giocatore

I had tried this before within the app whose name shall not be mentioned here, but I hadn't chosen the option to set the coordinates locally or locally and on the website. Therefore, I did not see the final on the map. Thanks a lot for telling me that it works - after having tried in vain, I thought that setting waypoints isn't the way to do it, at least not within the app. But it seems to work just fine if I pay attention to choose the necessary options. On the website, I don't see waypoints, it rather changes the original coordinates to the ones I entered, while giving me the option to restore the original coords. On the general map at gc.com, I see the mystie at its original location. It's just when I open the listing that the smaller map shows me the where final really is, according to the coords I've entered. In the app, the map shows me both the original location (normal mystie icon) AND the real final location I've added (mystie icon with small red flag), so I can differentiate solved mysties and their final position from unsolved ones (or original locations with manually added waypoints). Every time I come near a mystie with a red flag, I'll know that there's a cache to be collected. That's exactly what I was looking for - Thanks!!

Hello, I've been caching for a few months now and I still love it. My main cache type is - no surprise here - the traditional one. To add a few other types to my statistics, I'd like to solve and find a few mystery caches in the future. Using Groundspeak's app as well as another known app on my Android, I don't see a way to save unveiled coordinates of mystery cache riddles so that they would show up on the map that lists all available caches. In other words: When solving riddles of mystery caches, how do you remember that a specific cache has its final coordinates at a specific location so that whenever you happen to come near this place, you can go for the cache? Is there an alternative to noting down final coordinates/addresses in a notebook in order to look out for the mystery finals while on the go? Thanks for your suggestions! Alex

Thanks for your answer, this makes sense indeed! So the main advantage of stamps is not that you can spread stamped bugs around at the same time, but that you can "recover" a stolen, damaged or lost TB at no cost, right? Can I sign (in addition to my username) in logbooks using the stamp to be discovered, or is the answer the same as before, just one single location at a time? I guess that is the case, I'm just asking to make sure because I remember having seen an ad for such stamps where they tell you that you can/should use your TB stamp in logbooks too. But of course, they want to sell their stamps, so they try to make them look as useful as possible...

Hello, I've got myself a TB stamp and have already activated it. Let's say that I use the stamp on 3 (or way more) different cards that I spread in different caches as I find them, so that users can discover the stamp or retrieve it and drop it somewhere else. Imagine stamp 1 arrives in a cache in Germany, stamp 2 in a cache in the US, stamp 3 in a cache in Spain. Stamp 1 got dropped the latest, so the website displays Germany as last seen location for this TB. What if a user retrieves the TB in Spain but, when trying to log it at the Spanish cache's site, he can't find it in the inventory, as it is known to be in Germany? Would he just "grab" it from Germany and log it in the Spanish cache? On a side note, isn't it considered "cheating" to have a stamped TB that travels enormous distances just by getting logged in Spain and in Germany without actually travelling, or doesn't it matter at all whether accumulated distance is more or less honestly earned? I'd appreciate your answers to these probably quite basic questions - I've less than 30 caches "old", I still have to learn a lot Thanks! Alex

Thank you, fizzymagic. I remember having used km as distance unit on the site. I am not familiar with the details of GPS mapping and the different systems or ellipsoids and their differences, I never disliked maths or physics, but never dug deeper into it than necessary either I'm thankful that there are tools that do the thinking for me when it comes to calculations and your software seems to be very accurate indeed. I just checked the values I found using the projection tool in Locus and changed the values slightly so that the waymark Locus shows me is as close as possible to the actual final. I'll see how easily cachers will find my final using the bearing and distance data from the last waypoint. Thanks for having taken the time to answer, fizzymagic!

Thanks for your explanations, it's good to know that it works, even though it seems to be less intuitive indeed. I've already followed your suggestion to bring up the idea of a proper bearing/distance tool at Get Satisfaction. We'll see what they/Menion think. Thanks, I appreciate your help!

Thanks to both of you! Thanks to both solutions (website and software) I have found a "compromise" in distance and bearing that should get cachers close enough to my final. After all, the distance from the last waypoint should not be big enough to let minor errors result in important deviations. Thanks!

I agree, they should say something like "We know about it, we're working on it, it may take a few hours/days/decades to fix". After having paid for their relatively expensive app twice on different platforms (although c:geo is at least as good if not even better but hey, I wanted to show some support and although there is not even an iPad app!) and being a paying customer, I'd expect a LITTLE more here than just silence! I've just signed up a few weeks ago and have found around 20 caches only. My subscription is for 3 months. Let's see... Edit: Yes, I can access again, seems to be restored. I'll just forget about the way they handled communication here and continue to cache happily

Thank you very much! I'd have expected the so highly acclaimed LocusPro to offer such a calculation too, but in the end, I'm happy with any solution as long as it gets me the right values Again, thanks!

Hello, As a relatively new geocacher, I'm about to hide my first own cache. I want it to be interesting and ambitious enough, therefore I made it a mystery cache with a few stages. Between one specific stage (let's call it A) and the next one (B ), I'd like to tell cachers to go to a position in X meters and Y ° (distance and bearing). In order to find the correct values, they'll have to answer a location-specific question in front of stage A. Thereby I'll make sure that they really go there and don't do the whole solving online at home. Here's my question: Without using a protractor/L-shaped ruler, how can I measure the correct distance AND bearing between stage A and stage B? I have installed a few geocaching/map apps on my Android, and it seems that LocusPro is the most advanced one. When setting the starting point on the map at stage A and asking LocusPro to navigate me using the compass, it will give me a distance and a bearing, but the bearing depends of my own orientation in front of stage A. I'd need an absolute value in degrees though, as I don't know in what direction I should point my smartphone when in front of stage A in order to let LocusPro find the correct value in degrees. Shortly put, what's the best way to find distance and bearing between two points using a smartphone? Or should I better return to pencil, ruler and map? Thanks a lot for any suggestions! Alex

Thanks for all the good suggestions and for the explanations on how to enter a bearing in the ominous app. I probably could have found out by myself, but I haven't. Thanks!

Thanks, Braytography! I obviously hadn't seen the possibility to save caches for offline use within the official app. Thanks for pointing it out! As for the notepad, I'd be happy to know if they plan to bring it to the Android app too. I use Evernote very much and you're right, it will/would be easy for me to save notes there and to switch between the apps until they enable that option on Android to. Still, I think that because the whole game isn't exactly new and because they sell an app at (relatively) high prices, they should put in as much functionality as possible and as quickly as possible (of course not at the cost of quality) in order to make a decision for Groundspeak's app and against the "competition's" freeware seem more attractive. Evernote is a workaround, but when buying an app for 10$ and paying for a Premium membership, I'd expect the app to sync notes too and to be on the same level as the iOS app. Don't get me wrong - it's not that the price hurts. It's by principle - I wouldn't expect to sell much to already paying customers at a relatively high price if my product doesn't offer the same as or more than another product that's given away for free. But as we can see, I am among those "fools" - or let's say I am among those who paid in order to show his support. And hey, at least, it makes one feel good, doesn't it? Again, thanks for your answers, Condorito and Braytography!

Hello Condorito, Thank you for your answer! I can't find "notepad", nor anything comparable in the app on Android. I might have missed something, of course, but it seems to me that the iPhone version is different and - at least in this regard - more evolved than the Android version. It seems to me that the only way to do it would be to access the cache on the website from within the app and to read my notes there. The more I compare the two apps, the harder I find it to understand why people should buy the official app (at such an app price!) rather than c:geo. I bought the app because some user seem to think that it is better because of Pocket Queries and for Trackables, but it seems to be short of certain options that c:geo offers (such as bearing and distance input) and if the OFFICIAL (!) GC app does not let me sync notes with the official website, it may become more than just a little annoyance if I'm getting used to let's say saving my notes when solving long puzzles. Again, it could very well be that I'm just not seeing it - in this case I apologize for my criticism and I'd appreciate if someone could show it to me on Android. Otherwise, as it's too late for a refund, I'll probably leave a 3* (max, rather lower) review in Play store. If there wasn't a free alternative, users would have to cope with the shortcomings of what Groundspeak offers (I admit that c:geo doesn't let me sync notes either, but Groundspeak SHOULD!). It's not that the Groundspeak app is unusable (btw, I haven't found a way to save caches for offline use in case of bad cell connectivity - c:geo seems to offer this!), it's just that c:geo seems to be almost equally usable (if not even more in some regards) and with Groundspeak not even syncing all the necessary detail from their own website, I probably won't recommend the official app to others - regardless of the reasons why the free alternative shouldn't be talked about.

It's motivating to learn something new about how it works in general and especially to know that there's an e-mail notification when a bug gets retrieved or dropped. I'm looking forward to get my first bug travelling (with me) after logging it as "visiting" and to drop it during my vacation. Once again, thanks a lot for your helpful answers!

Thanks a lot for your friendly and beginner-friendly description, I'm really eager to learn I don't know yet how exactly I will see (get notified?) of a TB reaching its goal or any new cache, but the best way will probably be to try it out and see what happens Thanks also for the detailled laminating info. Laminating won't be a problem, but having the text resizeable and printready from the mission text on the website is helpful, of course. I really appreciate that you're answering! I know can imagine how frustrating it can be if newbies ask the same questions over and over again, questions that may already have been answered by others or even pinned to the board. Friendly greetings from Vienna, Alex

Thank you very much for your explanations! I am reading through the pinned topics of course and I try to build up knowledge by myself, it's just that with this first own TB, I wanted to make sure to do it correctly so that the bug will actually start adding up travel miles right away. As for the TB's mission, well, it's probably no surprise that it's idealistic to think that the bug would follow a given path before "vanishing". The idea is nice, nevertheless. Again, thanks!

Hello, I'm going to travel for a few days to another country soon and I'd like to leave my first TB in a cache that I'm planning to visit once there. A fellow user who doesn't really have much experience with TB told me that I should log in the TB in a cache at my place, then log it out again, so that the TB starts collecting miles going from my home town to the place I'm going to travel to. I understand the reasoning, I just don't know how exactly to do it. Should I just pick any cache in my home town (physically find a new one or pick even one that I have already found?) and log the bug in and out virtually on the website, then log it in again when I'm abroad, lifting the foreign cache I have in mind? Furthermore, can I simply add a laminated tasklist such as "this TB should travel to countries X,Y,Z", then return to my country (or to a bug near my place) ? What I don't get here is: How can I expect that the TB would follow the path I wish it to follow? Would people finding the TB, but not going to country X,Y or Z simply have to leave the bug in the cache until someone who goes to X,Y or Z finds it? Does this really work that way, or is it just an idealistic dream? I'd appreciate any explanation or link that could help me with getting familiar with TB. Thanks! Greetings from Vienna, Alex

Hello, I have asked this question in another thread, but a new topic is probably the right place to bring it up: Is there a way to add comments/ideas to a specific cache (both on the website and using the official app) and to sync these comments from one platform to another? Let's say that I have found out that a certain riddle alludes to a specific object but I can't go there right away, or that I want to keep track of my progress with solving an elaborate mystie. I want to remember this detail and I want to add it to the cache so that just I myself can see it (= without spoiling it for others), on the website as well as in the app when on the go. I have found out about bookmarks, lists and about personal notes that you can write and save on the cache site itself, but I haven't found a way to sync such an info to my Android phone (having bought the Groundspeak app, I'd have expected this to work). Somewhere I read that comments added to a bookmark should get synced along with a pocket query that includes that specific cache that I added to a bookmark list, but after downloading the query to my phone, I don't see the comment I had added to the cache on the website. I'd find this very useful and I guess that there must be some way to do it. I would especially expect this to be possible with the 10$-app, as opposed to the free alternative that we shouldn't talk about. Overall, I don't see many reasons for having bought the official app, except the idea of supporting the company (which I probably already do by being a premium member!?). Any idea would be appreciated! Greetings from Vienna, Alex

Thanks JohnCNA, You're right, I've just found out how to navigate with bearing and coordinate using that app. Yet another question have come to my mind, I should probably start a new topic for it: Is there a way to add comments/ideas to a specific cache (both on the website and using the official app) and to sync these comments from one platform to another? Let's say that I have found out that a certain riddle alludes to a specific object but I can't go there right away, or that I want to keep track of my progress with solving an elaborate mystie. I want to remember this detail and I want to add it to the cache so that just I myself can see it (= without spoiling it for others), on the website as well as in the app when on the go. I have found out about bookmarks, lists and about personal notes that you can write and save on the cache site itself, but I haven't found a way to sync such an info to my Android phone (having bought the Groundspeak app, I'd have expected this to work). Somewhere I read that comments added to a bookmark should get synced along with a pocket query that includes that specific cache that I added to a bookmark list, but after downloading the query to my phone, I don't see the comment I had added to the cache on the website. I'd find this very useful and I guess that there must be some way to do it. Any ideas would be appreciated! Edit: So far, I haven't really understood the advantages of the official app over the one we shouldn't talk about, maybe besides Pocket Queries. I've bought it because I wanted to give it a try and because it seems to be a moral decision (as the other app isn't officially supported), but I repeat that I doubt it's a good strategy to sell an app for 10$ if there's another app for free that does almost everything (or in some way even more!) than the official app. App prices are generally quite low and I find it questionable that a Premium user should have to pay - and pay this "much" - for an app instead of just sticking to the free and full featured alternative. A price around 5$ (at least for Premium users) would seem much more fair imho and wouldn't give a certain bad taste of a company that puts profit over functionality and over attracting as many happy customers as possible. Couldn't we expect that with a 10$-app notes and bookmarks would get synchronized along with the caches/pocket queries? Couldn't we expect to have tools such as bearing/distance that are there with the free alternative app? I don't go so far to say that I regret having paid the 10$ for an app doing the same or less than a free alternative, I'm just wondering what reasons a new user might have to buy the official app rather than to download the alternative if it's not for the ideal of supporting the idea - and the company of course. But I don't know about their costs, on the other hand, maybe they have to charge thousands (?) of users 10$ for the app and 10€ every few months in order to make a living and keep the system running. I'm in no position to be critical, of course, I was simply surprised when - as a new user - I saw the app's pricing in first place. I could simply imagine that they would sell the app to many more users if they would set the price at a fair level that would make it easier to buy the official app instead of downloading the free (and let's be honest: equally well, if not even better made) alternative app.

Thanks, niraD! Good to know that you can get a similar marge of error using a GPSr. I'll probably better start with easier caches, as pacing 60m or more in order to find a small, micro or nano cache would probably ruin the fun for me, at least now that I've just started. No doubt, with time comes experience and the ability to engage more challenging riddles. Thanks for sharing your backwards-method using Neongeo, I'll start saving every good advice or idea in my Evernote so that I can make use of it when needed! Greetings from Vienna, Austria, Alex

Thanks for your answer! My question was a theoretical one, so far, but I might have to use bearing some day. You're right, it's more elegant to use the brain rather than my digital assistant, but at least at the beginning, I think that I'd fear that walking 60 meters in a specific direction just with a compass in hand could get me a few meters off the target. That's why I wondered whether there's some assistance through an app. And there seems to be, as Braytography told me. But you're right, I'll include a (physical) compass in my GC-gear, it certainly won't hurt. Thanks!

Thank you very much for all the information! There are very different comments and views when it comes to a comparison between c:geo and the official app, it seems. Honestly, I found it a little surprising that one has to pay an affordable, but still RELATIVELY high price (compared to most apps in Play store) for the Groundspeak app, even as a Premium user who already pays on a regular basis. As for finding trackables, I haven't really found out how that works, on the GC website I've only found ones far far away, in other countries. I'll have to try again. If the official app helps with finding trackables and if the advantages are as numerous, I probably will buy it as a second app nevertheless. Regarding the bearing question I had, I figured that bearing and distance would be quite common for an indication to the next waypoint, hence I thought that some app might have implemented it. Of course you could take your compass and walk (approximately) 60m, but I doubt that it would be very accurate if I'd do that Again, thanks for your helpful answer! If someone else knows about apps that help with bearing, I'll be happy for every further information. Edit: I've just seen your "Edit" ! THANKS a lot!

Hello, I'm new at GC and have found 2 caches only so far. After having read as much as possible about GC and about different cache types, I wonder how I would proceed in the following situation: Using coordinates, I arrive at point A. There I find a cache telling me that in order to find waypoint B, I need to go 40° E for 65 meters. I've found out that c:geo can guide me using map or compass - with the latter, I see distance and bearing. But this seems to be possible if there's a coordinate to direct myself to already. What if there's no coordinate to the next waypoint and the only indications are distance and bearing? Is there a way to use c:geo to such a purpose? If not, can you recommend Android apps that can accomplish this? I've read about Locus but I haven't been able to find out if it lets you enter bearing and distance only to find the next waypoint. I appreciate your answers, as a new user I'm still learning and will be for a long time Thanks Alex