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If you sent in the correct answers, the CO made a mistake. You don't say how he reacted when you asked him about it, so I can't say whether you should talk to him more or just ask for an appeal which I assume would be quickly granted. I've run into cases where the question required specific information from the sign -- e.g., available information says the elevation is 600' but the sign says 601' 3" -- but even in a case like that, the CO should allow the "close enough" answer when the sign is missing.

I can't seem to get my new (Christmas gift) Garmin 76CS Plus gps to (Interface) send lat. or long. to my new Raymarine DS 500 X fish finder. On their own, they both work perfect, but I am at my witts end and I need some help. I have read both owner's manuals from cover to cover and it seems to be so easy to make the gps send text to the fishfinder. I have hooked everything up the right way ( I Think), I set the gps to send NMEA text and the fishfinder to receive NMEA in. The Garmin gps only has four wires out of the power/data cable ........... {Red=Power} {Black=Ground} {Brown= Serial Data Out} {White=Serial Data In}.......... The Raymarine fishfinder has alot more wires, Seven to be exact..........{Red=Power} {Black=Ground} {White=NMEA Input+} {Green=NEMA Input -} {Yellow=NEMA Output+} {Brown= NEMA Output -} {Grey=CGND}. I used the {Brown, Serial Data Out} wire on the gps and hooked it to the {White, NMEA Input+} on the fishfinder and nothing happend. Do anyone of you know what I'm talking about? I need some interfacing help here. I will try to talk to Raymarine after the holidays if I still need to, but they are vacation till Jan. 2nd.

Yes, the leaderboard has been available since the very beginning, on the website and your points on the app. The mystery items are random. It doesn't matter if you log the same cache as someone else they are randomly given. Please see my post on March 30th that includes a response from HQ. Signal items are completely random! You can see more recent posts too that talk about the same thing. App: if you are not viewing the experimental profile then try swiping left at the top where it shows the promotions.

Can anyone compleatly decode the geo-talk abreviations found in log books, I figured out tnln, and ftf, and dnf, but that was it? What is some of the other abreviations used?

Now you have something to talk about during your event

We are fairly new to the geocaching world and have become VERY addicted to say the least. We enjoy hiding as much as we enjoy finding. We are wanting to put out a multi cache. Ive been doing research on different caches to see how everyone else does theirs. I haven't found all that much about how to list them and how they need to be done to get approved. Say if I want a 4 stage cache, how would I go about inserting all the coords. We are going to do a trivia one and the answers to the questions will be the key to the next one's place. Do we just put in one cache's coordinates? Im really a green pea here that needs some help. Thanks in advance!

Look for clues on the page. For example, if there's a mention of "the key". Some ciphers use a key word. But the puzzle may be unique, where the challenge is to figure out "where to start". Look at the Difficulty rating. If it's 3.5 or higher, prepare to attack this one with your game face on. You may first try easier puzzle caches, especially puzzles by the same Cache Owner. Some ciphers are more common for Geocache puzzles. Look for nearby "Puzzle Cache" Events or even "Geocaching 101" or meet & greet Events. If you can talk to the CO or others at an Event about where you're stuck, they may help. Good luck!

It seems to, which is likely historic. (But that's great .) There's been more caches published since my visit, so you should be able to outdo my finds. Including ALs about 23 more since I was there. So for a small place, a lot of caches. Tempted to return to find the new ones. There's a challenge cache there to log, if you find all the caches on the island. I logged it, as at the time, I found all the caches. There's a couple of ALs too, which is interesting on an island without proper mobile coverage. I didn't have those to do then. I think you find the answers and go somewhere that has wifi to log them. Endeavour3 is a local cacher, and very helpful. He tends to put on meet and greets when he knows cachers are visiting. He had a CITO for my visit, and we walked along Kingston foreshore picking up rubbish, and me logging any caches I passed. There was an Earth cache (his) and after we visited it and he gave me a talk on it, he said now you can log. There's a wide variety of caches there. Even a small power-trail. The island is 34.6 km². We have bigger farms than that in Australia.

Hm. Reviewers being reviewers. Not all reviewers are the same. Not the CHS. How many times have we been through this whole "CHS" thing? Why are "experienced cachers" "required" to respond to the email? That's new. We know that caches that have been pinged by the algorithm are flagged for reviewers (or rather, if they're below the score threshold, to be specific, as far as I know, on top of numerous other factors available to reviewers' judgmental scans). That's it. The reviewer is the one that acts after that. That's it. That's all. If your reviewers are strict on caches with low score - talk to them.

I have a real problem with muggles. Not the ones that catch you cacheing as I have only found one cache so far. No, I have problems with them at work; I am afraid they are going to catch me printing out the caches that I am going to look for this weekend! I have to hit the print button and run down the hall to get the printout off the printer before someone sees it. Oh, I could explain what I am doing, but half would think I am crazy and who knows what the other half will think.

FYI, It would seem that the OGA talk list RSS feed has been locked out. A shame that the general public can no longer see what is going on unless they become an official member.

One of my least enjoyable days was the day I decided to find 100 caches in a day on a power trail. 80ish of the finds on the trail plus a few others in the area and I did it solo. Talk about miserable, I was so exhausted getting in and out of the car. Yes I parked next to the cache but after 100 times it adds up. Even putting on the seat belt was a an effort. No plans of ever doing that again.

The moderator may move or delete this, I don't know, but our magnetic compasses (if we carry one) are as much a part of our gear as our GPSr. I am curious as to what make and model magnetic compass people are using. I have a Suunto M3G with the global needle (I am in Ecuador). Turns out the little Silva starter compass I carry every day in my backpack worked just fine. But I like the larger dial and needle and the luminous dial on the more expensive model. Looking through the catalogs, you sure can spend a lot for a compass! I Remember years ago Silva was the only game in town.

Hi, A fact is that some useful features were working and have just disapeared. I may have missed it, but I did not read any answer about the filter of the Personal Notes... For example with this link I was able to search all mysteries having "not modified" coordinates and that does not have a PN : https://www.geocaching.com/play/results?sw=1&ct=8&hf=1&ho=1&cc=0&nfb=smashcfr This has just been deactivated... Why, as it worked ? And why this does not have been repaired, as this should be very easy if you use GIT... As I already said, it's great to try to produce new things, this can be very positive... But not when each time useful functionnalities disapear (I wrote here about PN, but I'd be able to talk about many more...). So please, any news about those PN ? This should be very easy to put it back...

1) I had read about geocaching way back when it started. I have always loved maps and compass, and I knew about GPS. Years later, my wife worked food service as a kitchen manager. One day, she brought home a catalog from a local food service company, and told me I have 100,000+ points that I could spend on anything I wanted. They had a Garmin eTrex, the original eTrex for 98,000 points, so I ordered it. Loaded the coords for a local cache, and went and found it. Then, it sat for over a year, before I found another cache. 2) I did it for a number of reasons. First and foremost in my mind, it was a cool use of the technology. A bit of adventure, getting out and about. Something I could do with the kids, then the grandkids. 3) I haven't gone geocaching in a couple of years. Basically, all the remaining local caches are (IMO) lame. I don't have as much time to do this, and I do other GPS based activities. I will get back into it when I retire. (I'm right on the brink of starting to count down the months, instead of the years. Got 33 months left.) Other have mentioned that Geocaching is a hobby, not a game. To me, it is a bit of both. Games need to have rules, so I make up my own rules. Challenges actually. I did a Jasmer challenge. I want to find a cache in each degree (0-359) using my home as a base. I want to find cache in each 5 mile band away from my house out to 350 miles. I will do GeoTours. These are the games/challenges I set for myself. You talk about the Gamification of the Outdoors. I'm assuming that this is about games played in real world locations, and how technology is allowing a more diverse set of location based games. Pre-GPS, this would include things like Orienteering and Letterboxing. With GPS, we got Geocaching. With Smartphones, our options expanded to include 'games' such as Pokemon GO, Ingress, Pikmin Bloom, and others. If you change the title to Gamification of Location, you could include some console based games, games that required multiple people to be in the same location (indoors or outdoors) in order to do certain things. (Anyone remember the cables required to link handheld consoles together, before wireless.)

Thank you for the reply. I have asked that question to the head office and got no reply yet. I wanted to install the app on my phone but didn't know if there was a cost to do so. All the feed back talk is about how it cost so much to use your phone with the app. I'm not real Tec'y ,so I need help with it all. Thank You Again

It would be nice if someone from geocaching HQ would read this post and say something. Even, "no thank you, we're happy with the way this is" though I'd prefer "thanks for the feedback, that's an interesting idea and we'll talk about it". I think it's a great idea as a software engineer, and helpful to integrate labs into the mainline game. Anyone from HQ listening? Hello?

Then you should be here----> http://forum.geocaching.com.au/ Mix

I have a Pioneer XM Radio Inno, with car kit, home kit, remote, and portable speakers. I am looking for a Magellan Roadmate 2000 or 3000. May be out of the ball park here, but I firgure it never hurts to put it out there. Thanks for looking, The Miller Family

For anyone interested, here is the episode of Challenge Talk where we discuss the idea of fully theming challenge caches. Seems like there is a general consensus that theming the challenge final cache itself in some way is much more enjoyable than just a run of the mill cache that signing is more like a smiley technicality.

Perhaps it's because the cache is a gift from the CO to the community, and the way we have of repaying that gift is to share our experiences through our logs whether that experience results in a precious smiley or not. Besides, if we didn't log our epic DNFs, what would there be to talk about at events? Points well taken - the only way we have to see activity on our hides is by the logs, and perhaps by communications at events or via the message center. Seeing unlogged activity (as defined by the OP) is problematic on many levels and is not likely to ever happen: How do you know they are searching for the cache? I use the app, at times, to check to see if I am too close when I am looking at a potential hiding spot by choosing a cache nearby and hitting Navigate. I also hit the Navigate to check distances to several that may be in the area - to help plan our spontaneous walk in the park, what's nearby? cache outings. That will not mean anything to the CO. And giving folks access to the detailed distance and time factors, I agree with Max and 99, that borders on creepy! More accurate logs are what will give the CO the best idea of activity on his/her hide whether that is a Found It, Write Note, or DNF. Detailed logs are even better!! And those logs you get from folks who use the official app, other apps, and plain old GPS units to search for and find caches - a much more accurate picture of what's happening with your cache.

Perhaps it's because the cache is a gift from the CO to the community, and the way we have of repaying that gift is to share our experiences through our logs whether that experience results in a precious smiley or not. Besides, if we didn't log our epic DNFs, what would there be to talk about at events?

I started Geocaching about 5 years ago. I only found a few easy caches, then didn't pick it up again until recently. It seems like my GPS unit is only accurate to within 10-15 feet. Is this normal? I guess that''s why people talk about "Ground Zero", right?

Not allowed to talk about it but I use an app that lets me see archived caches easily. I'm not surprised about the error though - having trouble today getting the mapping function to work AT ALL for lists. (Off to find where to post about that...)

It's because the Wherigo Foundation site is an alternate listing service. It was supposed to demonstrate to Groundspeak what we were intending to do with Wherigo so we could run Wherigo for Groundspeak, free of charge for everyone involved. The other Wherigo player apps and builders are on Groundspeak's ban list because of the same reason: they're an alternate to something else--their PocketPC app and their builder, respectively. Though I worked to get community work officially recognized, those at the top of Groundspeak never communicated any of their verbal support to those enforcing Groundspeak's guidelines. Throughout Wherigo's lifetime, regardless of individual intentions at the company, Groundspeak's apparent attitude has always felt one of apathy and passive hostility towards anyone attempting to make their product more accessible to the community. I coined the term "the Wherigo Foundation is Fight Club". They've always told their reviewers not to allow any mention of the Wherigo Foundation or other non-Groundspeak Wherigo applications in cache listings. It's just that the reviewers aren't consistent with each other that caches in some areas were published and others not. Part of the partnership agreement I was reviewing did state that, if the Wherigo Foundation site were to be discontinued, all cartridge files would be provided to Groundspeak for dispersal to community members. I was planning to do that, anyway, so that was fine. There was one other clause I haven't before talked openly about. Suffice it to say, the way I interpreted it, if I ever walked away from Wherigo and did not transition its running to others, the entire game would come to an end. I did not like that Wherigo would then seem to rely on one person's continued health, existence, and interest. The partnership agreement never panned out because Groundspeak took too long in replying, which further showed their apathy (I'd say nine months, several times, classifies as too long, regardless of how patient you are--while waiting for one such reply, I had a house built and moved into it). An odd quirk to all this is this Wherigo forum. Why can we openly talk about these applications? The answer is a combination of me and Groundspeak's apathy. Back when matejcik and charlenni first presented their applications, the forum rule was that moderators needed to clear through Groundspeak talk of new applications. So, as the moderator, I hid the threads and sought approval. Groundspeak did not reply for a month, so I unhid the thread. When that second application was announced, I hid the thread again and asked Groundspeak. I again didn't hear a reply and unhid the thread. Later, I did get a reply, saying it was fine and that there wasn't anyone at Groundspeak who could speak for authorizing these, so that's why it took so long. I asked, then, for something no other moderator has: the authority to make these decisions on my own. It was granted. Ever since then, so long as something wasn't commercial, I allowed it. Now, mind you, Groundspeak's employees have definitely changed since then, so no one there remembers that this responsibility was delegated, so would likely take it away. Another odd footnote is Wherigo\\kit. I am able to use Groundspeak's API for authentication, which does require approval and a review. More recently, when I had to submit an updated overview of this application, I was asked by someone at Groundspeak if I wanted Kit to appear in the list of official Groundspeak partners. I guffawed, pointing out that Groundspeak's reviewers do not allow caches to be published if they mention Kit, the Wherigo Foundation, or any other application, so listing Kit as an official Groundspeak partner would thoroughly confuse the situation, so Groundspeak should really consider its stance on the matter. This was about two years ago. Finally, something that irritates me. Groundspeak allows cachers to mention GSAK and Project GC in their cache listings. Both are commercial applications--GSAK was up until recently and Project GC pushes a subscription model. Groundspeak also allows mention of other commercial applications in cache listings. But, yet, when it comes to everything the community has done to help Groundspeak with Wherigo--and everything we have has always been free, with the individual developer shouldering 100% of the continued cost--Groundspeak has this as their official position. And, believe me, there are ongoing costs. I average about $200/month for hosting, storage, SSL/TLS license, and domain registrations between Kit, the Wherigo Foundation site, DevOps/TFS, and the staging areas I use when publishing. I could decrease the cost by doing a shared hosting plan, I suppose. I suppose I could have still continued to create things. But there comes a time when one needs a solid support group to provide feedback and motivation. I don't have that. And you'd figure people in my own area would be really supportive of my endeavors, be it Wherigo or having found almost 95K caches. They're not. There's a distinct anti-Wherigo feeling in my area. There have been some that would like it if I quit geocaching altogether. So, no support there. One can continue only so long against the flow and apathy before exhausting oneself. So, later, my job became the beneficiary of some of my free time. I worked uncompensated overtime 300 hours last year and 400 hours this year (and no time off). You'd think they'd be grateful, but instead I get managers telling me they're not asking me to work extra hours and they're apathetic about all the things I'm doing to fix their aging application single-handedly. No encouragement, no support, no appreciation from there. Sigh. So, anyway, that's my view on the matter. There are always other sides to it, though I've tried to be neutral.