Search the Community

I've been happy with my old Etrex H, had to go shopping for drivers and cables when I moved up to Windows 8.1 but all good. Just had to move to Windows 10 and latest (7.whatever) version of EasyGPS, same issues, won't talk to my vintage GPS for upload/download. Anybody know if there are drivers and cables out there that will bring it back to life, as it is still working fine for my needs? Spare me the lectures, by the way, about "join the 21st century." I'm asking a simple question, as I'd like to stay with my current stuff until it dies, not for $$$ reasons, just because it gives me the enjoyment and challenge I want from our hobby. Does anybody know for a certainty that the Etrex H/EasyGPS 7.???/Windows 10 configuration can be made to work? If not I'm fine with spending a few bucks to upgrade, but I enjoy doing things the legacy way as long as I can.

You talk about events and I talk about event caches. It hardly makes sense. Of course Groundspeak cannot hinder cachers who visit an event cache to do something else outside of the event cache. I have the issue with how Groundspeak defines event cache and argues with socialization. All what it boils down is that Groundspeak makes it impossible to come up with great event caches which are long enough to provide ample of opportunity for socializing but are not sedentary. The fact that you go for a walk after the end of your Pi event cache, does not change the effect that your event cache is a boring 30 minutes period spent at a bakery which is of the minimum required length to make it publishable. In my opinion it is a shame that you have to write up your event cache like this. Of course it makes no sense to first sit 4 hours at the bakery and do away with the other activity as it completely changes the experience to be expected. While some write geocaching events should be about geocaching, I rather say that the guidelines seem to suggest that events are about logging attended logs.

No, I'm not argue for the sake of arguing here. I understood that your list was not exhaustive. I just tried to convey my point that while for me nothing what you listed is essential for an event that I do enjoy, some of the aspects that I enjoy are somehow banned from what is regarded as actual event by Groundspeak and I'm sad about that. Somehow I start to wonder whether socializing means something different in North America than what it means to me. Of course, socializing is the key aspect of any normal event (for CITOS something else is added). I never questioned this aspect of events. I just wonder why it is socializing to talk with others cachers about geocaching while eating pizza and drinking beer while it is not socializing to talk with other cachers while walking along a forest trail (just two arbitrary examples). I simply do not get it. In my opinion, an event along the lines of Neversummer's orginal proposal (without the addition that the event owner waits for the attendants at one fixed location for at least 30 contiguous minutes) fulfills the requirement of lasting at least 30 minutes and involve plenty of socializing. Still such an event is not publishable which of course we all have to accept. I will never understand however what makes such events less well suited for socializing than much shorter static events. As I said many times before, I have never thought of flash mobs as real events. Any attempt to think of the bigger picture would require me to understand why events where there is not someone waiting for 30 minutes for normal events and an hour for CITOS at a fixed location are not regarded as events regardless of what takes place and for how long. For CITOs the new rule seems even more absurd to me - not the fact that CITO should last for at least an hour, but that someone should be present at the header coordinates of the CITO. CITOs are for picking up trash and similar activities which are dynamic by definition.

Everyone DOES have their own way of choosing caches, just like everyone has their own methods when it comes to caching. Let me rephrase my question to you then. How do YOUR ethical values, when it comes to finding and logging a cache, have ANY impact on how Lone.R or anyone else caches? Is there ANYTHING you do when you cache, using your ethical model, that will affect the behavior of any other cacher? Do someone else's ethical standards change the way you cache? My guess is that their behavior has no effect on the way in which you cache. You choose to cache the way you do because it's all about you, not about them. As it pertains to hiding, you've already stated that you're less likely to put more effort into complex hides and you might even "give up" because of the way in which some people choose to cache. Stating it bluntly, that's a you problem, not a them problem. You're letting THEIR actions dictate YOUR actions when it comes to placing a new cache. That means they've won. You have given up (or considered giving up) because you feel it's just not worth it anymore because of something someone else did or does. I'm still fighting. I'm not going to let those actions I find questionable or unethical change either the way I cache or the way I hide. I'm confident in my choices and beliefs and I'm not going to let someone else dictate how much I enjoy this activity. I'm going to talk to newer cachers and let them know that this is the way I choose to cache, this is what I find OK, and this is what I don't find OK. I'm going to tell them to talk to other cachers to see how they cache so they get a different perspective. Then I'm going to tell them that they determine how they're going to cache and that my way isn't the right way, it's just one of many ways. Finally, I'm going to tell them that geocaching is what THEY make of it. THEY get to determine what geocaching means to them. At the end of the day, all of this means nothing really. We're not curing cancer, fighting a life or death battle, struggling to make ends meet, or any other life altering event. We're looking for a way to enjoy life and we've chosen to geocache as one aspect of that. All I know is, life is too short to worry about what others are doing when it's my enjoyment of life that's at stake.

Definitely. Many holidays are related to religions, and we all know how divisive religion can become. There'd also need to be some decisions made regarding which holidays or themes are "good enough" to be included in this feature. Some of the big ones like Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, sure, I think we can agree those get in pretty easily. What about International Talk Like a Pirate Day? Probably not. In between, there are countless other "special" days of varying degree, and a line would need to be drawn through them somewhere. Cue the arguments about why this holiday made the cut and that one didn't... I don't think the idea is necessarily a bad one, but I'm not sure it could be made to work very easily.

One honest cacher out of a group of six. “F” Premium Member Caches Found 94426 Found it 05/29/2015 Out with our team “ABCDEF” (from “5 states”) on our “State” run. Thanks for the caches and the fun! “E” Premium Member Caches Found 16525 Found it 05/29/2015 Found this while caching with Team “ABCDEF” -- thanks for adding to our fun & TFTC ! “D” Premium Member Caches Found 87925 Found it 05/29/2015 w/”A”, “B”, “C”, “E”, “F” as “ABCDEF” I was invited over for my first experience with “State”. I got the east of the “Mountains” tour, meaning fairly flat land so I could see several rain storms miles and miles distant. Can't see something like that where I'm from. I guess, though, that's close to what I remember from “Other state”. This time, though, my distance sense was a little messed up because the area out here is just so vast--and the caches were farther apart than I realized (still wonder why). Despite the storms moving around us, the weather was wonderful and so was the company. I switched between cars as much as I could so I could get to talk to everyone. I even did one of my fun things, standing on the car's running board as we zoomed down dirt roads to the next cache. Fun times. Thank you for contributing to the caches I found during this trip! “C” Member Caches Found 44649 Found it 05/29/2015 Wrapping up a two week caching trip. This was one of many we found. Enjoyed the craxy weather, rain, thunder and lightening and the long hours of caching. Road trips are always worth it! As always, thanks to the CO's for the for the hides, the fun, and another smiley on the map ! See you on the trail and keep on caching ! Everything logged as “ABCDEF” “B” Premium Member Caches Found 78517 Found it 05/29/2015 Thanks for all the CO's who made this caching journey a nexessity. “A” Premium Member Caches Found 54666 Didn't find it 05/29/2015 Out with a great group of friends to cache the plains - thanks to everyone for placing caches and making this a great trip. We signed our logs as “ABCDEF” We hunted for this one but didn't have the correct TOTT to make the find.

This thread rather makes me think that many of those witing here have not the slightest issue with it. That's exactly how I understand that everyone should cache as they want to enjoy the game. It all sounds in my ears like "Feel free to share as many coordinates as you want. All what counts is signing log sheets". Not at all. I encourage people to have the richer experience you offer, and I might even make a snide remark if they shortcut it. But the point here is that if they don't accept your offer, that doesn't diminish the richer experience I'll have when I seek the cache. The way you talk, you'll be so wrapped up in thinking negatively about the people that didn't follow the path presented that you won't even notice that I visited your cache and enjoyed it as intended. In fact, you sometimes talk as if I'll never get a chance to have the experience because your negative feelings are going to drive you to archive them before I get there, and that would be a shame. If you invite me to a party, I will enjoy the fine wine and food you serve me regardless of how many people go to the fast food joint down the street.

Ignoring the Earth, just thinking in 3D space. Distances from three points provides 2 intersections. Now, being on the surface of the Earth, ... here I realize the confusion. Being a smartphone user, the phone can deduce which of the 2 locations is more likely based on other data, like service provider, cell towers, recent location, etc. Where a smartphone can 'talk' to another non-satellite source, a handheld GPSr may require the 4th satellite to make that distinction if it has no recent data from which to deduce. However, once either device has its single location, to whatever accuracy (in 3D space), altitude and/or elevation can be determined. One way is by cross-referencing the elevation at the lat/lon calculated and citing the difference to the device's location in 3d space. Or having the algorithms for the curvature of the earth calculate the height over sea level for the calculated lat/lon. Point being, with a single location determined from the intersections, the 'location' (+/- accuracy) is already in 3D space, thus elevation can be calculated relative to sea level (whether you're on the ground or flying in an airplane). 4 or more satellites (depending on device) strengthen the accuracy of the gps location. The more spheres intersect in the general vicinity (within meters or less), the closer the average will be to the actual location. (barring signal loss and bounce and other uncertainty factors) ETA: As for time error, that's a matter of accuracy, really. It's a +/- give or take from the calculated location (one of 2 intersection points in 3-space having 3 spheres). The 4th (sphere) isn't required to determine a single intersection of the two unless no other reference data indicates which of the two points is most likely. But the 4th (sphere) will absolutely confirm and reduce intersection points from 2 to 1 if any device receives the 4th satellite signal (and helps to improve calculation accuracy) Dislaimer: IANAM(athematician) - but I understand geometry ;P

I understand you think there's some kind of logic, but since I don't see it, I'm trying to understand your thinking. If a cache needs maintenance, logic says you should file a needs maintenance log. When I can tell from the logs that a cache is missing, visiting GZ will provide me with zero information: I already know I won't find it. Do you consider yourself some kind of supercacher that will always find a tricky cache that others have missed? As long as they have reasonable experience, I trust the people that filed DNFs before me. When you talk about morals and ethics, you imply that there's something wrong with filing an NM. That's exactly what the problem is. There's nothing wrong with filing a competent NM even when it turns out to be wrong. Sure, don't go off half cocked, but when you can read enough DNFs to know that plenty of expertise has looked for the cache and not found it, your one additional DNF will be meaningless. The only impact is that an NM which you could have filed right away while you're looking at the cache description will be delayed until whenever you get around to getting to GZ. And, worse, if you decide not to go to GZ -- and why would you? -- the NM will never be filed. By all means, feel uncomfortable if you don't know enough to file the NM. Gather more information if you need to, including visiting GZ if you think that will tell you anything. But visiting GZ without finding the cache is just one data point. It's as illogical to require that one specific data point as it is to file an NM based on only that one data point. Naturally I'm not demanding you file an NM even if it makes you uncomfortable. But I hope you will consider that there's really no downside to filing the NM -- worst case, you're wrong, big deal -- but there is a downside to not filing the NM when it's justified.

There is nothing funny about an LPC. Not only that but they don't exist in Europe, so it's a bit pointless to mention them. I just heard from the organizers btw that it's even shorter- it's a 20 minute talk, and then a 10 minute Q&A session. So short! Also discovered luckily tho that there's an intro presentation on the geocaching site itself, which I won't have time to go through all of but using some of the slides are a great starting point type thing, so that's nice. I was also thinking it might be interesting to mention on the nerdy side a brief start to the history of geocaching, as I doubt most people realize the reason we now have GPS everywhere is because before 2000 it just wasn't possible! Also, I realized last night that it might be cool to ask the organizers if we could host a geocaching event there too for geocachers- just have a signup sheet on a table with a box for trackables type thing- as it's free and pretty fun normally as a night out, so why not? The other things I did for my presentation was that I brought in several containers to demonstrate what someone might look for. Several people thought the nano cache was really interesting. I didn't really talk about each container type during the presentation but put them on the table for people to look at after the presentation was over.

I just happen to have a basically unused Oregon 600 with free OSM New Mexico road maps installed. With some effort (learning curve) in Demo Mode I managed to move the focus point across state lines to a street in downtown Santa Fe. From there it was possible to route to the searchable Harry's Roadhouse POI !! Direct interpolated street address number routing is not (may not be) possible with this Oregon 600 or with the Garmin 64s and OSM maps, although there may be intermediate reference street numbers available. There are several aargh moments in starting over in the same city. The newish Garmin Drive 51 or better automotive devices with full USA maps are a pleasure to use in comparison, and they are cheap and talk to you. But then I'm not much into geocaching, except for the toys.

I don't think bullying is the right word, but you need to have some thick skin here in order to stick around. There are some posts that start out with innocuous questions or comments that tend to diverge into two divided camps who vociferously support their opinion to no end. Most of the cachers in my area don't visit this forum because of that. When I talk about being on here or talk about the threads being discussed, I get comments like, "you're crazy" "Why would you go there?" "I don't go there. They're mean."

Link for reference: https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=38&pgid=427 Sounds like you have some strong feelings about older caches. You might want to express those in the following survey and some possible solutions to keeping them alive: https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2018/12/lets-talk-some-more-about-geocache-quality/

You won't find anywhere to enter a cell number. As described in the instructions above, you need to determine the email-to-SMS address for your phone number. ... >snip< ... For example, to send an email as a text to a Verizon cell phone, you would use phonenumber@vtext.com where phonenumber is the 10-digit cell phone number. Each provider has their own domain (the @whatever part), but they pretty much use the phone number as the individual email recipient portion (before the @). You can do a simple web search for something like email to at&t cell phone or email to sprint cell phone to find the particulars. Some of them use a separate domain for text (example ##########@txt.att.net) versus multi-media message (example ##########@mms.att.net). I've been doing this a lot lately because I have lousy cell reception at home (need to get one of those repeater thingies), and I can sometimes receive messages, but a lot of sends fail. So I send via Thunderbird using a profile that makes it look like my cell phone sent the message. I've added contacts for a lot of my family and friends using their appropriate ##########@domain. Edit: I forgot to mention that Straight Talk (by Walmart) is a little odd. It actually uses either Verizon or AT&T as the underlying carrier. My pastor had been using Verizon with a regular contract, but he switched to Straight Talk keeping the same cell number. I tried to send him the hymn numbers for next Sunday using the Verizon #@vtext.com and it bounced back. So I tried AT&T's #@txt.att.net and it worked.

Why do you think so? I'd call myself experienced cache owner and I feel the opposite. Year by year, game & players are more and more driven by quantity. 10-12 years ago I could read pages of stories in my physical logbooks & online. Now - kudos to exceptions - I'm happy if I find at least a nickname in the logbook and high % of online logs are just copy-paste summaries of cacher's day, hardly relevant to my cache. I'm not complaining, I'm not hiding for logs and it does not say much about quality. Just pointing out - this trend means depersonalized geocaching to me & deteriorating importance of CO. I welcome this broad discussion & survey about quality. Finally! Finally here's serious talk about caching for adventures, instead of caching for numbers. No, these proposals are not depersonalizing geocaching. We are talking here mostly about maintenance, because many COs of hundreds of caches are worried that maintenance & ownership expectations are still important for players and HQ. They are feared of restrictive changes, personally I hope changes will be more about new, healthy motivation factors, lesser so about new restrictions. Presented ideas are much broader, targeted to praise responsible owners. Let me remind us with some of them: For me as a cache owner, these proposals sound rewarding and highlighting my importance. If implemented properly, they can motivate owners to create maybe lower amount, but better caches, for all of us.

Many people are convinced that "cache quality" is a problem, but when they talk about how to fix it, it's obvious that everone's talking about different problems, and none of them strike me as problems. Just my opinion, but the problem with "cache quality" isn't about the container, or how often it's maintained. It's a growing mentality that quality is not as important as quantity. When quantity is the primary consideration, cache owners aren't going to invest in a good container, and there is a problem with it, or it goes missing, just archive it and put out more quantity. Poor cache containers, unmaintained caches, and even choosing a location for the hide are all just symptoms of the "quality is not as important as quantity" mentality. Sorry, but don't know how to change that mentality (perhaps souvenirs are the answer ).

I took the survey because I dreamed there might be questions about whether I think there's a problem and what it is, and I hoped there was a way to answer at least some of the questions in a way that didn't support the notion that there was a problem. Unfortunately, what I found was the worst of both: questions that couldn't be answered without assuming "cache quality" was a problem despite nothing at all trying to work out what problem was being solved. Many people are convinced that "cache quality" is a problem, but when they talk about how to fix it, it's obvious that everone's talking about different problems, and none of them strike me as problems. What's worse, all of the solutions seem intent on depersonalizing geocaching and minimizing the importance of cache owners.

Two issues strike me with regard to the plan to pick up remains of archived caches as a CITO: 1) it's locationless - ie go somewhere and pick up trash. CITO events may spread out, but they are defined by coords, and target a specific "cache friendly" place. CITO as locationless - ie, pick up some trash somewhere and meet and talk about it, is submitted from time to time. It doesn't work. ? 2) pick up geocache containers belonging to others isn't going to be advertised on the site. Geocaching.com operates from the premise that the physical container and the cache page belong to the cache owner.

"a young lady at Apple support" isn't going to be in a position to help you. At best, she'll manage to pass your issue along in a way that might get it to the right people there. The folks who need to check into this at Apple are those that manage their mail servers with the domains those of you with issues are mentioning. It may be difficult or even impossible to talk to the right people. You literally need to talk to one of the administrators of their mail servers who set up the reputation rules for the server, or who obtain that information from a 3rd party to determine how to manage mail from other servers based upon their 'reputation'. Alternately -- Groundspeak, it's your ball again! You may well be getting bounce messages from these Apple email servers that are providing an indication of why your mail is being rejected. Could you have a look? The bounces you were getting from Comcast were trying to tell you what the problem was. A peek at your server logs might turn up something similar for the Apple servers.

Never forget. How could I? My mother-in-law was dying of cancer. My husband was up north to be with her for a final week. He called me and woke me up. "Turn on the TV" "What? What is it?" "Turn on the TV" "No games, just tell me" "I can't. Just turn it on" Just in time to see the second tower fall (3 hour time difference, it was early). I was alone, all alone, on this terrible day. Mike didn't want to talk on the phone because his mother was dying. I couldn't reach other family members to talk to them. I was all alone and scared that I would never see my husband again. Who knew that day if anything else would happen? I began to wonder if anyone I knew as a child growing up in New York was in those buildings. My sister-in-law couldn't fly down to see her mother. I had to try and figure out a way to get her down here before my mother-in-law died. Days later, my husband came home, and 2 weeks later my mother-in-law died. Our hearts ached and grieved that whole year. For me, one of the hardest things is not having anyone to talk to about 9/11. Mike can't talk about it because of his mother. No one else I know will talk about it. I needed to talk about it and I couldn't. Even now, nearing the second anniversary, I ache. The images are there, imbedded in my brain. Images of people jumping off the building I can't get rid of. Even now, if I see an image of the WTC, or 9/11, I physically recoil. I ache for a world that we lost, the innocence the young children will never know in this new world. The innocence I used to know growing up, not realizing that people hated me because of who I am. Not knowing that people longed for me to die because I am an American. I wish we could still live like that. I will never forget.

As each case similar comes up for a hider, aren't we asked to talk to our Reviewer ? When we're talking about varying regional policies within every country in the world here , I guess I don't understand what kinda set, catch-all "guidance" you'd expect from HQ. Even if we could make some sort of "list" similar to the Regional Policies Wiki, it'd take some time to create.

We literally just started this after listening to a few in our network talk about it over the years. Havent set out on a day of just hunting but were taking one a day that are close and begining to enjoy the "bonus" fun it offers us when we are already out enjoying the outdoors. Being an Army guy I've already ordred a geocache kit that will offer up some Army themed swag as well as set in motion a trackable. It will be more camoflaged than even I was back in the day! Eventually we will register it and get it going. Until then...cheers folks. Easy fun that gets you some quirky looks from unknowing bystanders when you are literally on top of it with the GPS but still can't see the dang thing!

Since we don't know why this task is being forbidden, I don't think we can guess whether there's a way to talk about an optional task and explain why it's only optional without tripping over the same "problem". I doubt you can get away with, "This is an optional task because some people will offended by the location, but I can't tell you why without talking about lingerie, so please go to the location and decide for yourself whether you're offended." I gather they didn't give you any justification more specific than "underwear bad"?

I have the same feeling that all those caches which may at some level require interactivity with the staff have earned lots of favorites. Here comes the question. Why this kind of contacting is not allowed? Who is against the idea? I can understand it if the staff person is working in a commercial business, but the "no commercial caches" should handle that case. I've encountered one which was in a hotel where one had to go to the concierge desk to get the container. Although the hotel is a commercial business I don't think that the concierge is going to try to talk a geocacher into checking into a room. I've also seen on in a small bar, where it would be more likely that I geocacher might feel uncomfortable asking for the cache container without buying a drink, but even for that one the logs all mentioned how nice it was to meet the bartender. Some people just might feel comfortable interacting with someone to get the cache. The way I see it, if you're uncomfortable finding a cache, just remember that you don't need to find every cache. If the no contact rule were strictly enforced it would like result in quite a few caches getting archive (and not replaced in a manner which didn't require interaction with staff). For the one in the hotel I did, it was originally placed outside the hotel and was muggled at least a couple of times before the CO moved it inside about 7 years ago where it could be protected. It hasn't had a DNF since. When I found it, it was 1 of only 2-3 cache in a city of over 3 million people and many of the logs mention that it was their first and only cache found in the country.

I agree with the statement what quality or excellence of a cache should not be an exception for compliance with the guidelines. However, as I've noted in the bolded portion above, sometimes non-compliance with a guideline does not result in a cache being "problematic". Like redsox_mark I've also geocached in 30 countries (got #30 this year) and have come across quite a few caches listings which indicate that contact with a caretaker of the cache is required. When I've looked at logs for those caches, in pretty much every case, "contact" with a caretaker of a cache has always been described as a positive experience that made the cache more enjoyable. I know of one cache at a very small school in a developing country where all of the logs talk about the experience of meeting the children and teacher at the school but don't say much about the cache itself. I suppose that if the "no contact" guideline didn't exist there would be some that would place caches which required contact with someone at a business with the intent of soliciting business but I suspect that in most/many cases the need for contact is primarily to provide a care taker of the container to avoid issues with muggles taking the cache.