Singletree Expedition

We've never had to worry about vandals (except maybe a squirrel or two). We found the audit log useful to gauge interest for a couple of our caches that require significant effort. That helped us decide whether it was worth the effort to hide more. Once the usefulness of the audit log was gone, we opened it up to all. We may not continue to do that, but it worked well for those caches.

I agree that it would be useful to see the name of the cache owner and the D/T rating.

I can see how that could be frustrating. While it is likely that the FTF'r had an advantage, keep in mind that there is a time difference between publish and notification. At times, the difference is significant. We've been first a few times... always after publish, but sometimes before the notification.

Yes, actually two of those photos are from your caches.

Great thread. And great use of forums. Here are a few pics from some TN & VA caches.

Put a Cheeseburger every .1 mile from here to the Holy Grail, I still don't think the number of Cheeseburgers counts towards anything but blood pressure and cholesterol. Finding the Holy Grail is what counts. Cheeseburgers can be found without a GPS. There are caches out there that outweigh hundreds of parking lot micros just because of their location. But then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I just can't see much beauty in a Cheeseburger. Pity me. Jan Typically, we target the "top of the peak" cache and wade through the cheeseburgers to get there. We do search for the cheeseburgers sometimes because every now and then you find one with bacon on it. As for the new cachers complaining more? Nah, we're frequently impressed with the quality of hides and logs from new cachers. Of course, many would consider us new cachers as well. It's all relative I guess.

Maybe he sneaks onto your computer at night while you sleep and posts cryptic messages to strangers? Nah. He lacks the strength and the opposable thumbs.

We've used COMPSYS which is a free download from faa.gov. http://www.avn.faa.gov/index.asp?xml=naco/online/compsys We used it for a cache just like you described and it worked great. The three stages were 5 to 9 miles apart and the projected coords were close enough to find the cache.

Yeah, someone used the "AC" abbreviation here. Oh wait! I think that meant something else on that thread.

For what it's worth, the "Read First!" FAQ in the Getting Started section says this:

I, too, have experienced signal reflection from cliffs and/or large manmade structures. Interestingly, one area that I noticed it has a nice echo for voice as well. For one of our caches, we used an offset so that cachers could reliably find the coordinates and utilize written instructions for the remaining distance. I'm curious about whether the signal reflection due to a static object would be consistent over time. I'm guessing not since the GPS satellites are not in a geo-stationary orbit. Perhaps, that is why we see the "bounce"? You pretty much summed it up. In my experience the signal "bounce" from large bridges, from cliffs, and from tall buildings, and even from lakes and other large bodies of water, is not predictable and is not constant, largely due to movement of the satellites, but likely due to several other factors as well that would each be significant contributors to the multivariate regression equation accounting for variance in the signal. It's almost like an occult hand reached down and... I agree that it's not constant but it could be predictable since the positions of the satellites are predictable. In fact, predicting GPS reflection/occultation may even be useful as a means of altimetry of water and ice surfaces in polar regions. This article discusses the value of ocean reflections of GPS signals to enhance satellite altimetry.

Here's a story about a "mad bomber" that was put away last night just about 4 miles from my house. But he planned to blow his own house up. Does that count? If you can't detonate a bomb in your own house, where can you detonate a bomb? http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9012477

I hope that it's not considered bad form to post the link: GC166HZ

You can see who viewed the cache page on geocaching.com. For each cacher you can see how many times they viewed it and the last date that they viewed it. That's pretty much it. It does not show who is watching or ignoring.

I, too, have experienced signal reflection from cliffs and/or large manmade structures. Interestingly, one area that I noticed it has a nice echo for voice as well. For one of our caches, we used an offset so that cachers could reliably find the coordinates and utilize written instructions for the remaining distance. I'm curious about whether the signal reflection due to a static object would be consistent over time. I'm guessing not since the GPS satellites are not in a geo-stationary orbit. Perhaps, that is why we see the "bounce"?

That sounds like a good candidate for Wherigo.

Perhaps we need a new cache type for these AC caches. Of course, we'd need a new icon.

Here's a low one at the Dead Sea: GC1HPB5 - Lower-est Cache on Earth A cacher's GPS said 419 meters (1374 feet) below. GPSVisualizer says 406 meters (1332 feet) below. I know of a young cacher that found more than one cache at 2 years old. The earliest was at 2 years & 3 months. Well, the adults did the GPS work but he made the find before them. He was 4 before finding a cache using the GPS on his own, but that's just because his parents usually hog it.

I agree. This would be very useful for us. We have a very long TODO list, actually multiple lists, and it is quite tedius to keep them maintained. An auto-remove option would be much more efficient. An alternative to consider would be to display the "Found It" check marks on the bookmarked items so that it was not necessary to preview the PQ. This is not as ideal for the purpose you mention, but it would help and it would be useful for other purposes as well.

Yes. That would be useful. While you're in there, go ahead and add the D/T rating.

The world's first geocache was a bucket. We found a 5-gallon bucket cache that was over 6 years old. It was wet. You can't beat an ammo can for affordability and durability.

That's funny. (Actually, I just uploaded that one to use as an example and to make sure it was still happening after the recent update.)

User Gallery photos are displayed in the order that they are uploaded. Is this by design? It's not a big deal, but it seems the preference would be by order of log date. If photos are posted out of sequence, then they are forever out of sequence. Any thoughts? Here are a couple of screenshots...

Are you sure? These guys appear to be having some kind of CITO event.

Nice. Thanks for posting.