DonB
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Posts posted by DonB
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It is usually easy to find something unique in almost any area--a statue, a historic building, a remarkable landmark, etc.--and such things make excellent virtual caches
Virtuals are like weed. You allow weed because in some really specific situations it's too hard for anything useful to grow (because of the soil, for example) so you're happy with weed which grows easily and gives nice flowers. After a while you see that weed is everywhere within your land. Soon after that you are trying to persuade your neighbours that weed is your agriculture.
Don't be narrow-focused, limited on your piece of land. See how weed behaves itself at the other side of the fence.
What do you think micros along a bike trail are? Give me a good virtual anytime. How many there are shouldn't even enter into the picture as long as they are good ones, and if they aren't good ones that's the reviewer's fault.
Are you suggesting that reviewers should determine whether or not a cache should be published based on quality? While that might sound like a good idea in theory I imagine that we'd lose a lot of reviewers that have been subjected to verbal abuse from potential cache owners that were told that their cache would not be published because it wasn't "good enough".
No, I'm not suggesting it, I'm saying it. That's one of the reasons virtuals went down the tube. That's why they're called reviewers, if there were no controls on caches of any type where do you think the game would end up? If a person wanting to publish a virtual were required to state exactly what the virtual consisted of, I'm sure it would have eliminated, as one moderator put it, an old tennis shoe in the woods. I can't see where that would put an undue strain on the reviewer. I have done many virtuals and can only remember one that was really a dud. Other then that I would say 99.9% of them were entertaining or informative and took me to places that weren't in the tourist books. I firmly believe all of the tennis shoe in the woods stuff was blown out of proportion to cover up the fact TPTB just wanted to get rid of them. It was stated by one of the lackeys that as long as there were virtuals, physical caches wouldn't be allowed in National Parks.
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It is usually easy to find something unique in almost any area--a statue, a historic building, a remarkable landmark, etc.--and such things make excellent virtual caches
Virtuals are like weed. You allow weed because in some really specific situations it's too hard for anything useful to grow (because of the soil, for example) so you're happy with weed which grows easily and gives nice flowers. After a while you see that weed is everywhere within your land. Soon after that you are trying to persuade your neighbours that weed is your agriculture.
Don't be narrow-focused, limited on your piece of land. See how weed behaves itself at the other side of the fence.
What do you think micros along a bike trail are? Give me a good virtual anytime. How many there are shouldn't even enter into the picture as long as they are good ones, and if they aren't good ones that's the reviewer's fault.
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As for lumens? The brighter the better? Or is there a happy middle? Or just personal preference?
I prefer a light that has different levels of output. At night, when it is really dark, I usually use lights at their minimum level of brightness. A max lumen of about 200 is probably sufficient - if the rating is true. The throw of the light is also important - some lights allow you to focus the beam, from a small bright point or spread it out to light a large area.
When do I use my light at its 200 lumens setting? When I'm inspecting a hole in shadow when the sun is out.
I use a light made by Guidesman and sold at Menards. It's well built, 160 lumens, uses two AA batteries, and sells for about $18.00 plus tax. It does the job and I can't see spending fifty or more dollars for any light.
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If you see a multi-cache as just a waste of time on the way to a Bison tube in a bush, then you shouldn't do them.Why would I want to waste my time doing a multi to find a bisontube in a bush?I usually have a great adventure with multi-caches, and many of them are on my Favorites list--even a few where the final cache is something mundane like a magnetic keyholder.
From reading my post it's pretty obvious I don't
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Why would I want to waste my time doing a multi to find a bisontube in a bush?
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Yep, my kids always read the pamphlets in a cache and completely ignored the goodies.
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Recently, and especially in big cities, I've started noticing religious pamphlets shoved into caches. Anything from flyers for a local church, to business cards that say "I'm a Mormon" with a number to call. I've even found one with one of those cheap little "you're going to burn an here's why" leaflets folded up and stuffed in.
Really? Come on, guys, this is a hobby. Nobody wants to find religious material in their cache. Especially since those caches have precious little room as it is! I'll admit right now, I yank that stuff out and throw it away any time I find it. It simply doesn't belong there.
Anyone else notice this sort of thing? What kinds of locations do you usually see it happen in?
Who made you cache master? If you don't like it ignore it, no one's twisting your arm to read it.
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That is why I have lost interest in caching and became what I call a casual cacher. But you are beating a dead horse if anyone thinks they will be back. For some known and some unknown reasons Groundspeak and some of the moderators have made several excuses why virtuals should be eliminated.
Even if virtual caches were still being listed, my guess is you would have lost interest in geocaching anyhow. The idea that geocaching was a way to bring people to interesting places was surpassed long ago with the idea that is about finding containers and scoring smileys. The number of caches that are film cans and bison tube in uninteresting places would go up anyway. Virtual caches would have either had to have the "wow" requirement continually ratcheted up to keep the virtuals interesting or people would have found ways to flood areas with boring virtuals. If you don't think so look at Waymarking.
I once thought that Waymarking would be more popular than geocaching, because it would take you to interesting places without needing to do some silly search for a physical container. You'd never have to worry about bison tubes or film cans in lampposts. Instead you'd select the categories you were interested in an always be taken to a place that you would find worthwhile visiting. Unfortunately, little effort was made by the TPTB or the Waymarking community to develop this aspect of the game. So now there are lists of thousands of waymarks in categories that no one wants to visit and no real incentive for someone who wants to find interesting place to visit using Waymarking.
I lost interest for the reasons I stated and some I didn't state. It used to be you could find caches with trade items, I have a bag full of trade items and find it kind of hard getting any of them in a bison tube or a pill bottle. Talk about lame virtuals, whats a pill bottle thrown under a bush? I'm not into numbers so a bison tube in a tree or under a bush every tenth of a mile on a bike trail doesn't do much for me. As far as interesting virtuals if the reviewers didn't allow the trash virtuals they wouldn't be there. When we took trips west the first thing I looked for to create my PQs, were virtuals, and I found plenty of interesting and informative ones, things that weren't in the tourist guides. One of the reasons that they got rid of virtuals one of the moderators stated was they could be done sitting at home at a computer, which is a bunch of baloney. The true reason from what I found out was they would never get physical caches in national parks as long as virtuals were around. I also don't believe I'm the only one that feels the way I do about the state of caching nowadays.
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Anytime I take a trip I line up any virtuals that are available, they have taken me to many great places that aren't in the tourist books. I would rather find a good virtual then a bison tube hanging in a tree, or a cache stuck on a sign somewhere. That is why I have lost interest in caching and became what I call a casual cacher. But you are beating a dead horse if anyone thinks they will be back. For some known and some unknown reasons Groundspeak and some of the moderators have made several excuses why virtuals should be eliminated.
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I down loaded the gpx file onto my garmin dakota 10 but there have since been new cache added to my area. How do I find the file to delete it and upload the new one?
Also planning on going to a different area to cache so will need to add for the new area so will need to delete current one then as well.
thanks
I'm not familiar with the Dakota 10, but what I do with my 76 is get in the menus and delete all caches then create PQs for the areas I want to cache in that day. I then use EasyGPS which will let you load multiple GPX files, then send them all to the GPS.
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As much as I like shooting with my DSLR there are times when it's not practical to lug it around. So a year or two ago I ran across this Canon P&S, it's a great little camera 12.1 megapixel, X20 optical zoom, stabilized lens, with all of the controls you would ever need both manual and auto settings. As a bonus with the size card I have in it, it will shoot about an hour of HD video. It was a little pricey but was worth it. It's almost like having a miniature DSLR. I just wish they wouldn't have done away with the viewfinder.
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I think MAHA makes the best chargers and own ALL of them.
I like this one best.
I've used all the PowerX MAHA batteries and they are great but these are better :
I have had that same charger for several years now, works great. I can't remember the model number right now but I have been thinking about buying the same charger that does all of the other size rechargeable batteries.
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Maybe they're going to spend a few weeks in a remote location with no internet connection, where they're going to do 10 numbers run trails, each the size of the ET Highway trail.Not arguing, just asking. Why would anyone need to download 25000 caches a day?Or maybe not...
I just don't know any cachers personally that have done that many caches since they have been caching.
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I have an etrex vista hcx and a map60 csx. Is there a way to tell how many waypoints are loaded?
If you use EasyGps to load the GPS it will show how many loaded.
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Hello Groundspeak,
As we are now in 2014, would you consider an increase of the limits for pocket queries?
My suggestion would be:
- PQ limit to 2500 when downloaded
- Max. 10 per day
I am very sure your hardware could handle that.
Best regards,
HanSolo68
Not arguing, just asking. Why would anyone need to download 25000 caches a day?
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White ones I have on my desk are HR-3UTGB, so second generation i assume? They're good anyway. Best life of any of the other AA NiMh I have here. Hopefully the XX's will be even better again.
They've been in the 650 since 7:00pm on the dot, and it's 10:33pm now, but that's no test yet, since even the white 1900mAh ones don't lose the first 1/4 power-bar for 4-6 hours. These are 2550mAh XX's, so should outlast the whites a good bit.
OOPs, I turned the numbers around, and just corrected them on my previous post. The ones you have are the third generation AAs.
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Be aware that the standard eneloops can be recharged for more cycles over their lifetime. I use the standard version and have a maha c9000 charger, when they get low I chuck them in the charger, discharge and then recharge. Carry a spare set in the field.
There is no need to discharge a NiMH battery because they don't develop a memory. I have read that the battery experts say discharging them all the way will do more harm then good. I have Eneloops that are quite old and just top the charge and have had no problems with them. I have some part numbers of what Sanyo calls their 3rd generation Eneloops that claim they will retain 75% of their charge after sitting for five years. The number for the AA batteries is HR-3UTGB and the AAA batteries are HR-4UTGB
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I use Sanyo Eneloops in just about everything, the ones I have are 2500 mah and the newer models will keep a charge for up to a year and only lose about 18% of their charge. In my 76CSx the longest I have left it on is 11 or 12 hours and didn't have to replace them.
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anybody know if this is available anywhere?
There is probably something available, my son has a small device from Energizer that takes two AA batteries and has a mini usb connector to supply emergency power for a cell phone. I would suggest checking out Energizer's website.
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Ingenious.... in your overwhelming desire to be intelligent, you just led the rats, squirrels or other vermin to the cache by adding food to it. You don't really believe that they actually remember where they buried the nuts, do you? They can smell them!
Simply Outstanding.
Forget you're dose of Fibre-PLUS yesterday?
And on the topic of faux intelligence, you *do* realize the seeds are in a snaplok, *inside* a waterproof container? Right? .. You truly believe, than in the middle of suburbia, a rat will even waste it's time climbing to chew through a thick plastic box - assuming it can smell it through all the layers - when there's resturant garbage bins, discarded food, and a plethora of other, higher calorie, food sources?
Way to make yourself look foolish Bro!
Speaking of intelligence I'll translate your first sentence. "Forget you're dose of Fibre-PLUS yesterday?" = Forget you are dose of Fibre-PLUS yesterday?
If you want to play on the forums come down off your high horse.
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I tried Basecamp and didn't like it, it just seemed harder to do things with it. I stuck with my MapSource.
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I too have just noticed one of my trackables has gone missing, contacted the last person to have picked it up back in December 2013 only to be told that they gave it to somebody else to drop off somewhere but this has not happened, also got the email address for this person but they refuse to answer me with information I need.
If the cacher that originally picked it up is a friend of the person he gave it to I would email him again and see if he couldn't talk to his friend. In the first place he shouldn't have just given it to the other person, he should have have him grab it, providing the person he gave it to is even a cacher. Otherwise you may be SOL.
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I too have just noticed one of my trackables has gone missing, contacted the last person to have picked it up back in December 2013 only to be told that they gave it to somebody else to drop off somewhere but this has not happened, also got the email address for this person but they refuse to answer me with information I need.
If the cacher that originally picked it up is a friend of the person he gave it to I would email him again and see if he couldn't talk to his friend. In the first place he shouldn't have just given it to the other person, he should have have him grab it, providing the person he gave it to is even a cacher. Otherwise you may be SOL.
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Cerberus1 - all Tennessee restrictions on blade length, automatic opening, etc will be removed effective July 1, 2014. SB1771 was signed into law today (April 8), and becomes effective July 1.
Now the legislative fight intensifies over removing the ability of local municipal governments to restrict firearms carry in local parks by HCP holders. This was a bad compromise made in 2009, and will hopefully be removed this year, which would open up all TN parks (Natl, state or local) to carry by HCP holders. Currently, all Nant'l and state parks are open, but local parks may be off-limits depending on actions taken by local govt bodies. Cachers choosing to carry in TN local parks need to pay close attention to signage - many parks in the larger metro areas (Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga, as well as many Nashville and Memphis suburbs) are posted.
That's the dumbest thing anyone, business or municipality, can do is prevent a person that has a carry permit from having their weapon with them. Number one the bad guys aren't going to go by the rules and number two it tells the bad guys where they are safe from anyone interfering with them.
Bring back virtuals!
in Website
Posted
That's a bunch of baloney, unless the person that wants to publish the virtual flat lies about it, with a full description it shouldn't be too hard to figure out if the virtual has any merit. The members should have some input on them, if the description says one thing and ten or fifteen cachers contradict that then archive it. Cachers report unsafe caches or violations of the rules on caches so why not bogus virtuals? As I said before, TPTB had other motives to do away with virtuals and any attempt to bring them back is beating a dead horse