egami

Yeah, looks like a firetack, used by people to create a trail they can find in the dark for various reasons....geocaching, hunting...

Mine has about a half mile range. However, one can increase the range of your "remote" by placing the hand held under your chin and whicle pressing it lightly against your chin, hit the button. Increases the range about 25% as has been my experience. That's slick...I figured they'd more along the lines of a regular keyless entry remote.

If you read the guidelines for placing a cache you'll see there are some specific controlling entities mentioned that are clearly off limits. One example, I believe, is USFW land. Best practice if you want to place a cache is to contact the park manager to get the specific rules for the specific area.

I make that point here constantly regarding public propert...not sure what you read that would insinuate I ever thought that. As far as skirt usage...I used to feel the same way regarding potential damage, but the ones I have seen that have had many, many visitors are all in good shape, so I don't have a problem regarding that anymore. Not all are created equal though and if I thought one was in potential position to have wear issues I'd probably approach the owner about it. Permission should always be sought when the circumstance dictates. Sorry you miscomprehended whatever I wrote that you felt stated otherwise.

I put a new story up on our blog that explains the whole story. Just curious if anyone has ever run across anything similar in their travels. Don't know exactly what it is yet. We are going to maybe write a letter to place in it, but there isn't a stamp of any kind, so I am thinking it's not a letterbox. What other interesting things have you found out while caching?

Here is our story. I'll go back at some point and get a sample of all the letters that are in there.

Thanks, I've read this, but I am sure most are unaware of the change...unfortunate, but necessary I am sure.

Just guessing that it's because there are dozens of attributes people want and you got to draw the line somewhere.

adequate Firefox, ftw.

What about those in public parks? Public parks, public recreational areas, are generally ok...I would make the distinction however that you should be careful and still avoid USFW and other known entities that have policies against geocaching because they still apply those rules to their parking areas. At least, the refuge here I know takes an "across the board" policy.

Ohh, you mean we're supposed to be using GPSr's?

The difference is that private property caches always REQUIRE express permission of the owner. Caches on public lands may or may not require permission depending on the rules and regulations of the managing agency. Good point that I think often gets ignored or overlooked...there are vast number of differences between public property....ROW's, public parks, military bases, wildlife reserves...it's definitely not all "equal".

People always seem to miss that they can preview the data. That gives immediate results as many times per day as you want. To actually GET the data to your in-box, that's what goes to your pocket. Query all you want, but only take 2500 caches per day to your computer. Yeah, I figured that part of it out fine. I guess I am saying that prior to researching and understanding what one is I assumed I'd be able to actually run the query on the fly in my pocket, but in actuality it's just the results of them you get in your pocket. Just a technical hang up from my occupation versus the layman's nature of the term here. That's a great point you bring out though...I've showed 3 or 4 people I've helped introduce to geocaching that they could do that. Personally, I wish it showed you the results by default...

That's similar to the method I use. I'll also check the coordinates at least once at a later date when I am at the cache.

Ditto. Maybe if was a memorial type thing about a relative or former cacher or some possible exception that could maybe be considered tasteful and respectful. Generally, I'd say it's a bad idea.

I'd probably start by e-mailing the owner. But I've seen the posted before. One cache the owner pretty much edited that they knew the original coords were off and they didn't have time (or something) to get them, so someone had posted their new ones and all was good.

I agree with you, but knowing some stunts DNR pulls in this state I would not at all be shocked if given the opportunity would take a cache like this if it violated the firewood rules. I haven't read through the DNR listing, not sure what they are actively enforcing or not enforcing, but I could see them saying essentially "call it what you want, it's firewood in my eyes".

The charter that gives you your athority very likely has a "rule" in it that allows for your judgment regarding the items I put in bold in your post. That's the law or regulation you are going to stand on if challenged and it's what lets you do your job in circumstances that are not so clear cut. These weasel words are a part of a lot of the rules that folks with authority to enforce laws and regulations are given to work with. Needed, but potentially abused. I'm thinking that I should have addressed this responce to Confucius' Cat, since this is nothing you don't already know. Well, just to clarify, that was years ago...I haven't actively been in any type of law enforcement or security for over 10 years. And I will carefully admit, as I did before, that I am no expert on the "legality" side of it. However, it seemed to me that CC was essentially arguing that if it's "legal" and if there is no "official rule" by a university then any action by security averting a geocacher was likely an infringement on their rights. I think from you previous post to this one that we probably agree on this particular situation. And, you bring up a fair point about abuse...I am not trying to imply the security or law enforcement can do as they please or even rule on whether caching can be allowed on the premises of a university or not. Their job, in it's simplest form, is safety. I think in most cases public universities, and private for that matter, would willingly work hand in had with geocachers to help allow this activity on the premises. I know Iowa State does. I assume University of Iowa does. I know a couple local private colleges that do. I am sure there are probably some limitations as well...like not in the stadiums for example.

By definition military bases are public property and not all military property is fenced in. I don't see people using the it's public property argument in claiming to have to have the right to place caches on military controlled property. True, but I deliberately avoided that example per current limitations in place with military installations.

What the heck? Why can't you transport firewood? How else do you get it from the wood lot to your house? My impression of this law from talking to DNR is that these laws are starting to pop up due to transporting across state borders. Haven't heard of it within a state...would be interesting to hear if that's the case.

Yeah, it amazes me how often I see the cloud cover myth mentioned... Clouds specifically don't affect GPS accuracy that much, but the entire atmosphere the signal is passing through does. An overhead satillite's signal travels through less error inducing atmosphere than one near the horizon. This is the main reason that even the miliary and land surveyors can only get +/- 5 metre accuracy with only a single GPS receiver, so 20' accuracy is indeed good. To get results better than that, either the readings need to be taken for long periods of time and then averaged (Static GPS) or be compared with another independent GPS unit measurement from a known point to compute a correction vector (RTK or Post processing). With either of these methods (and big $$$) the accuarcy is down to a couple centimetres. I know...I do some elementary, basic level presentations on occasion about GPS and other technology to kids. I was more commenting on just the nature of how common that misconception still seems to linger.

Do you have source for that claim? I would think the processing power of the GPS is relatively steady until it just plain didn't have the juice to power them. My friend and I have been standing next to each other with identical units and differing power and have almost the exact same readings, but we've only done that a time or two. I've had direct experinece with weak batteries causing a warm start to just not happen at all. Just a few seconds later after waiting a couple minutes trying to get a warm start with 90% dead batteries and replacing the batteries with new ones cause a warm start just to occur in the expected time of 5-30 seconds. Now as for Magellan vs. Garmin, I can say that Magellan firmware has a rubberbanding issue which will cause you to sometimes be up to 200 feet away from where you actually are. Check a link in my profile for info on that and how to avoid the issue altogather. ALL people with Magellan Golds, perhaps all Meridian series, perhaps all Magellan GPS's altogather should read that info. I would fully expect weak batteries to be somewhat problematic...it seemed like maybe the poster was implying that accuracy fell at a parallel rate to your battery life versus a spike of inaccuracy at the end which I'd expect, but re-reading that it maybe wasn't what he meant. I was just curious if he an actual study link...also like reading data that bores most people.

Yet, it's still a valid card to be played. It's unfortunate that people may use it in that manner, but conversely it's not their fault that those percentage of caches slipped through the system either. I don't see it as unfair for people to mention it though...particularly in a thread where someone is new to the game and maybe hadn't considered it. But, you're right...it gets played somewhat out of convenience. Myself, while I agree the permission aspect, it's just personal preference of mine that these caches weren't allowed. Hence my comments as such and avoiding the "permission" aspect as the crux of my opinion.

What I want to know is why the heck wasn't the train showing on the GPS?! I mean, DUH!