps are better than stand alone. if you want something that doesn't have a gsm availability, you're pretty much stuck with Garmin junk.

there are apps that do a tremendously better job than the official application, both on and offline. you can use offline maps, have offline turn by turn navigation, offline trail routing, offline cache descriptions, offline tools to project waypoints, track recording, tons more.

switch your location settings to "gps only" or "device only". all the other options will include wifi and cellular , and be very poor.

Yes, they can. took a little googling but i found a video that shows how. thanks !

No one's saying it's the end of the world, they're just saying it's annoying and 1) should be fixed. Me? I felt like 2) you were trying to dismiss the concerns 3) without allowing them to be discussed, but I don't myself share those concerns. I don't think errant GPS tagging is a big deal, and I think it would be best handled by education. 4) Yes, it could be annoying to have a puzzle spoiled like this and have to explain to the picture's poster what they did wrong, but I don't see it as such a big deal it must be prevented at all costs. But, on the other hand, 5) I also don't think it would be that big a deal if EXIF information was routinely scraped when pictures are posted if GS decided that would be better. 1) which is why I asked which method (or fill in the blank with your own) you prefered. 2) absolutely ! when I checked the history of geotagged photos vs geocaching topics, i found it was a non issue, so far, and asked for opinions. because the geocaching community is SOOOO sensetive, and prone to getting feelings hurt instead of discussing things, it got lost in the shuffle. 3) the moderators like to delete posts, i do not. i'm asking for opinions, and asking questions. more discussion is what it needs. so far all i've seen is 'the sky is falling!' instead of actual examples. :-) 4) nothing is spoiled. the trail is still there (or not), the cache is still there. i bet we would find a LOT more phone-a-friends being used to 'cheat' than tagged photos, if we compared them over the last 15 years. let's not forget about members (gasp, even premiums!) sharing waypoints for finals. yep. 5) i uploaded pictures of our short hike yesterday. they are geotagged. if anyone wanted to choose between just opening a pill bottle vs seeing a waterfall, they can compare distances between photos and decide which is more worthy. or both. or neither. with that information, more hikes can happen, more discoveries, more fun. without that info, it's just another park-n-grab. stripping the geodata won't benefit anything. it's just a knee-jerk reaction to a non-existant (my opinion!) problem. :-)

thank you

there is an iPhone section to the forum, with recommended apps that work GREAT. there is no need to purchase the auto-renewing-fee subscription to geocache.

1) That does not help when the info is already out there. 2) As the rest of your post is regarded, I cannot see any convincing argument for geotagged photos. Most long distance hiking caches I'm aware of have a known start and end point - you can plan your route but of course you do not know in advance exactly where the container is hidden. Almost all hiders of such caches will help those who really need information for planning their tour - 3) those who just visit the final are not interested into the journey at all but 4) just in the "+1" and the prestige of having logged certain caches. Using vehicles to shortcut the travel is up to the finders but avoiding visiting the stages at all, is not what is in the spirit of a multi cache. 5) If someone does not like caches with multiple stages, they can skip them - there are not so many of them anyhow and even less really long ones. 1) fair enough, i guess a puzzle/multi owner would have to check once week or so, if they were concerned at all about people skipping steps. 2) fair enough again, i just see asking for help from the owner as another tool. I've only done that once, and since then lost interest in that tool, and not applied the info i gained. just my opinion, not really relevant i guess. 3) i think that's up to each person, not the cache owner. the only rule that applies so far is "sign the log", i think. I'm really not much of a rules person, but i know a LOT of people are, and LIVE for more rules :-) 4) lol i had no idea, that's funny, but i guess people like badges and stuff. 5) none of my business, i figure people can pick and choose whichever type they want to. as long as they aren't destroying stuff , carry on. thanks for the input. w if you were given the option, would you prefer a kill switch for all images, all geotagged images, or only images relating to puzzle/multi ? maybe some variation of the above? thanks again for real discussion :-)

Sorry, I do not regard using exif data as another tool to avoid walking say 300km. good point, and opinion ! i Sorry, I do not regard using exif data as another tool to avoid walking say 300km. thanks for the opinion, and that is a good point you made. let me illustrate something.... if you (or i) were to just buy a GPS, pick a puzzle/cache from its pre loaded list 186 miles away, and started walking, we would probably be very disappointed. reasons like the cache being no longer active (archived), an out of date description/location/clue, closed off land access, or missing second stage, would be bad. thankfully we have additional tools like cars/motorcycles/quads/boats/planes/bikes/trains to transport us... updated info and logs from previous finders... phone a friend... private messages to the owner... Google for riddles/maths/trivia... satellite imagery... and of course, the last known date the puzzle/multi was found. i would definitely choose to use those tools before heading out on a long hike. i would also check the weather, trail closures, river levels, and similar stuff in the area. planning a 186 mile hike would be an undertaking by itself. executing the hike, also an awesome an experience! if someone chose to use a helicopter to find each stage, that would be a fairly exclusive way to skip the walking, but still just another tool. again, if the cache owner wants to delete extra clues, or place the cache where normal tools like helicopters /cars / geotagged photos won't help, that's fine by me. no issue at all. the blanket idea that all photos should be stripped though, just seems like a really bad idea. hope I've made a good counter point to yours. :-)

I'll put it this way,,, Geocaching as it is now, isn't for me. This may be foolish thinking but i hold on to the thought that someday, some things might revert back to how geocaching once was. It would be nice to once again see cachers not so concerned about their stats and who actually wanted to find and place caches that weren't just the routine stuff we see now. Yea, far fetched thinking but, who knows? could you expand on this some more? how did it used to be etc ?

No, it's not a big issue. It had almost no impact until cameras started to routinely have GPS capabilities, which I'd say happened about 5 years ago. Since then, my guess is that it's been a minor problem that comes up now and then. Happy? Good. Now can we get back to discussing fixing it? Thanks! I think it's mostly an issue when people don't realize it's just another tool , not the end of the world. Would you like to have a kill switch for all tagged photos, or just a switch for each cache?

Technically, it does not protect the qr-code It does password protection by making a QR-code that first goes to their own website. On that site it will ask the password, and if that is correct it redirects it to your given website/page. So it only works as long as you have an internet connection and scanovia.io maintains its website. I'm sorry, i thought you were OK with using a internet source for hosting and processing. are you only looking for an offline solution ?

unfortunately Garmin stand alones do not have Bluetooth file transfers, it wireless transfers, yet. they can only transfer between models of the same type, from Garmin. if this is still current info, you can use this to save from the iPhone to an sdcard, then import to the Harmon physically. Android is probably the easiest to transfer caches, tracks, and waypoints to /from with Bluetooth/wifi/nfc/ftp/sdcard/etc , and you could buy a burner phone to store thousands of caches, dump to sdcard, then import to the Garmin. i don't know if that's too much hassle for your plans though.

http://scanova.io/blog/blog/2015/07/14/password-protected-qr-codes/ how to password protect qr codes, it might make the process even easier for you.

Are you suggesting that we shouldn't discuss issues which have impacts below a certain threshold? If so, who sets the theshold and what is it and how do we measure it? I'm only trying to get your opinion. :-) Like i said, if your prefer not to answer me, or share it, that's cool. :-) OK - so you have nothing of value to bring to the thread - glad we cleared that up. there's plenty to add, when people are polite and answer questions, post opinions, and aren't rude. you're being rude. I'm attempting to gain insight. :-)

Man getting questions answered here is line pulling teeth after slapping someones manma ! lol so defensive, so skittish! I'll answer yours though, even though it sounds rhetorical: big issue: server unavailable, for a week or three medium issue: server load too heavy to load for a few hours insignificant issue: once every three or four years, someone says the site is slow does that sound about right to you ?

Are you suggesting that we shouldn't discuss issues which have impacts below a certain threshold? If so, who sets the theshold and what is it and how do we measure it? I'm only trying to get your opinion. :-) Like i said, if your prefer not to answer me, or share it, that's cool. :-)

Here's some, though not all "complaints" or specific to lat/long: https://www.google.c...Groundspeak.com There's a thread from 2010 describing the same concern and, not unexpected, a response saying "if most people are unaware, is it really a problem"? There's a thread from 2011 indicating location data is being stripped from uploaded photos when the site resized them That same thread multiple folks posted they used the EXIF location data in uploaded find logs to solve the puzzle and find the cache. Lets not pretend the issue doesn't exist. So, were you speaking to someone else in post 5635191 ? You didn't clarify who you were speaking to yet? As far as "pretending" there is an issue or not, I see the other threads died out with what looks like a big "meh"from the people involved... Which leads to me repeating the question from earlier: Do you think this is a problem that has had a large impact over the last fifteen years or so ? If you don't want to answer that, I understand, but at this point you're just avoiding real discussion. :-)

You took a response and assumed it was about you. Bad assumption. You geotag question was commented on already while I was outside clearing the snow. I'm glad the Dr didn't tell my dad that he survived 79 years without a new hip so why are you asking to relieve the pain now? Just live it like you have been. in your post number 5635191, you quoted me. if you did mean someone else, i apologize, it sure looked like you were replying to me ? getting back on track now, and still speaking to you, has geotagged photos been a big issue for the fifteen years ? it seems like if it were, fifteen years us long enough to start editing people's posts, even at gs's pace.