DENelson83

Sep. 31st? That made me do a big double take. An extra leap day? Who would'a thunk it?

Due to the absolute political lockdown of everyday activity in North Korea, geocaching is unheard of, and completely out of the question there. You're not even allowed to bring in any sat nav device. And don't expect that situation to ever change in your lifetime. That is all.

You can find a servicable GPS for less than that. A new eTrex H goes for 90 bucks and you can find some very good GPS units used for as little as 30 dollars on Ebay. Just check here before buying something because the regulars can tell you which used units are worth the money and which ones should be avoided. Plus, there's the geomate.jr. They go for about $70.

GCD is the first published, non-archived cache in the database. GC0000D should also refer to that cache, but it doesn't. Maybe Groundspeak should change that.

The characters that are valid in a GC code are the digits zero through nine and all letters of the Roman alphabet, except for the letters in the name "Louis". You know, I think that, for consistency purposes, all GC codes less than 7 characters in length should be completely retired, and replaced with 7-character codes with enough leading zeroes after the "GC" part, so GCAAA, for example, becomes GC00AAA, and GCAAAA becomes GC0AAAA. Edit: Thanks, sTeamTraen!

"I couldn't think of a witty comeback, so here's a geocoin instead."

Exactly. Turn their display on the map off and on.

I don't know. I think it would raise privacy issues for some people. I believe they would have to opt in first before their location was shown on the map.

Do you spell it out as "dee en ef", or do you pronounce it as a word? If you treat it as a word, how do you pronounce it? I say "doonf". Edit: Yes, yes, yes, I know you can also expand it to "did not find".

Thanks for your advice. I tried this for a point on my office desk taking 8 averages, each done over between five and ten minutes using the averaging function of BeeLineGPS. The following image shows the results of the 8 averaged co-ord sets plotted on Google Maps represented by a black dot and the actual location according to Google Maps shown as a larger, red dot. I've also included a scale (measured on the ground and transposed to the plot). Note that 5m is over fifteen feet and HDOP was between 1.5 and 5 during the test. IMO, even averaging the averages isn't good enough! Well, the thing is, you were indoors. To get the best results, you should have been as far above that location as is needed to get a clear view of the sky, such as, yes, on the roof of your building.

Dagnabbit! You had me thinking that Garmin had come out with a new model of GPSr called the "Houston".

If you want to use a bullet case for a micro-cache, why not paint it a fluorescent colour to assure people it's safe?

The best way to get coordinates for a geocache is to first place the cache, then put the GPSr directly above the cache (opposite to the direction of gravity, maintaining as clear a view of the sky as is available for your GPSr), mark a waypoint, average the coordinates over, say, ten minutes, then save the waypoint. It's basically the same thing as placing horizontal geodetic control points (i.e. benchmarks—see the GEOCAC experiment), except with benchmarks, the averaging is done over a much longer period, and other methods are used to reinforce the coordinates. What geocachers are essentially doing when placing caches is a very crude analogue of surveying. If you feel a geocache you're looking for has lousy coordinates, post a "needs maintenance" log for that cache asking for the coordinates to be verified. That's what the "update coordinates" log type is for.

Simple. It gives me a productive—well, to me, anyway—reason for me to use my GPSr. Plus, it's getting me some well-needed exercise.

We have one of those in our area (GC[redacted]).

No....I disagree. If you're not using any paper to go geocaching, then by definition, it's truly paperless.

Sort of related to bushwhacking, except you're walking along a trail or through an open space, and your head or other part of your body keeps running into spider webs. Do you webwhack often while geocaching?

I use GSAK and my XCWCS for that. You might have a bit of a learning curve with GSAK, but once you master all the features you require, it's quite easy to use.

Or you can just use the "other" size option.

Main Menu, "Setup", "Geocache". What icons are "found" and "not found" set to?

What I want to see is caches on my ignore list not showing up on the map unless I choose to have them shown.

I either let my GPSr dangle from my neck or put it in my pocket. I have a long enough lanyard on my GPSr that allows me to have it around my neck and in my pocket simultaneously. Sometimes, however, I consult the GPSr's clock while signing, because I always include the time of day at which I found the geocache in the log.

What airplanes need is a dedicated, electromagnetically isolated network of wiring emanating from a GPS antenna on the roof of the plane, which personal GPS receivers can be plugged into for an excellent fix.

GPS can be degraded drastically just because one satellite is taken down for maintenance? Uh-oh!!!

cnp?