JohnnyVegas
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Posts posted by JohnnyVegas
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The kids and I were bitten by the geocaching bug a few months back after reading about it in the July 2013 issue of RACV's (the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria) Royal Auto magazine. We've been geocaching almost every weekend since, using c:geo on a cheap Huawei smart phone. This set-up has been reasonably successful, and relatively easy to use, but the accuracy of the Huawei's GPS seems to be somewhat questionable, especially in the wooded areas along our lovely Goulburn River, and the display is quite difficult to see in bright sunlight.
I've been thinking about purchasing a GPSr, and was attracted by the specs of the Oregon 600. I can pick one up from Johnny Appleseed for AUD $395 shipped, but I'm going to have a hard time justifying a spend of approx. AUD $400 to my missus. So the Oregon 600 will have to stay on the wish list for a while... I'm looking at a choice between the Oregon 450 and the Etrex 30 instead (which I can pick up for around AUD $299 and $250 respectively), and was hoping for some advice.
I think I'm a touch-screen kind of guy (although I've only just migrated from a button phone to a smart phone this year). However, I've heard that the Oregon 450's display can be a little difficult to see in bright sunlight compared to the Etrex 30's display. In addition, the Etrex 30 looks like it might be a little more rugged and therefore more suitable for my kids to carry. But I'm concerned that I'm going to shell out for the Etrex 30, and then later find myself cursing that I didn't go for a touch-screen when I'm trying to enter coordinates or scroll through menu options.
I'm not really interested in a camera, but I use the compass function in c:geo a lot, so an electronic compass would be handy. GLONASS is not necessarily a must, but any improved accuracy over my current set-up would be nice.
At the bargain-basement end of the scale, I was at Dick Smith's today and they have the Magellan Explorist 110 for AUD $98. I see that it doesn't have a compass, or the ability to add maps, or an SD slot, but thought it might be worth giving it a try for the price. However, I've read reviews that the joystick / enter button combo is a bit sticky. Two questions I have about that unit: 1) I read a review that said that you can use the "Send to GPS" function on Geocaching.com to get caches onto the device (but I thought that only worked with Garmins?), and 2) is it possible to update the basemap on this (or any other) GPSr, or are you just stuck with whatever is loaded onto the device at the time of purchase? DS also have the Etrex 10 for around the same price.
I'm still leaning towards the Oregon 450 or Etrex 30 though. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I have been around geocaching for a long time and I have seen many people get into caching for a few months and then move on to other activities. I would recommend not spending more than $200.00 US. then once you are sure you are going to stay with caching for a while maybe a year down the road, then upgrade. The ability to find a cache with a $200.00 GPS vs. a $400.00 GPS is about the same. Sure the more expensive GPS will have more features but they are not really needed. Look at an entry level Garmin or Magellan.
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Cell phone hides, no thank you. I have friends that have both smart phones and GPS'rs. They all have told me that cell phones are not accurate enough.
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It is called a free market economy. The sellers prices the merchandise at what they think they can sell it for. Then the buyers shop around for the lowest price they want to pay for the merchandise.
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I only have a few caches I've hidden but as a cache owner I hate logs. No matter what you do to seal them up, they get wet, torn, and don't fit well in Nanos. I keep thinking there has to be another way.
I understand the purpose of the logs is to able to verify that someone who has logged a find online actually found the cache. My question... How many cache owners collect the logs and verify them against what's posted on line?
I was thinking about another way to do it, where a person has to find the cache and in the cache is a number they combine with their user ID and run through an online app which uses encryption or a hash to generate something unique that can be posted as proof that they found the cache?
Any thoughts?
Z
That is what is wrong with nanos, Why not try hiding a larger cache
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IDK but i feal like if you hide a bag as a geocache it is good for the numbers, but how well do they hold up. same with lpc's they get muggled all the time.
im not shure if this works any better, but if you add a strip of duct tape arround the seal of the bag will it help it better in the long run from ripping???? i have no clue on this one? dose someone know???
thanks!
Fart Knocker!
pill bottles make for bad caches. In most cases I have had to use a leatherman tool to get the bag containing the cache out of the bottle. After a few finds the baggie is ruined. Places like Tap's Plastic sell little plastic cans that are only 25 t0 50 cents each that make a better container.
The other container that suck are Altoids containers, they rust up in the rain and they are not water proof but cachers keeping using them, (Maybe lots of cachers have bad breath) ;-)
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I keep seeing folks that have found over 960 caches in a single day. That's a cache every 90 seconds.
C'mon, even Santa Claus doesn't move from house to house that fast without burning up due to friction with atmosphere. What's the secret?
I don't believe it either. No one has ever provided substantial proof.
There are videoes out there of people speeding from one cache to the next, 0.1 miles apart, aka power trails. Each hide is the same, & is EZPZ. Driver stays in car, passenger dashes out& signs.
About as much fun as working at McBurger at lunchtime. 
I did a few powertrails (ugh) when I first started out geocaching and was utterly disappointed at how lame and uninteresting they are. Then I realized they are specifically there to boost the count finds of the numbers cachers. To me, power trails are crap, but I suppose the idea of finding a film canister under some rocks every 528 feet in a rather uninteresting area is considered fun to some cachers.
There's a powertrail nearby my area which was designed with speed in mind. It's intended to be completed by bringing with you one film canister with a log that has your group's signature on it to start. What you're supposed to do is pick up the container at #1 and drop yours. While driving to the next one which is of course just 528 feet away, whoever's not driving is signing the log sheet in the container picked up from #1. Upon arriving at #2, you pick up the film can you find, and drop the film can from #1. You repeat this process almost 200 times. FUN FUN FUN
Hard to believe that these types of PTs exist all over the place. It's disappointing. Everybody needs them some numbers, right?!
I have done a few power trails in my area but not all the hides where the same, but several of the hides where illegal but that is another subject
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Surprisingly there are a lot of caches out there that are ignored by the owners. I have run into plenty that where neglected to the point of being trash.
when I find a cache that is in poor shape I will try to repair it I carry extra logs in baggies, tape, camo tape and a few other items. Now if I find a messed up cache and read that the cache owner has not been to the web site for a long time I post a SBA, as I did a few days ago.
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We use to check on the caches we owned as soon as there was a DNF log as we didn't want someone to go look for a cache & it was in fact gone & most of the time it was there right where we hid it, but with gas prices we started checking on our caches once they have gotten 3 DNF log's. We have some caches that have gotten just 1 DNF and the Reviewer in the area has Disabled them because of this. Sure a few of them have that 1 DNF that got that log a year or so ago but that doesn't mean it's not there. We thought this was all for the thrill of the hunt, not have a arrow at ground zero pointing to the hiding spot. Yes, We know it's up to us cache owners to keep check on our caches, but everytime someone can't find it & cries wolf? We think not. What you all think on this matter?
After one DNF is not right even if it has been a year. When I see a DNF on one of my caches I look at the profile of the cacher that is posting DNF and unless they are very experience cachers I do not give the DNF any attention. Now some of my caches are even hard for me to find so unless a cacher has 500 finds in my book they are not all that experienced. This might appear to be harsh but with so many easy drive ups such as Lamp post hides,park bench hides, telephone pole crack hides and inside the fence post hides to name a few a person can run up big numbers without seeing a very hard to find cache.
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Are you absolutely certain someone hid a 'bag' VERSUS someone could've stolen the container and left the bag??
You can never make assumptions unless the container is actually listed in the cache page.
Hiding a 'bag' only is ridiculous unless its a specialized hiding spide and the bag is a specialized hardened & durable bag to withstand the conditions.
Why would you suggest putting duct tape on the seal? How are people going to open it? They have to 'unstick' the duct tape and re-stick it?? That won't last long.
Don't hide bags.....period. Put bags INSIDE other containers. If you visit your local prescription counter, there are little pill bags that are thick and pretty durable for INSIDE containers.
small bags have their places those that I have found have been covered on duct tape. Now pill bottles that contain log in baggies just do not work well. In most cases I have had tom use the needle nose pliers on my leatherman tool to get the bag out, this on many cases has damaged the bag. I have also seen pill bottles hides in which the CO has drilled into the bottle in order to attach a heavy wire to hang the bottle, this just allow rain water to enter the bottle and then get into the baggie and soak the log. If some one needs a small container they can be found for sale. I get then at a local plastics store or container store, they are only about 25 cents.
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I haven't found many caches, so for me, it's your garden-variety deer
For me is was a homeless guy with a pit bull, I have seen a couple of Rattle Snakes but they are more predictable than homeless guys with pit bulls
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Huh? What does the relationship of the cachers on the rubber stamp have to do with anything?
I know several unrelated cachers who have had stamps made because they cache together frequently.
And our group of four had custom stamps made for the two trips we made out west in recent years.
I'll not mention names that is what got me kicked out of the forums last time, I know the two cachers in question and they do not cache together on a regular basis. Both names are on the same rubber stamp. What they do is split up with matching stamps then each cacher logs the finds he/she made as well as the finds the other person made, This is a common practice with some cachers. The geocachers in question are loging finds that they did not make.
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Wow, It's been awhile since I've done any caching but thought I'd dust it all off and get back to it. Problem is I fired up Vantage Point, of course the first thing it wants to do is update to the newest version. Was a bit surprised that there was no update for the Triton 500 did they stop supporting that too? Now my Vantage Point won't show any of my maps not even the base map, looks like a bunch of white noise, what's up with that? Somebody out there has to know more about this stuff than I do.
Vantge is not very good I have it but I use GSAK
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I purchased a Magellan Triton 400 GPS on eBay and when it arrived it had a blank white screen. On top of the screen is "File Run HDD Update Help X"
I'm lost. I have no idea what to do. It came with no software, no data cable, nothing. Does anyone have one of these? Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix the issue? Does anyone know if you there is software for Mac for this GPS?
Please help!!!! Thank you!
complain e-bay and get your money back, the Magellan triton model are nothing but junk. For a while Magellan was taking them back and offering a credit toward one of the new explorist versions, that is how I got my 710
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I recently talked to several cachers in my area that use I phones and real GPS'rs. They all told me that they felt that I Phones are not as accurate a real stand alone GPS. I just got back into geocaching full time a few weeks ago after spending five years back college. Now before I went back to school at the young age of 58 smart phones with GPS functions were not on the market. I have been noticing that many of the caches that I have found in the past few weeks have had rotten coordinates. It is so bad that now I limit my search time for caches that are rated 2 or less to 5 minutes. At the 5 minute I move on and post a DNF. I am seeing coordinates that would have the caches inside of buildings.
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they have rubber stamps with the same names on them, I saw a cache today that was logged with a rubber stamp that had two cache names on them and no they are not from the same family. That is all I am going to say about it, the last time this subject came up I kicked out of the forums for a month.
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We found a cache the other day that had 7 consecutive DNFs and a Needs Maintenance note posted just before. There are mostly nothing but finds posted before that, and nothing to suggest the hide had moved at all or changed. Just a few DNFs triggered a psyche out of cachers with an accumulation of 25,000 finds to think it was missing. It was there all along, and in the same spot 100 others had found it, with only 5 other DNFs. This seems to happen frequently. Any other stories?
Caches do go missing, To avoid wasting time on missing caches, before I load my GPS with GSAK I filter out all caches with "Not found logs"
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There is a rather nice geotrail near here. I don't want to say powertrail, as the hides are all unique, even though it does have identical descriptions on each page. The other day I received an e-mail from a cache on my watchlist that was not on the trail, but near it.
Replaced Quite a few missing Containers.
There shouldn't be any DNF's on this trail because you are asked to replace any missing caches. we replaced quite a few today ,some of them are just a log in a pill bag under a rock.
I checked and it does say something to that effect on the pages now, although I don't think it did when I did part of it. However, I don't think its such a good idea to be replacing containers on geotrails that do not have identical hides. And I don't think leaving a pill bag under a rock is a good idea for any cache. The next finder, and several others would report that it needs maintenance. Then the cache is found right where it should be, and in fine shape.
If you are going to leave a throwdown, how about using an actual container? And keep it limited to the geotrail? With the copy and paste logs, nobody can tell which ones, or how many were "replaced" this way. The finders probably do not remember either.
</rant>
I have been kicking around an idea for a geotrail along a bike trail and every couple of miles having an ammo can with logsheets, baggies, and some pill bottles so that if cachers want to, they can stock up and replace as needed. I am a little less sure about the pill bottles just because they take up so much room.
The problem with letting cachers place caches when they "think" the cache is missing creates extra caches and the CO that makes this request does not want to and has to intention of maintaining the caches he has place (as is required in the guidelines). Maybe these hides should be archived!
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I use a Magellan Explorist 710 when on foot, in my car I use a Garmin Nuvi to get to the area of the cache. I use an older Magellan Explorist for hiding caches. Software GSAK. I also use an Apple I Pod for entering logs in the field then I stop by a local Starbucks for the WiFi to send my logs in. I have the Magellan software but I really do not care for it much.
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And even being an old fart he is, he can still out hike me. You can bet he will die while caching.
Old fart, he is not all the old. But he has the energy.
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Hello geocachers, I am wondering if any of you knew a good recomendation for a non-gps pedometer to wear both during my normal day, and on hikes. It needs to be simple, no computer hookups or heart rate monitor or anything, it just needs to be good, reliable, and accurate.
Before I retired the place I worked sold several brands of pedometers and non of them worked very well
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In one of my caches another user has logged a find, and used to log to completely talk trash about my cache, as well as give away the hide. My first instinct is to just delete the log, but I am afraid of that action being judged against me, so I have done nothing yet. My second instinct is to send a message to the user, asking them to change their log completely or else I will delete the log and that they have 24 hours to comply (but again, I have not taken any action)
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I absolutely HATE when I'm 2 miles into the woods on hiking trails and there is precious caching space wasted on micros. You could successfully hide a car in some of the places I hike, yet I repeatedly find my self searching for incredibly long periods of time for a film container. Put some thought into your cache and make it truly worthwhile for those who are willing to make the journey to it.
this has long been an issue for me. I once hiked for an hour into the wood where a nano cache was hidden. people that hide micros/nanos in areas that can support a larger cache do so because they are too cheap to spend a few dollars to place a cache. They also lack any imagination when hiding a cache. They are just to lazy to put any effort into cache placement. Now this post may P O any of these hiders of micro/nanos but to bad for them
The generic response is to query if you knew it was a nano when you started your hike. I figured I'd go ahead and toss it out there before those who love them post it. Personally, I support the axiom of hiding the largest cache an area can reasonably support, so long as it's within your budget. I've had to resort to hiding a measly ammo can in an area which would easily support a 40' shipping container, because I couldn't afford the $2500 price tag, not to mention how much it would cost to fill with swag.
not all cache sizes are listed properly and there is a chance that after making a long trek the final location may not support a large container, there is no way to know until GZ is located.
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I've never really understood the thought some people have or the idea other caching sites put out there about geocaching.com being for the "rich people" (as someone put it in a local caching forum). Opencaching puts it out there that they are more about the community and don't charge and that sort of thing. I've seen people grumble about how Groundspeak is all about making money. I just don't get the issues they try to make.
Anyone can use geocaching.com for free and participate extensively. Yes, there are premium memberships available, but they are not necessary to play. Yes, the extremely helpful, easy to use app costs money, but you don't have to use that either to get the full fun effect of caching, use a GPS (go figure). All these extra things are, just that, EXTRAS. Buy and use them or don't.
So, if you are one of these people I'm describing, can you explain to me better what your issues are? Just an honest question because I don't understand the problem. Or maybe others can give a guess at what these people are thinking.
I find it amazing that people have issues with other people making money. It does not cost money for a non premium member to use GC.com It is a matter of choice
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I absolutely HATE when I'm 2 miles into the woods on hiking trails and there is precious caching space wasted on micros. You could successfully hide a car in some of the places I hike, yet I repeatedly find my self searching for incredibly long periods of time for a film container. Put some thought into your cache and make it truly worthwhile for those who are willing to make the journey to it.
this has long been an issue for me. I once hiked for an hour into the wood where a nano cache was hidden. people that hide micros/nanos in areas that can support a larger cache do so because they are too cheap to spend a few dollars to place a cache. They also lack any imagination when hiding a cache. They are just to lazy to put any effort into cache placement. Now this post may P O any of these hiders of micro/nanos but to bad for them
About as much fun as working at McBurger at lunchtime. 
Advice re Purchasing First GPSr for Geocaching
in How do I...?
Posted
Re a compass, My current GPS has a compass and I have models in the past that have had a compass, In all the years I have had a GPS with a compass I can not think of a single time I have needed the compass