Bear_Left

There's lots of proximity alarms (often used on shopfloors to trigger a sales spiel when someone approaches) that use changes in ambient light to trigger them. Some of them are also voice recorders (I have three or four of them for just this purpose!) Record your scary/shocking sound effect and put the device in an ammo can. Even if it's dark, they'll shine a torch in to see the swag and logbook! (Of course, hi-tech cachers using image intensifier goggles won't trigger this one, but there won't be many of them...)

I look forward to the US leg of the round-the-world trip! Will it be up one of the President's noses at Mount Rushmore? Under the skirts of the Statue of Liberty? Disguised as a cross in Arlington National Cemetary? The anticipation of seeing what that sensibility-trampling Dr. No gets up to next is thrilling!

Maybe Signal's just removing one of the fairly regular 'vacation caches' that get littered around Australia's tourist spots by tourists! I haven't had any for awhile now, but I've seen a few doozies while wearing my reviewer hat (the one with the green antenna on it!) (My favourite was the one that was wrongly listed and turned out to be 20+ miles from the second nearest cache and about 30 feet from the nearest one!)

Hey, start at GC000001 and log every cache ever placed if you really want to... But if all you've done is email someone local to help _them_ find a box with a logbook, then you're just getting an online smiley, not finding a geocache.

And I'm not sure why going into a place of business and asking to get a coaster out of the box, even one with "Geocache" written on it, would be considered fun... I'm not surprised the business owner thinks it's a good idea; it's a free listing that will get people through their door, which increases the chance of a sale. Sounds like exactly the sort of thing that the "caches that solicit" guideline was written for.

When was the cache published? (There should be a "published" note from the reviewer) If that was later than the "found it" log, then it was found by a friend of the placer, possibly while beta-testing it if it was a puzzle or multi, possibly while on a hike together, possibly just from a conversation like "Wanna find my new cache? It's not listed yet but the coords are xxx") Also, was your notification a weekly email or a notification that you've set up?

If you think that signing a bit of paper that someone hands you counts as a cache find, why not just go all the way and auto-log every cache in the area? Mind you, I don't think turning up a restaurant for a chat deserves a smiley, either, so you can see my attitude...

Objectively: the guidelines state "As the cache owner, you are responsible for the placement and care of your cache." I looked and looked but couldn't find anywhere that said or even suggested that finders should remove caches that they don't, for some reason, approve of. Subjectively: if I decide that the superior smirk on your face makes you look like trash, can I remove it?

I'm usually prepared to give up about 20 minutes before my wife is. She's usually just about ready to pack it in..... then finds it. I think she should have a quick look, _then_ decide to give up. It'd save us HOURS!

Kitchen? You hide caches in your kitchen? I suppose you use leftovers for cache-swaps, too, huh?

A couple of tips: The averaging function means that the GPSr takes a little while to 'catch up' when you stop at GZ, so it might help to turn the unit off and on again to make it forget the previous readings. Once you've settled at GZ, mark a waypoint and then GOTO it. If you're suddenly several metres* away and it's consistent, then you should probably mark a new waypoint and repeat the process. This will give you an immediate idea of how much you're varying, and therefore how much confidence you should have in your reading. Averaging can help eliminate 'glitch' readings, but at the end of the day, the GPS system has a finite accuracy and that's just part of the game! *Yes, that's metric. Most of the rest of the world uses it.

I'm glad you put quotes around "international", since the rest of the world uses 'metres' not 'meters' as the unit of length. (and litres for volume, BTW) I hope you Yanks are offended that your standards body didn't think you were smart enough to handle the sort-of-french spelling of "metre"!

I have one ready to go that's similar to this, but with a little twist... I'm using one of those laser level gizmos (available quite cheaply, about A$9) that use 2 x AAA cells to power it (last for ages, easy to replace by finder if required) It's taken from the waypoint and placed in a groove on a post and points the way to a hidden cache 50m away. Now the twist is that the clever buggers around here would just sight along the line of the laser and find the cache in the daytime, rather than my intended night-only cache concept. SO, I've modified the laser head (with hot glue) in the gizmo to point about 30degrees off true, so that they'll have a long hunt in the daytime... Unless you have a very hidey-hole-rich environment, that might not work too well... Setting it up at dusk, when you can still see your chosen GZ but can also see your laser pointer spot, should be fairly easy.

Less half-baked, more completely raw. From the cache listing guidelines:

"Mill Alight" sounds good to me, especially if it happened to be (Ohpleasepleaseplease) a barley or hops mill!

I did a cache which used jigsaw puzzles as waypoints, but there's two points I'd make, based on that experience: 1- Don't overdo it. The cache I did had half a dozen or so jigsaws, and I was getting sick of them! 2- In the cache description, make a point that a book or other flat item will be a useful item. A jigsaw puzzle without something to assemble it on is more of a pain that (I assume) you intended it to be.

I have a "two speed cache" which is a puzzle for those who like such things, and a web page where someone can enter their caching name and email address and get an email sent to them with the final coords. The only requirement is that the finder must state which method they used to find the cache. This way, those who prefer a traditional cache get one, and I get to see who's used the 'clue' to keep 'em honest!

Simplest way? Steal a good idea from somewhere else! Look at some of the threads here on peoples' toughest chalenges and find one you a)can solve and b)take a while to do so! Then take it! (there's an issue with attribution, of course. It's a bit rude to steal an idea without giving credit for it, but if you do, then your finders can look at the original cache and maybe get extra clues, etc. I get around this with a 'winners page' that finders only get the password to when they find the cache. That's where I put the story of the cache, including who I appropriated it from, if I had!)

When you reckon this is suitable for release into the wild, I'd love to get a copy! (Partly because I plan to use it as-is, partly because I'd like to see how you did it to help me write a "cache hint" script!)

One of the oft-overlooked factors in setting maths puzzles is that the answer is _almost_ known, since we know roughly where it is, and therefore roughly what range the numbers can be. We've* solved a couple of puzzle caches without getting the clue (from a sign or whatever) just by making some assumptions, getting a few solutions, and testing them in a mapping program. Caches are usually near tracks or in parks, so not being able to 'mathematically' solve an equation doesn't mean you can't tease the answers out of it! * "We" in this case means "my wife" since I'm an engineer and _know_ that you can't solve an nth order equation with n+1 unknowns! She doesn't know that it's impossible, so she just goes and does it.

I don't know why it is funny that that is the only reason why. I mean, why would you expect them to mention America anyway???? Well, we _are_ using your satellites! If you're interested, there was a little bit of follow-up, with an email from a couple of KiwiKaysherKids who'd been on a big day's caching recently. Video here (8MB)

A local cache uses one of the driveway solar lamps, built into a fake rock for camo and only visible from one direction. There's a reflector trail to get you close enough to see the light. Works well! (I have one in the works that uses a microcontroller to flash the LED in one of these when it gets dark. In Morse code.) Some lifetime calculations: Lithium 123A cell: about 1500mAH Assuming 2V drop across the LED and 50k resistor, current drawn by LED: 0.02mA (is it really visible with this? Wow!) mAH/mA: 75k hours : 8.5 years i.e. about the same as if you left the battery out there _without_ a LED! I'd've thought 1mA was about the minimum, hence only about two months lifetime, which is why I never thought of using a non-flashing LED. Might give it a try...

TVNZ have a link up to the video at: Click here to view it Grab it from here if you like. (I'll leave that there for a week or two) (Right-click and 'Save file' or similar to avoid auto-playing it) Warning: it's 17.5MB! It was filmed in Christchurch, in the South Island. Grandalf does, indeed, often wear a cloak and carry a glowing staff when he's showing tourists around the lovely countryside where the Lord of the Rings movies were shot!

Be prepared for a much smaller number of finders than you'd get by having this as multiple puzzle caches. Depending on cacher density in your area, this might not be a bad thing! Also, there _will_ be some clever buggers who'll do in one hit. If we were locals, we'd take it as a challenge and die before calling off the hunt!

We sleep in beds... usually under a doona (aka duvet aka continental quilt) unless it's a warm night, in which case a sheet is all that's required. If you stumble across us while we're asleep in our bed(s), you'd better have a GPSr and do some _real_ fast talking!