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bunkerdave

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Everything posted by bunkerdave

  1. I might add, looking at the member list, there are 377 users who are currently premium members who signed up before me, so there are at least that many '01ers' still around, and that only goes through April. Another thing I found interesting, is that there were 2682 pages of premium members (viewing 50 per page). A little simple math (2682 x 50 x $30) and you get about $4.02 million dollars a year in gross revenue from memberships. Travel bugs, licensing, swag sales, geocoins on top of that. Wish I'd thought of it.
  2. Nice to catch up on the old days...and nice to see that some of those folks are still hiding/seeking. Man, those were the days. You really felt like an adventurer going after some of those old caches...and those old GPS units we had only added to the challenge. Great times.
  3. Helpful bunch, these cachers. I remember how excited I got when I figured out exactly what Coggins is showing you.
  4. bunkerdave

    Newbie

    I have a nuvi, as well as a CSx and a 550T, and whilke the nuvi is not the best for caching (if yours is like my 250W) due to the lack of a compass screen, and limited battery life, it will work. As was mentioned, the BEST way to do it is to subscribe to GC.com and get your pocket queries working, then get GSAK and the macro that was also mentioned. Having all the cache information for the caches you seek is even better (I think) than a few feet of accuracy. I would have recommended an Oregon, Dakota or a CSx for caching, but since you have the Nuvi, make the most of it. I have found a few caches with mine when I have left he others at home or was just in a hurry, and it worked all right. Welcome to the game, and good luck.
  5. welcome to the game...my mom and dad ride a bike similar to yours, so you've found a great way to see some new country. As far as knowing what type of road a cache is on, you can pretty much bet that the highways are going to be paved, and you can usually tell by looking at the map on your GPS. If it's a highway, or designated county or state road, it's probably paved (at least that's how it is here in Utah). The BEST way to tell is to copy and paste the coordinates into Google Earth and have a look. You can tell if it's pavement or not pretty easily from there. I don't know if you have an iPhone, but you can see what type of road you are going to be on with that, as well. Very convenient, if you are on your bike.
  6. I got a t-shirt for getting the FTF on this cache: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...=y&decrypt= Actually, the t-shirt in the cache had been chewed up by the local fauna, and was too small for me, anyway. The CO graciously mailed me a new shirt, in my size. I have used it many times as "urban camo" and have never had a single person ever give me any grief when I have worn it. Across the back, it reads "SALT LAKE CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT"
  7. Hahah....NICE. Man, that takes me back. MY first find was with my brother, and neither of us knew about the GOTO function in our GPS units. So we drove north until the latitude was close..then West till we closed in on the longitude..then North some more, then West again...took us probably an hour to find that first one, which was an ammo can under a bush in an abandoned sewage plant. The scrapes, cuts, and other injuries came later. Welcome to the game. Which GPS did you choose?
  8. I got into geocaching because it was a fun way to use my GPS. While I often curse this CO or that one, I still enjoy getting a new GPS and taking it out to see the advantages it has over the last one...I enjoy getting out in the fresh air, day or night, and just being outdoors. If I had my druthers, I'd be in the mountains or deserts every day of the year, but where I live, we spend a good portion of the year with snow on the ground. The urban micros have been around for some time (although when I started, they were few and far between) and I have voiced my feelings about the abundance, but every winter I go out and start finding a bunch of them because the better caches are impossible to get to without an epic journey. Get GSAK, and subscribe to GC.com. Then you can make caching exactly what you want it to be....more or less. Let me know if you find a solution to unmaintained caches.
  9. I guess I can see the CO's perspective, but I think the definition of the attribute needs clarification. Very few caches are inaccessible because of the season, if one has the means and ambition to go and get them. I think that what SHOULD be listed, is "This cache is hidden in such a way that winter snow or other weather conditions will not make it any harder to find than it would be in any other season." Most caches I have searched for around town are like this - hanging in a tree or bush, or a micro stuck to something with a magnet - but certainly not all of them. I have spent more time than I care to remember rooting around in snow looking for a cache...some I found, some I didn't, but it's never been anything I enjoyed.
  10. I have found quite a few micros that I didn't even bother signing. Like those little TINY nanos with the magnets in the bottom. I rarely eveny try to sign those, unless I can tell from the online logs that there will be plenty of room. All the unrolling/rolling of that little strip of paper tends to make it very fragile, and after a few dozen finds, there is rarely any room left to sign them. I haven't heard of anyone who owns these kinds of caches (or, for that matter, any micro) going out and checking the logs to verify finds, anyway, so to me, if they can't be bothered with maintaining their cache, why should I bother signing the log? If I were going for a record or something, I would be more concerned about it, but usually, I'm not. I agree wholeheartedly with the post that said that if the CO doesn't like the way people sign their logs with stamps or stickers or whatever, then they should hide larger caches with larger logbooks. I have a very few micros out there myself, but when the logs are full, I will either replace the logs (if it's one I really enjoy owning) or archive the cache. I remember when I started caching in 2001, there was ONE micro cache that I knew of, and it was pretty much the unanimous opinion of all the cachers I knew that it was a piece of crap, and an embarrassment to caching in general. Now there are tens of thousands of these around the world, most of them not much better - or worse - than that one was. I'd really like to see a limit placed on the number of micro caches a cacher can hide. I think it wouild improve the perception of the sport in general, and dramatically improve the creativity of the micros that remain. Sorry...don't mean to hijack the thread into micro-bashing...'nuff said.
  11. and a partridge in a pear tree. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) I did get a new GPS - to replace the one the 400T that was stolen from my Jeep...upgraded to the 550T, along with the newly redesigned windshield mount. It's great...has a ball and socket joint like the one that comes with the nuvi, but the arm is also vertically adjustable (or laterally, depending how you choose to mount the suction cup, which by the way is a zillion times more reliable than that crappy one that came with both of my 60CS(x) mounts. Got a eddie bauer survival kit. Got a pretty darn nice day for caching - for Christmas. Sunny, about 30 degrees. Got Settlers of Catan (to give me my exploring fix when I'm not up to going out caching) Got 5 caches logged with my girlfriend, who let me download Geocache Navigator onto her iPhone (almost as good as getting one myself, but without the huge cell phone bill.) Got really ticked off at cachers who don't maintain their caches no matter how many DNFs get logged on them!
  12. i used to have a little notebook I carried around in my pack that contained a lot of information from caching that I wanted to save...travel bug numbers, FTFs, solved puzzles, etc...I eventually lost that notebook, so I have no idea how many FTFs I had back then, and am not about to go back through all my logs to try to discern which ones I was first to. I do, however, still enjoy the race we always have to them around here. I do have a notification set up to alert me via cellphone when a new cache is published within about 5 miles of my home, so at least I know a new one is out. If I am already out caching, or sitting at home with nothing to do, or out doing something else, it's fun to get the "bat signal " and rush off to join the race. It's typical on such a hunt to run into another cacher or two, and often we end up sharing the FTF. Those are the best ones. In my opinion, FTFs are just another aspect of geocaching...another variation, like puzzles, multis, virtuals, events, or anything else that folks choose to do, or not, depending on what's fun for them.
  13. I have done parts of a few PTs myself...but I always ran out of time or just got bored before finishing. Maybe if folks would post the GC number of a cache from the power trails they know of? Since they do usuallyhave similar names, that should make it easy to find them. The longest one I know of in Utah has been mentioned, so I will let that one go.
  14. Not sure what all the fuss is about...we get white powder all over the place every November. Usually stays around until about April.
  15. Last year we did something almost just like this, only it was in an area that we knew was cache saturated (there is a cacher there who has over 10000 finds and well over 1000 hides) and in which I used to live, so I knew the area pretty well (or so I thought). I downloaded the entire area of caches, and scrubbed the list to include only caches that had been found failrly recently, were close to a road, had less than a 3 stars for difficulty and terrain, had no DNFs as their last log, and probably a few other criteria I donm't recall. I loaded the whole query into MapSource, and just connected the dots to make our route. We met up around 11:30 PM so I could load everyone's GPS with the same data so we knew we were all on the same page, and we met pretty much right by the pine tree the first cache was in. At the stroke of 12, we grabbed it, signed it, and took off for the next one. We were going along pretty well, averaging about 16 finds per hour (for you numbers junkies, that would be 384 in a 24 hour period) and then sometime in midafternoon we hit a wall. Just dead tired from no sleep the night before. We slowed down considerably, and I got to where, as the driver, i could just stay awake long enough to get us to the next cache, park the jeep, and would fall asleep until the other two got back in. We did stay out the full 24, but ended up with 234 finds, or just under 10 per hour. So, figure that in. I think that if we had really gotten some good sleep the night before, and had some "power-trails" in our hunt where we didn't have to do any searching (many of ours were bison tubes in pine trees) we could have very easily maintained an 18 cache per hour pace. Our best pace was at night/early morning, primarily because there were no other cars on the road (other than the two cops who wanted to see what we were up to) and we were still invigorated. The real trick is having your system down. Everyone has a job, and they do it, every single time, cache after cache. Our system was that we had a 60CSx on the dash, and each member of the team had one also. We had a laptop in the back seat with our route, so the person in the back could look at the map and see which cache we were going to next. He would call that out, and I would set a GOTO for that cache. By this time, our signer was usually back in the jeep, and off we went. While we were driving, the signer (riding shotgun) would check the logs for any hints, and read the hint aloud to the other two, so we all had all the information. Wehn we got to a cache, depending on whether we had already determined on approach where it was, and how close we could park, one or all of us would get out and find the cache. As sooni as it was found, the finder would hand it to the signer and indicate where it was hidden, and the two non-signers would head for the jeep. The signer would then sign the cache with the code name we had selected for the run (shorthand for all of us). When he was done signing, he returned to the jeep, where we were waiting with the next cache queued up. I can understand why some would have doubts about something like this, if they have never done it. When I went to Geowoodstock in 2008 there was a group there that had found 300 and something caches, and they had t-shirts and everything made up. I had my doubts, but "whatever." Then I was talking to another cacher who had gone into the very area where they did their hunt, just after they did it, and she mentioned that many of the caches they had found were nmot even replaced properly. They were open, on the ground, in many cases the logs were not even in the container, and in some cases they had just signed the container itself. Now , in case like that, if there were some official record-keeping body, I would disqualify them, period. If we had employed practices like that, I think we could easily have logged 100 more finds, but that's not how it's done. I only hope (and I trust to be the case) that you fine folks who accomplished this feat employed the best practices and ethics of our sport in doing so. All that said, way to go. I, for one, can appreciate what it took. How long did you sleep AFTER you got back to the hotel?
  16. I remember finding my first LPC, on 5-19-05, it was GCN4CP. I am surprised it took me that long to find one, since by then I had fully 4 years under my belt, although I basically took 2002 and 2003 off, and in 2004 I found quite a few, but was still "urban-averse". I thought it was funny, as well, and I still can't say I "mind" LPCs...they are what they are, quick, easy grabs to get you to go someplace new, and I usually have a newbie with me when I find them anyway, and they always get a chuckle out of them. As for film containers, I'd have to toss this one in the hat: GC21A "Brian's Urban Mini Cache". This was a film container with (I think) a quarter and a marble and a sheet of paper rolled up and folded inside it, and hidden in the middle of a vacant gravel section of a grocery store parking lot, covered (I kid not) by a hunk of concrete. It was the worst cache I had seen up to that time, and still is one of the top 5, at least. The only ones that come close are the small ziplocs I have found that are wrapped in electrical tape, with a little sheet inside for a log. Or the pen i found that was stuck in a road sign with a piece of paper rolled up so tightly only an elf could have pulled it out. I did find a cottage cheese container a few years back, too. That was pretty crappy. But I guess the fact that in almost 9 years and 3400 finds, I can still recall the when and where of the crappy ones is some kind of props to cachers in general. I sure can't recall all the good ones, as there are far too many to count.
  17. Go to the GSAK forums and get comfortable with PQs and the macros for the Oregon. They are really quite simple to run, most of them are plug n play. You can probably find a way to do what you want with some of those. You might also consider getting a nuvi...I am finding that I really like having all the caches for my state loaded on my Nuvi AND my Oregon as POIs, so that I can have BOTH and and off-road going simultaneously. Since the nuvi automatically moves the nearest caches to the top o the list without needing a refresh, it's nice to just have it on the dash showing direction and distance to caches as I drive around. Nuvis are cheap...you can easily get one for around $100.
  18. Go here: http://gsak.net/board/index.php?showtopic=...amp;#entry90622
  19. Devices like the iPhone will overtake Garmin long before Delorme. All the iPhone 3GS needs is the ability to store data offline (I am not sure it doens't already do this by saving PQs) and a better compass navigator and it will be far better as far as cache data management than anything else out there. I am now running a 550T and its been terrific, just like the 400T I had before it. The data show that geocachers are a very small segment of GPS users. THe vast majority of GPS users are drivers who just want directions without asking for them. Look at the number of road navigation GPS units vs the number of outdoor recreation GPS units in Garmin's and Magellan's product line. On top of that, what's with that TINY screen on the Delormes? I predict that all Delorme users will be blind from eyestrain within the next 5 years. Geocaching functions are a great thing...Garmin did that in 2004 with the 60CS, and has never looked back. If you haven't seen the Geocaching functions on the Oregon/Colorado lineups, you really don't know what you're missing. Oh - and the 550 holds 5000 caches as PQs (besides the 50000 I loaded as POIs). Magellan is twisting in the wind. Bought a Triton 2000 recently to see how it would do, and hated everything about it....except for listiening to music and watching MP3s. It went back to the store. Lastly, customer support. I don't know what it's like with Delorme, but I know very well what it's like with Magellan (nonexistent). Garmin's is awesome. Serioualy, a model of customer support. Every time I have needed them (and every time it has been my own fault I did need them) they have been very helpful, reasonable, and responsive. I even wrote them once just to ask them if they had any t-shirts or hats I oculd buy to give away at one of our club events, and they sent me two hats and two shirts - for free. Honestly, I don't understand why anyone would spend their hard-earned money on any other GPS. I love the iPhone with the GC app, and since my girlfriend got hers, I have found it very useful and convenient, but any real geocacher carries a real GPS. And in my book, that means a Garmin. That's like buying something to go off-road that isn't a Jeep. IT just doesn't make SENSE.
  20. Best way to do it is to use the 'search near' function (when you see a button at the bottom of the screen that looks like a bullseye, touch it and it will give you a list of all the kinds of waypoints and POIs you have in your GPS. As long as you have a location in area 2, you can find which caches are there. Of possible interest might be the GSAK macro for CO/OR/Nuvi that will load a database of caches as POIs. I just loaded 13000 caches into my 550T yesterday, and it breaks them out by type, including separating traditional caches into micro, small, regular, and large. You can't use the geocaching functions with POIs, but you still have ALL the cache information.
  21. The 60CS and CSx models will hold 1000 as geocache waypoints. I have loaded over 20000 as POIs, and there appears to be virtually no limit to the number that can be loaded in this manner. It's a little work, but well worth it. My Oregon 400T holds 2000 as pocket queries. I also load the POIs, and have every cache in Idaho and Utah, plus a lot in CO, AZ, and WY...probably around 30000 loaded as POIs. I just ordered an Oregon 550T, and it is supposed to hold 5000 as pocket queries. I will do the same POI upload as in the 400T, and I expect it to hold at least as many. Difference between loading as waypoints vs. loading as POIs is you can't edit, delete, or use the geocaching functions on a POI. You can still navigate to it, but if your GPS has dedicated geocaching functions, they will not work when navigating to a cache loaded as a POI. Since I log all my caches either with textmarks or an iPhone anyway, that is not an issue, and is a minor inconvenience, considering the POI tool allows you to load entire states at one time.
  22. Yep..that's exactly how I use the iPhone too. I have a netbook with broadband internet that I take everywhere also, so if the iPhone is not available, I just do a quick Pocket Query and load all the nearby caches in the Oregon when I am ready to go caching. It's not quite "real time" like the iPhone, but close enough. That said, I still love the up-to-the-second data, the satellite maps, and logging on the go that we get from the iPhone. Sure, I can do all that with the netbook, but as small as it is, it's still too big to carry around (although I have been known to do that from time to time, also.) I am interested in knowing why people use the GPS units they use. That usually reveals the most valuable features of any given unit, and sometimes there are functions unique to that unit that you really don't get anywhere else. Like with the PN-40 and the satellite images, for example. (personally, I think the iPhone does this MUCH better, but that's me) I borrowed a friend's Triton 2000 for a while, and while it had some cool bells and whistles (most of which had nothing to do with the GPS) I hated it for geocaching. But, I know many cachers love it, too. I'd be interested to hear why. Not that I am about to go out and buy another one, but it's nice to know what I might be missing.
  23. I guess I am to blame for padding a lot of numbers...I have upgraded many times, and have yet to sell or give up a GPS. To date I own my original Magellan Map330, a 60CS, a 60CSx, a Garmin iQue, a Garmin Oregon 400T (recenly stolen) a GeoMate jr., a Nuvi 250w and a Oregon 550T (on the FedEx truck, as I type this). I have found at least one cache with all of them, and have used other borrowed units just to see how I liked them. Interesting to see the numbers on the iPhone. I have used one (my girlfriend has the 3GS) and we use it all the time. I can't say I am impressed with the compass function, however. I love the app, love the maps, love the connectivity. It is simply amazing to have such access to the GC.com site from a phone. I was using my 400T on hunts with her, but the nice thing was that she would have the phone out, and have the satellite map, and latest logs/cache status right in front of her. Can't tell you how nice it is to be heading for a cache I had in my Oregon, only to have her inform me that the cache just went inactive earlier that same day. What's more, while I am rummaging through the cache and signing the log, she's logging the cache online! Not a fieldnote, which I have been doing for a while from my phone via textmarks, but actually logging the cache. I think the days of Garmin being the leading seller of Geocaching GPS are numbered. I will always use a dedicated GPS to geocache, and I am pretty sure that GPS will always be a Garmin, but as soon as my contract with Verizon is up in April, I am getting an iPhone, and the first app I will download is the Geocache Navigator. I really donm't see why it needs to be an either/or question. If one does one thing better, but the other does something else better...just break open your kid's piggy bank and get both!
  24. Well...I got my 400T last year as a christmas gift to me from eBay, Microsoft, my parents, and myself, and just last week the cruel gods decided it was time for me to upgrade - by way of a car burglar who took my beloved 400T, but surprisingly saw fit to leave my 60CSx and Nuvi 250W. Sooo..this year I am giving myself a 550T (just couldn't see not upgrading, what with the camera and all. After a very little bit of research, it appears that the advantages to the 550T over the 400T are: Camera (obviously) holds 5000 caches from PQs (2000 in the 400T) Larger internal memory (?) hi-speed USB 3-axis compass It also sounds from these posts that there are several dashboard OS upgrades from the 400T that (if I understand correctly) are not available in the 400T? I had requested the addition of a button to the compass page to go directly to the cache description page several months back, and it sounds like there was enough clamor for this that it was added. Gotta love it. Given the design of Garmin's own carabiner clip, the 180 degree screen flip option seems like a no-brainer. I don't use the carabiner, as my GPS is either zipped in a pocket or in my hand (or in the hands of the meth-head who stole it) but I think I would if the carabiner option were more usable. This will be my 5th upgrade in GPS since I started caching with my Magellan Map330...those were the days. I must say, we've come a long way, and every change I have made (primarily the one I made to Garmin from Magellan) has been for the better. I am excited to try out the recommendations and tips posted here when my 550 arrives tomorrow. Thanks for a lively and informative thread.
  25. I just updated my firmware on the OR 400T, and they have added an option to have FOUR data fields on the map screen. Very handy. I set mine to show my Speed, Waypoint at Destination (Name of the cache) the pointer (so i don't have to switch between the map and compass screen (especially handy when getting close to a cache in the car) and the distance to destination. Pretty sweet. I was hoping they would do this. Now if I could just put a pointer/distance field on the Description screen, too!
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