Richard & Beth

quote:Originally posted by jeremyp:They may be the European EGNOS satellites. Take a look here. Richard

As has been said the official guidelines here clearly state quote: Do not put food in a cache! Critters have better noses than we do, and will bite, nibble or swallow your cache in an attempt to get to the goodies. Bottled water is a good alternative (and refreshing to geocachers). As has been said before people can't physically stop cachers placing unsuitable items in caches, however it is worth bearing in mind what impression it will give of Geocachers in the wider world if it does become a problem. From a personal perspective there are plenty enough other choices for items to put in caches without getting into an argument over whether a tin of pineapple chunks or a tin of spam is any better or worse than a mars bar, or a snickers bar. Better to just say no food and not get into a largely theoretical discussion about how easy or hard it would be for an animal to get into it. Richard [This message was edited by Richard & Beth on March 19, 2003 at 02:15 AM.]

quote:Originally posted by Subarite:I find the OS reference very useful on the GC page. I just copy and paste into Street map, delete the spaces, select landranger, and add leading zeros as required. I do something similar, except I make use of the co-ordinate conversion linked from the cache page to Jeeep.com. This gives the lat and lon in a couple of formats that Streetmap accepts, which I can then use to produce a similar map to that which Subarite uses. Richard

Just got the April to June standby schedule and it looks like I'm not on support standby for that weekend, so hopefully we'll both be there too. Richard

quote:Originally posted by Wood Smoke:Anyway, a better option to the paper maps is to buy the OS CD which contains the whole of the UK, you can then print or copy whatever sections you want, and that's only £20 :-) The issue I've always had with the OS CD is that there are only 'selected extracts' at 1:50,000, and even less at 1:25,000. Most of the UK is covered at 1:250,000 which isn't overly useful. Depending on your PDA you might want to take a look at Memory Map which although it is more expensive covers the whole of the country. Richard

quote:Originally posted by Slytherin:But they are so tiny that they are pretty much unusable. Indeed, the OS site has always been limited in it's uses from my experience, for obvious reasons they are more focused on getting you to buy a map. Richard

quote:Originally posted by jeremyp:I've seen less complicated explanations! And as you can see that was explanation MKII! Richard

The Get-a-map page is actually working on the more accurate grid references, as this is what the postcode address file database uses for locations. I assume it is only asking for the AAxxxyyy grid reference because that is what the general public would be used to. The confusing thing is that it is quoting the more accurate location in an entirely numeric form converting the AA to a number. For example my post code is at the following reference according to Get-a-map: Co-ordinates at centre - SU764654 (476488, 165421) GB Grid Hope that clears things up a bit! By the way, one interesting thing I've spotted on the site is that the OS are now using the 1:25,000 rasters on their public site - the ones which MemoryMap can't get hold of, and that StreetMap and MultiMap can't use either. Richard [This message was edited by Richard & Beth on March 17, 2003 at 01:52 PM.]

We're sorry to see these ones go. We had a lot of fun doing the series (even if we did need some assistance with a missing cache). Looking forward to Cluedo II though. Richard

I agree with what has been said about location and contents, but from my point of view another important factor is the quality of the hiding place. I've often noticed that long time geocachers talk about being able to spot the 'usual' geocache hiding spots. I'll give an example. There are a lot of caches I have done in woodland that are hidden under logs, usually with various bits of bark, or rock hiding the spot, or alternatively in undergrowth covered over by leaves. This is to the point that usually I can work my way around a cache area looking for disturbed areas around logs, the tell tale out of place bark propped up, the out of place rocks or pile of branches and leaves, that sort of thing. The reason the thought came to me was as a result of a cache I did today in woodland that wasn't hidden in a 'usual' spot. (I can think of only one other I have done that was hidden in a similar way.) Finding it gave me much more of a buzz because it had caused me problems, and because it wasn't where I was expecting. Even more because I had looked around the spot already and missed the cache, and because the actual location was clearly visible from metres away. I actually got an awful lot more enjoyment from it because it wasn't hidden in the obvious place. Richard

I have TomTom's previous mapping software on my Psion, which has a selection of freely downloadable overlays. Their format is binary from what I remember, but there is a utility that they provided (and also a Psion version around) that will convert a simple CSV file to that format. I have an Excel spreadsheet with a VBA macro that takes in an EasyGPS format file and uses the Microsoft XML Parser to produce a CSV in the right format, then run it through the utility to generate an overlay of all the UK caches. Having said that, I do seem to remember hearing that TomTom changed the format for Navigator. Hope that helps. Regards, Richard

quote:Originally posted by jeremyp:I would point out that they _were_ democratically elected. We had a forum thread for nominations followed by a poll to elect them - For those who are interested, the poll itself is here where you can see that 34 people voted, and that Tim and June won by only 4 votes. (Over Hornet and Chris and Maria) It is correct that both us and Moss Trooper were nominated to be moderators rather than elected. I've been moderating for almost exactly a year, so it's not true to say that I've been moderating since before JeremyP started caching. I'll let Moss T say how long he's been moderating as I can't honestly remember! In terms of visibility, it is correct that I will avoid getting involved in too many discusions, primarily because I think it would affect my neutrality and being seen to be fair. In the main the posts I make are admin related, there is also behind the scenes answering cache questions and problems by email, approving and archiving caches and so on. If you look through T + J's posts if they express a personal opinion they will say that it is one. Whilst the spokesperson work they have done wasn't officially part of the moderator and admin 'job description' the hobby is very young, and still evolving. I personally think what they have done has been worthwhile, and much appreciate the time and effort both Tim and June have put in to raising the profile of the hobby in the media, and especially the effort they put into trying to raise the profile of the hobby and get us permission to use areas of land owned by big landowners, which as a read of some of the US forums will show is a big issue on the other side of the pond. Regards, Richard

quote:Originally posted by Gaz, Suni, Jack & Kashi:...has everyone who got the geocaching bug found that it starts to take over their lives?? It's when you start working out whether you can do them in an hour from work... Calculating how long it takes you to get there, then pushing it a bit going back when you can't find the stupid box!!! Richard

quote:Originally posted by Freak Enterprises:I had this posted in the log for my cache : "Third time lucky. We've invested in a GPS and wow what a difference. We found it within 10 minutes of reaching the site." I won't name names, but it gave us a good laugh! Martin Reading the series of Dan and Pid logs back in Feb 2002 on this cache at Coombe Hill gave me a good laugh. (Have we really had the pleasure of their company for a year now?) Of the logs on my own caches, I got the biggest laugh from rog and fran's second attempt at this cache in Reading although it does give spoilers as to the location of the cache. Richard

quote:Originally posted by Dan Wilson: (Oh what a thrill watching Richard of Richard and Beth wondering round in circles for 20 minutes )Anyway, It has now changed location 3 times after the first spot which was originally a fallen tree by a stream, gradually became a youth club, got totally ransacked then burnt out! I seem to remember that part of the wandering about was trying to avoid falling into the stream! Having said that there is a certain satisfaction in watching someone doing a cache or a puzzle that someone has set. Beth and I did a wide game for a bunch of 60 kids last weekend, involved 6 teams looking for 6 pieces of their jigsaw (so 36 pieces in total) all hidden in and around a field of several acres. The kids enjoyed it, and it was great fun watching them going back and forth trying to find their pieces. I would say that you should really know a place well before you leave a cache there. As has been mentioned, places are very different at different times. Visit it several times at different times of day, and different points in the week. You also need to bear in mind that what may be the perfect spot might not be at other times of the year. For example you might find your great hiding spot found during the summer becomes rather obvious during the winter, or the opposite that you can't even retrive the cache due to summer growth. Regards, Richard

Considering that the police around Heathrow have set up road blocks, and the army have been searching Windsor Great Park... As they are apparently looking for evidence of a plot to shoot down an airplane, what do you suppose would happen were they, or perhaps a member of the public were to come across a hidden tupperware container, or especially a hidden ammo box? Having said that being stopped at a road block with an ammo can in the back of the car could be interesting as well... Richard

It is also worth considering that the upcoming Southern Cache Bash is being combined with a Fox Hunt as mentioned here so I think that doing one further north would be a lot more fair on those people who don't want to travel long distances. Richard

quote:Originally posted by MCL:This could be another candidate for archiving. Looks like Mark has archived it himself already. Richard

quote:Originally posted by MCL: I went up there today to check it out and it ain't where it was a month ago, and no signs of remains in the locality. Looks like Moun10Bike has archived it now as well. Richard [This message was edited by Richard & Beth on January 30, 2003 at 01:42 PM.]

quote:Originally posted by The Good Shepherds: If you're taking nominations, then we've got a long-held grudge against GCAA2 (Hasn't been found for over a year, owner's e-mail address no longer valid) I've taken a look at the cache, and since there has been no finds since last January, I have e-mailed Jason and archived the cache. Jason has just replied and said that he checked it 4 weeks ago and it was still there. Looks like some more searching is in order. (I'm rather glad it is still there as it is one of the older UK caches still active.) I have also heard from the owner of the other cache mentioned, Pinchmill Puzzle. He hasn't had a chance to check it recently, but has said he will do so in the next couple of weeks. Richard [This message was edited by Richard & Beth on January 28, 2003 at 02:04 PM.]

quote:Originally posted by Pharisee:May I risk the wrath of all and suggest that http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=18451 is a prime candidate for archiving. It appears to have gone missing. Ok, I've taken a look at this one. As all the failures are fairly recent (within the last month) and the cache owner hasn't logged on since before Christmas. I have sent them an e-mail asking them whether they can confirm that it is still there, as concern has been expressed, but it is reasonable to think that they could be on holiday, or haven't been able to check the cache in the week or two since the reports were made. If we don't get a response within a couple of weeks we'll sort it out then. Regards, Richard

quote:Originally posted by Nia: as of this post it is still active? But not any more. I have just taken a look and since their have been three failures to find, I have archived it, and e-mailed the cache owner. In case people haven't realised, although the UK moderators now approve UK caches, we don't get the 'should be archived' messages sent to us if they are logged against UK caches. For that reason we don't usually find out about missing caches unless we come across the requests on the pages ourselves, or someone tells us about them. If there are any caches such as Obelisk that you think should be archived it is worth e-mailing either ourselves or Tim and June and we can then do something about it. Richard

As mentioned above, I have archived the cache in light of Tim and Junes failed attempt to find the cache, and the daylight search that MCL made that found the cache lid. The cache is still listed, but as archived pending a possible replacement. Richard

quote:Originally posted by MCL:I notice the cache has been unarchived again. Why and who by? It was us who dearchived it last night. Following Team Nia's comments, and the feedback on this thread that most people felt that a cache shouldn't be archived on the basis of a single failure we discussed the cache again with Tim and June yesterday afternoon. At the point it was discussed Tim and June didn't say they were going to make a late night trip to try and find it, and there was nobody else able to go check it in the near future. We therefore decided to give Team Nia the benefit of the doubt and unarchive the cache pending a search, and dearchived it about 11pm last night. I haven't talked to Tim and June today, but I guess they decided to clear the matter up sooner rather than later. They logged their failure after we'd gone to bed. Since Tim and June have tried and failed to find it, and following your discovery of the lid in your search, I am sure nobody will object if the cache is archived again. Regards, Richard and Beth

The cache in question is this one and it's archival was discussed amongst the moderators before it was archived. We did consider the points that have been raised about people failing to find it, but decided that in light of the reports of the undergrowth clearance and burning, and that the cacher who posted the 'unable to find' log was fairly experienced, that it was more likely than not to be missing. We noted that team Nia, in their abscence had asked for the cache to be checked, but since nobody had checked the cache since it was reported missing in early September it was decided to temporarily archive the cache. If there is somebody local to the cache who would be able to confirm that the cache has either been removed, or is still there we, and I'm sure Team Nia would be most grateful. If the cache is located we will be quite happy to de-archive the cache. Regards, Richard and Beth