James & Sheryl

THANKS I knew it was somewhere, just couldn't find it. JAMES

How far in advance do events need to be poisted?? JAMES

Everyone seems to compliment you on the MACRO, and it is cleaver. But what I found to be remarkable was the Tutorial itself. Very simple to understand, complete, and written in plain English. THANKS JAMES

Gc does a great job telling us how many caches there are, and how many logs are written, but my question is more about us. Can anyone tell me how many active cachers we have? How many in the US, and how many in Michigan? I'm sure this will have to be answered by someone from GC. JAMES

RUSTY in Michigan!!!

No way was the thread to say all micro's are bad. And to Jeremy, it's not possible to filter out the really lame micro's and preserve the rest. The more I think about it the more I like the idea of a finders rating system. What would be wrong with that idea. That would give us something to filter on. But I hold to my comment that an effort should be made to keep this a sport that interests the whole family, to lose that would be a major loss. JAMES P.S. I also believe in better containers, and better cache maintenance.

With the great explosion in micro’s, I think there is much damage being done to our sport. Look up the definition of a cache anywhere, on geocaching.com, on Michigan Geocaching.org or anywhere else, and you will see that a micro doesn’t fit the basic definition. Micro’s were only to be used where it was impossible to put out a true cache. If you read the forums on our state site, or on GC or on several other state sites, you see more and more discussion about states or area’s of states where it just isn’t worth caching, primarily because of the vast number of micro’s. I certainly don’t want to see Michigan on that list. I know that in certain parts of Florida and California we just put our GPS away, and we are not alone. Let’s look at why micro’s are becoming so prevalent. 1, They are cheap. To put out a good well stocked cache in a good container can cost about $10-$20 bucks, where a film canister with a scrap of paper costs nothing. 2, They are much easier to hide. You can hide a tiny thing almost anywhere, but to hide something larger takes more effort and thought. 3, It feeds on itself. A new cacher goes out caching, finds mostly micro’s and thinks that is what a cache is, therefore that person starts putting out micro’s. What is wrong with micro’s. 1, One of the reasons I like this sport, is that it is truly a family sport and many people cache with their kids or grandkids. The little ones aren’t very interested, in a film container. They like finding something with treasures. 2, They just seem to lend themselves to, cheap and dirty instant caches. Is it really necessary for every Wal-Mart in the country to have one in the parking lot. I at least seem to have no difficulty finding a Wal-Mart without a set of coordinates. 3, There just seem to be many more poor micro caches than regular. 4, The first micro I found in a lamppost I thought was cute, but once you’ve found a lamppost, do you need to find any more? I should say that I am not dead set against micro’s in general, and have done some very good ones. I have also done some really poor regular caches. But it seems there are many more poor micro’s than regulars. I should also state that my favorite type of cache is one that takes me someplace interesting, or teaches me something, or takes me to a beautiful place. What can be done to save our sport: 1, Maybe our reviewers should get tough on micro’s. Ask questions like, is there really no place for a regular cache nearby, is there a reason to even put this one out? 2, Maybe we are not too far from needing a rating system. Something like what you see on companies or products. One to five stars, rated not by the placer, but by the finders. Having the ability to search for “X” stars or above in pocket query’s, to weed out poor caches. 3, Maybe they will have to go the way of the virtual’s.

On this page how about adding (mine) to the travel bug heading, similar to the Geocache (mine). This would save a page when trying to get to your own TB's and would appear to be an easy thing to do. JAMES

When I started this thread I had no idea how involved the answer would be, or how interesting. Thanks for all your answers. JAMES

WOW, That is a lot of countries, Does anyone out there know how many countreis the world currently has????? James & Sheryl South Branch, MI

It's not a find in my book!!!

I have a cache that needs adoption. I have located an adopter, what are the steps required to put this cache in their name?

I'm not only not getting query's but no cache hit notifications, no new cache notifications, no e-mail at all. Sent myself an e-mail through the site and didn't even get that. JAMES

Sent myself an e-mail through the site and didn't get that either. JAMES

Was on vacation last week,but upon my return noticed that I didn't have any e-mail from GC. Some of my caches had been hit,didn't get my pocket Query,didn't get my weekly notification of new caches. Anyone else having this prob. JAMES

If you live somewhere near Avon and would be willing to adopt two caches, please reply. The caches are Avon Cache & Cache the View. These are both popular caches and it would be a shame to have to archive them. JAMES

If you live anywhere near Avon Co., and would be willing to adopt two popular caches, please reply. JAMES (The caches are Avon Cache & Cache The View)

Thanks for all the help looks like I will try to find a pda running pocket pc and try gpxview. How much memory should I look for??? And Clayjar since everyone thinks watcher is better than sliced bread is there any plans to write it for pocket pc?? From all I've read it looks like this would be the perfect solution to most pda geocachers. JAMES

Don't yet have a PDA but am considering one. Have read all the discussions I could find and still have questions. Help would be appreciated. I have downloaded Watcher and Mobilereader to my computer, and love the way they work. When you use a PDA do you download Watcher to it, and does it work the same way? Or do you use Watcher on your computer and then download the results to the PDA. Does it matter which operating system you have on your PDA, and is one better than the other. Is this like the beta vs vhs, or Miscrsoft vs Mac? Which seems to be the eventual winner? It seems that all the discussions on this Pocket Query, Pda are posted by and for people who already have a PDA and basically are technically savy. What I and many others need is a real basic primer. Much thanks will go out to someone who can explain this in simple language, and point me in the right direction. JAMES SKRENTNER

Looking for someone to help me log a locationless cache. Will require going to N52*31.700, and taking a picture. I am trying to log "Where's in a name GC3153" If you are willing to help I would love to hear from you. Thanks JAMES E-MAIL js-skrentner@ m33access.com

Looking for someone to help me log a locationless cache. Will require going to N52degrees31.700minuits, and taking a picture. I am trying to log "Where's in a name GC3153" If you are willing to help I would love to hear from you. Thanks JAMES E-MAIL js-skrentner@ m33access.com

Is there some way to search for caches if you know the name of the cache. And is there some way to search for caches in a new area if you don't know the zip code, other than the map.

Can anyone tell me how this sport got started and how this web site came to be?