Fuchsiamagic

Popped in and had a look this morning and I think I have found the culprit. Have a look at http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid=98...7e-fdca8c8a71f6 Quote from their profile page - "We have been caching for some years but have only resently been loging our visits" What did I say?

I've just realised that two of the TB's you mention mysteriously appeared in one of my caches and three others disappeared from it at the same time. It simply looks to me like an unknown cacher simply didn't log their visit. Why else would they leave two new TB's if they were just out to steal them? I'll go and have a look at the paper log and see if I can identify them, then drop them an email. On several occasions I have had to instruct new cachers that they actually do need to log them in and out of caches on GC.com. Some of them had no idea that they had to do that and were just moving TB's about without recording them!

It all depends on why they went missing. If the cache they are in gets muggled, there's not much hope of it turning up again, but if someone fails to log it properly when moving it on, it will usually re-appear somewhere else eventually. Most of the TB's and GC's that I have lost have been due to having been picked up by a geocacher who then loses interest in the hobby and never places it in a cache again. A few polite emails sometimes works in this case, but not always.

17.9 miles for me in West Somerset.

I had 12 caches in South Wales planned for Saturday, but I only found four of them! Either the Welsh hide them very well or they've got lots of muggles! Spent the rest of the holiday sulking in my greenhouse!

I think you might be right. I had 7 geocoins out in the field and 4 of them have gone missing. TB's don't seem to be affected in the same way. It's hardly surprising so I'm not buying any more geocoins in future.

Most of what you need to know has been covered here, but the best way to learn is get out there with your GPSr and play with it! Mark some waypoints and go back and check their positions several hours and days later and you will see how the accuracy varies. Some days it will be spot on, others over 20 feet away. One point that was touched on is to enable WAAS/EGNOS if your GPS is capable. In addition to the 27 - odd GPS satellites which change their position regularly, there are three geosationary satellites orbiting the equator which your reciever can make use of if you can see the horizon. This will bring the accuracy right down, but remember the cache setter might not have done a very good job so in that case you will be wasting your time.

But some people enjoy finding 24 micros more than 4 regular caches. That doesn't make them fools, it just means they enjoy different things to you, doesn't it? Rgds, Andy Think about it this way. A friend asks you what geocaching is all about. You either explain how we get to search for hidden boxes out in the wild using the latest GPS technology and which have "treasure" in for the kids along with tagged toys and coins which travel all over the world and can be tracked on a map on the Internet. Stories of our search are written in a log for others to enjoy reading. OR You can tell them that we go searching for film-pots which have been thrown in a hedge somewhere and we sign a piece of paper to say we have done so. It's your choice alright!

Not at all, in fact, quite the reverse. You are highly unlikely to find a cache just by looking at a map, but if you do want to, you can zoom into an aerial photo to view the terrain. This can be used in making decisions about where to park and how you go about finding it. All part of the fun!

I used to carry a Canon EOS camera with an auto-focus 400mm lens in my backpack and wondered why my GPSr kept pointing in different directions! The lens has magnets and electric motors in it. As soon as I left the camera at home, it was fine!

A proposal - how about the Ignore List being able to remove the icons from the map as well? That would sort it out!

Excuse me if I'm missing something, but what is the purpose of an off-line log?

Try this link: http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.a...56-ff5b559fb2e6

http://www.gagb.org.uk/glad/

The Garmin page for the GPSMap60CSx is https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=310 It's a great unit, and does take rudimentary maps but you will need to get a Colorado or Oregan if you want OS maps.

Turn them into travel bugs!

Mesmerised Meerkat TB196FW is actually one of mine but just look at the map to see where it's been! Taran the Tarantula TB2ATHN is the best one I've moved on.

Well thanks for all your experiences, which are encouraging. I was beginning to get a bit paranoid. Maybe I've just had bad luck with mine.

Possibly, but I have taken this into consideration. For example of my own 18 caches, 10 are traditional and 8 are multi's or unknown. 7 have been muggled and all were traditional.

Over the past few months I have been checking the types of caches that are being regularly muggled and have come up with some interesting statistics. I have left out those caches from the calculations which have gone due to site clearance work or floods and just left in those which have simply disappeared for no apparent reason or have been vandalised. It seems that traditional caches, whether micros or not, seem to be the ones that disappear, and at a ratio of 5 to 8 times that of multi or unknown caches. This is also born out with my own experience over the last two years where 50% of my traditionals have been muggled, but no multi or unknown caches. This tells me something. Traditionals must be being deliberately targeted by someone who has the co-ordinates because they are easier to find. Does your own experience bear this out?

Set the criteria to "I haven't found", "I don't own" and "Is active". That should do it.

It worked great on the £20 PDA I bought from eBay two years ago and came in very handy out in the field on many an occasion - that is, until I upgraded my PC to Vista 64-bit. Now the Hot-Sync function is not supported.

Second time this week!

The co-ords are written in the bottom left hand corner of the picture - 36 06' 40.85 N 115 10' 22.532 W Elev 2109 ft.

Agree - it would be a rubbish cache!