Donald, Daisy and Kids
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Posts posted by Donald, Daisy and Kids
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I am just curious- we went on our first hunt today, looking for a theme cache. As it was a hippie theme, we brought along some incense which I enclosed in a ziplock snack bag. Sadly, we didnt find it but I was just reading on another thread about not trading items with scents due to animals. Would using baggies negate that? When I bagged them up, I was only thinking of keeping them dry- I didn't take into consideration animals.
Would any animals be interested in inscensce??
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what annoys me is when people come to the forums using vulgar language. My children aged from 7 to 18yo ALL read through the forums, so PLEASE have some respect!
What annoys me is when other parents throw hissy fits regarding stuff their children may, or more to the point may not, be exposed to on the internet. The words parental and moderation spring to mind. My 6 and 8 year olds use the internet under my direct supervision on the basis that I, as their father, am prepared to explain to them anything that they may seek clarification of whilst surfing the net. That means anything. I take the responsibility for letting them have access. What I don't do is expect anybody to modify their normal behaviours simply for my personal peace of mind. You don't have to let them use it (except maybe the 18 year old doesn't HAVE to take your direction anymore but you still pay the broadband bills right).
Regarding the point in question: the split seems fairly even; newbies favor FCFS whilst the wizened hacks favour a more pragmatic approach. Personally i think y'all need to get out more! I plan to keep my number of posts lower than my number of finds!
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and with that, Elvis left the building.
I suggest that you may want to read the FORUM GUIDELINES
It states quite clearly:
Some things to keep in mind when posting:
Respect: Respect the guidelines for forum usage, and site usage. Respect Groundspeak, its employees, volunteers, yourself, fellow community members, and guests on these boards. Whether a community member has one post or 5,000 posts, they deserve the same respect.
Foul Language and obscene images will not be tolerated. This site is family friendly, and all posts and posters must respect the integrity of the site.
Why expose your kids to things that they dont need to hear or see? Gutter mouth language doesnt make a person look good, even though it is becoming more and more acceptable in this day and age to hear "them" 4 letter words, it just makes the person sound really trashy!
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HOLD THE PHONE!!!!!!
When I decide to place a cache I do the research to find a spot where no other cache is located and there isn't one very close. I make a container with all the doings and then go to the area, place the cache, and record the coords... I then creat (or finish) my listing and submit it for review.
Having done all this work I would not be dissapointed if I were to learn that someone had placed one there between that time I first looked and when I listed (not very likely). However, I would be pissed to learn that the site had been reserved for a future cache. While I understand the need for event holders to do someting (maybe something special needs to be done for them) I would be upset if the spot was being held because Johnny or his 7th cousin twice removed, or anyone else for that matter, said he was going to place a cache there!
What would really pisss me off is if I had to drive out to the cache site to pull it because someone was going to place one there in the future.
HEY..... FIRST COME FIRST SERVED! There should be no reserved cache areas!
If a Moderator wishes to tell me that I am wrong then I am going to spend time in the next couple of days picking the spots where I might hide a cache in the next years time and reserver those spots. I am being dramtic here but I don't believe this is the way it's meant to work.
Regarding event caches...... Either they are meant to be like any other cache and must stand alone on their own merrits or thye would be temporary and be allowed to be plcaced in close proximity to existing cashes for the short durration of their intended use and then archived....
I do NOT support the reserving of cache locations!
what annoys me is when people come to the forums using vulgar language. My children aged from 7 to 18yo ALL read through the forums, so PLEASE have some respect!
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I had a good idea planned out nice series of caches to go in a park up here in the north west of England....
I checked the website for the unnamed park (not to give way any usernames) to see if they would mind me placing a few caches nearby...suggesting the wardens check my hides so it doesn't interfere with the wildlife....etc...
Anyway, it looks like someone has beaten me to it with a few traditionals there...i didn't get a reply to my email so was going to visit in person...thing whats really got me though is they they live in the SOUTH....London apparently and a maintenance trip would be over 150 miles!
theres only 3 that they have placed but i had 5 or 6 in mind and i don't want to crowd the place...just seems a waste that my idea has been wasted on 2 micros and a "small" when i had a few ammo boxes lined up and some puzzles to boot!
He who hessitates misses out.
It is possible that the cache placer works or frequents that area, just because they live 150miles away doesnt mean that they are unable to maintain the caches. I often work 1400Km (860mile) away from my home, and Im there for 10 days, and home for 4.
Why not contact the cache placer to ask if they would like to meet up with you and you could offer to maintain the caches and discuss your thoughts and plans for the puzzle etc.
It doesnt hurt to ask, and at worst, you could just look for another park to place your series.
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I placed one on the 4th.And it was published on the 6th.
My close friend posted a cache for review and it was done 1 hour later! So beat that! lol
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FYI - Here is a very good 5 minutes news video segment on geocaching, if you would like to introduce someone to the hobby. It is from KARE 11 TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is very positive and pretty thorough.
http://www.kare11.com/video/player.aspx?ai...60877&bw=hi
Here is the text news story, which also has a link to the video.
Dam it! I seem to be having a problem getting the vid, I only see a short 10 sec vid advert for car sellers.com.
I clicked the "problems downloading..." button and it downloads, then says it cant play (using WMP) typical of micro$oft!!!
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Does anyone know where i can get an ammo tin from, i've looked everywhere but cant seem to track one down. Are they waterproof also?
Here in Australia I get mine from either the local army disposal store or my local camping store, usually around AU$6 each.
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Is there a way to check and see where I logged the same cache twice, thus resulting in more finds than unique finds? No big deal, but would like to keep the number the same.
To explain further, my name comes up with the number of finds I have. If I go to my account and ask it to list all my finds, it will provide a list and a number. That list and number are only for the unique finds and is less than my actual finds. So obviously I logged the same cache as a find twice. so is there an easy way to find the cache where I have doubled up. If so, I will edit my second log as a note, rather than a find.
Thanks.
The only way that I know of is to manually go through each of your logs.
it shouldnt be too hard to check this way unless you have a few thousand finds.
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Does anyone have any experiences of old shacks or barns or storm drain stories?
Many years ago, during a 5 day camp with the boy scouts, we once had an orienteering treasure hunt using compasses and required us to get clues from one leg to take us to the next, and then on to the final spot.
One leg of the hunt one clue was placed in a storm water drain.
Well, on day 2 of the hunt, there was a fair bit of rain over the next valley from us and the water was delayed by about an hour or 2 from the location of the hint in the storm drain, and 3 of my closest mates were down in that drain at the exact time that the wall of water finally arrived at the location.
Thing is that none of even knew that it had rained in the next valley, but the lads sure knew when it hit the location of hint 6, and they were just extremely lucky that my team was close behind them and had some climbing gear with us that we used to rescue them, otherwise they would have all certainly drowned.
As with anything, the story's vary in range between 2 and 6mtrs of water, but I personally know one thing: The water was really flowing fast when we got there.
Thesedays, I am extremely wary of storm drains, creeks etc etc and I would never attempt any cache that might have the slightest chance of placing us or the kids into that kind of danger.
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'Is there another responsible adult that can take him?'
Check the above post ^
Donald, Daisy + kids, I like the motorized scooter idea. Any good priced ones you can think of?
If you look on ebay there is always very good priced motorised (electric or petrol) scooters. I have even been seeing alot of motorised bicycles lately that have pedals as well as a motor.
Here in Aus we can buy such items for a few hundred $$ so in the US they should be about half that.
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So long as you know the person that is his geocaching friend, and you trust them then I dont see a problem with that.
So long as youre happy, your kid is happy, and there is trust there, then its really a matter for you to decide.
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bike? Walk / run? motorised scooter?
but I dont think he should be hitchhiking at 12 though! lol
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I'm sure this has come up before, but lately I seem to be finding caches with frankly junk inside them. I'm talking napkins, floss sticks (yuck!), dirty golf balls, and other assorted trash. Kind of a bummer when you're looking forward to finding a cool cache only to find nothing of value. I always try to leave something nice, something of some value when I find a cache. Sorry, just had to vent about that one.
chris
We cache recreationaly when time permits (we have 8 children).
You will always find that others leave stuff like that, we once found a small flag that was originally stuck into someones steak. It still had fleshy bits of meat clinging to it. We just took it out and threw it into the nearest bin.
Some people here in Australia have been leaving photocopies of real currency, to us though, that isnt even worth leaving as these people always leave junk but take the best thing in the cache.
We believe that you should trade evenly or trade up but unfortunately not all cachers think like this, so we find ourselves trading less and less often.
Our kids have often said comments like "how disgusting that someone would leave (xyz item)" or "why would someone do this to the treasure"
Our kids love the caching, they think of it like modern day pirates treasures, and they really get upset when others leave garbage.
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What i dont like about this situation is the OP has no finds listed and seems more concerned with putting someone down than helping to fixing any potential problems. The reason for this thread is suspect IMO.
The OP stated "I gave my son a new GPS unit for his birthday because he had gotten into geocaching with my brother and sister-in-law. On our first trip out in Little Rock, Arkansas we found a partially decomposed "DEAD CAT" buried at the exact location identified by Geocach user "maddlove".
"maddlove" has several other geocaches listed in Little Rock and I would caution all users to stay clear of his geocaches"
That would indicate to me that they are new to caching, tried for their first find, and found the dead cat, so Its no reason to think that thier post is a suspect thread.
I think, like others have said, that the OP figured that the GPS would take you to the exact inch of dirt that the cache was placed.
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"INAPPROPRATE GEOCACH!" - I gave my son a new GPS unit for his birthday because he had gotten into geocaching with my brother and sister-in-law. On our first trip out in Little Rock, Arkansas we found a partially decomposed "DEAD CAT" buried at the exact location identified by Geocach user "maddlove".
"maddlove" has several other geocaches listed in Little Rock and I would caution all users to stay clear of his geocaches.
I think your big warning may have jumped the gun on this forum post.
Have you contacted the cache owner and asked if his cache was the dead cat?
It may just be a bad coincidence that the cat has been burried in the same vacinity as the cache.
We find that a cache is not usually at the perfect co'ordinates that are listed, and are often found upto 10 metres from the actual listed coords.
Check it out first, then if the cacher says "yeah, it is in the dead cats b*m" or something similar, THEN report the cache, and have his caches removed.
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I just find it funny that almost always on these kind of threads, the OP just starts the thread, throws a few justifications and then vanishes.
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I personally know a geocacher in Sydney Australia who is in a wheelchair (parapalegic) and manages to cache.
He has from memory 43 caches placed within 30Km of his home, and he visits each cache at least once every month.
The area where he lives in actually very hilly and he doesnt drive, so he wheels himself around in his chair, and catches trains or busses to his caches, and the caches he finds.
I will try to get hold of him so I can get his
GC name and post it here so you can see that there is not really any excuse . I also know of a cacher in Brisbane who only uses his bike to ride to caches. He has caches logged that are 900Km from his home, and whilst he may have caught a train or bus etc, he still ONLY rides as he doesnt have a vehicle
. So that is not any excuse.You manage to find the funds to drive to work and school but cant find the funds to spend on premium membership for ONE MONTH?
So, Im curious, what exactly are are you planning to do once you have found all them caches in the circle you described?
We have 7 kids at home and another on the way, Im now out of work due to a disability that is expected to last upto 2 years, but after a few months on geocaching, and seeing the benefits that premium membership offered just for pocket queries alone, we still managed to find the funds for a year (which was MORE in Aussie$$ than US$$).
Our first year is almost up (in august) but we have been putting away $1 per week for the whole of the last year, and now we have the funds to renew our membership.
It REALLY isnt THAT hard........ but it is REALLY annoying to see all the whiner's who try to justify their
whinge about not being able to afford it etc.I bet you have other things that would be considered luxuries (such as a cell phone, video games etc etc.)
But who am I to try to justify your inability to pay $3 for just one month or $30 for one year?
Like others suggested, if you didnt take the family out for just ONE meal in a year........
Or maybe you could ride a bike to work,
Or maybe the kids could car pool/ walk/ ride to school,
Maybe you could hand make presents for christmas this year instead of spending up big?
All that without even talking about the benefits that your PREMUIM MEMBERSHIP offers by keeping the site alive?
So, I REALLY hope that you can see, there is LOADS of alternatives to magically find the funds to get the premium membership, which is only going to allow you to find about 10-15 extra caches in that circle you defined earlier.
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Well, Im not sure what is going on but every time I try to add the 5th PQ to my list it says
"Sorry. You have exceeded the maximum limit of 5 queries per day for (day)"
I was of the belief that I could run a maximum of 5 per day, it says that on the page, but if we can only run 4 then that isnt 5 is it? So it seems to really mean is that we can actually run 4 PQ's but CANT run 5.
Does anyone else have this problem?
We dont run them all the time, and only run them when we need them (usually about once a month, when we are going to a different area), but if we cant run 5 like it says then why say it?
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oops, duplicate post sorry.
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It IS posible to upload maps to your VISTA CX reasonably easily.
I have this unit and limited tech'o knowledge of GPS and an average PC knowledge.
I have downloaded several FREE maps such as shonkylogic and Tracks4Australia, as well as free Aussie topos and have them installed to my VISTA CX with 2gb memory card.
It works well, Ive done over 40Thousand Km with this unit, mostly on my motorbike or in my car, and some in an ultralight plane.
Each time I install more maps or update them I use the original garmin MAPSOURCE software that came with the unit, open several windows and in each window I open the maps I want, then I copy paste them to the one window.
There is a help file in mapsource that basically explains it, there is also other GPS dedicated forums (GPS AUSTRALIA is a good one) where they will assist you with this quest. (sorry its too hard for me to explain, I just manage to do it)
Overall the VISTA CX has been a great little unit other than the rubber issues (see my signature below)
Sorry I cant be of more assistance.
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Nothing, no changes to anything really! lol
tftt (thanks for this thread) lol
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gsak
in How do I...?
any help please ???? when i got use filter only one cache comes back and i did 100 miles radious ?? and i got back caches from australia and I am in california ......????
Im assuming that since the GSAK program originates from Australia it uses Aussie default co'ords as the home location.
In your GSAK settings you set your home location, it is shown in the help file, and if that fails GSAK have their own forums to solve GSAK related problems. They are accesible from the GSAK homepage.
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One way to keep your cache from degrading is to place it at the end of a longer hike. I don't know why, but it seems that the people who find these caches tend to be better traders. It's not just the number of finds vs. an urban cache either. I have caches that have been in the wild for years and have had many finds and are still nicely stocked.
Agreed! We have our only cache located at the end of a forrest walk that is approximately 500mtrs, the cache is 30mtrs back from the river, and has been found by around 6 non-cachers during the boat racing festival. ALL of them posted a note saying that they took nothing but enjoyed the ideas of the game, and our chosen location.
Other local caches we know of that are only a short walk have been trashed and muggled constantly, to the point where 2 local cachers have given up and 2 local caches are now archived!
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A silly beginner question... Embarressed to ask but frustrated enough to do it...
I have an etrex vista that I bought on ebay. When I try to enter the cordinates of a cache from this site, the format on my GPS looks to be in UTM, but it is slightly different than the coordinates. The instruction manual has examples in the latitude/longitude format, but the GPS shows:
17T LE 38518
mgrs 44587
From what I have read, the first line looks like a partial UTM address, and the second line looks like the military grid system.
I am trying to enter the cordinates 17T E 385152 N 445873 ( I also have the cordinates in the LL format, but was trying to use the UTM because I was told it was better for geocaching).
Anyway, how do I get the coordinates entered? Is there a way to change to UTM mode? If not:
1. Why does the "L" show? Can I (should I) get rid of it?
2. The "first (E)" cordinates have 6 digits, but I can only seem to enter 5
3. I can't figure out where to "second (N)" coordinates, because it seems to enter it on the MGRS part.
Help? I'm lost...
Thanks
On the main menu select SETUP, then select UNITS, and in the POSITION FORMAT, select Hddd mm.mmm
Under MAP DATUM select WGS84
Exit from that screen any you can now enter co'ords in the usual format (ie: S 24 42.923 E 152 16.551)
Enjoy
. So that is not any excuse.
Buried and size question
in How do I...?
Posted
HUNTING:
We dont believe that you should restrict your hunt by only seeking regular sized caches.
TRUTH: Some DO find it easier to seek only the regular size caches at first, but on the other hand, if you leave it until you have hundreds of finds then will you ever bother with the smaller or harder caches?
Once you find the first few and get to thinking about where YOU would hide a cache in that location it becomes pretty easy to seek them out, regardless of size.
It REALLY HELPS if you have some idea of what you are looking for.
When we first started hunting we looked for several micro's but didnt always find them at first, most of the time it was because I (donald) didnt read the cache description properly or didnt look at the size of the cache.
Now that we use GSAK, we have discovered a way to add the description to the cache waypoint which includes the following in the "notes" section of the waypoint: TYPE & SIZE, as well as the DIFFICULTY & TERRAIN
Most of the micros we have found were in film containers or small lolly tins that had a magnet attaching them to a metal structure.
We have even found a few caches WITHOUT even having our GPS with us, simply by the description and hints, and we have also found alot of them without any idea of what we are looking for.
HIDING A CACHE:
We DO NOT believe that you should wait to place your first cache.
There are plenty of caches out there placed by cachers that are/were brand new at the time of placement. All you really have to do is to simply think about your hide and the potential that it may be found (and unfortunately, sometimes stolen or trashed).
Our first cache we placed (and currently our only placed) has been found by almost as many muggles as cachers. All have respected our cache, and written a log saying that they found it by accident, and liked the idea etc etc. We also have our regular sized cache clearly marked as WWW.GEOCACHING.COM and it is painted in camo colours. Without giving its location away, most cachers find it when they are about to "relieve" themselves lol. Its an easy find and is accessible after a short walk (about 800mtrs) to the waterline, and is also accessible by boat as well.
ACCURACY:
Our GPS (vista CX) is pretty close on the accuracy. I know what the specs say, and other posts also say that they are not that accurate, but we have almost always found that our GPS will take us to within a meter or 2 of the actual cache location.