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Even more timely, the last podcast I released, before this news, has a segment where I talk about the hint affecting the D rating of a cache and I touched on how the official app seems to place more importance and significance on the hint over the description. It wasn't laced with opinions on that matter specifically, but helps validate that there's a clear implication and reputation that the devs really don't place much value in the description for mobile app users. I don't think any other mobile app gives that same implication... imo it's quite unfortunate If there is a good reason (ymmv, but an actual conscious decision) for this strategy, I for one would be interested to know. Who knows, there could be factors at work unknown to our side of the fence here.

Let's talk about Letterbox Hybrids and where to hide them, like in barefootjeff's post.

Would posting a Write Note to the cache page saying that you have tried other means to contact the CO and would like to talk with the CO about adopting the cache? Just spitballing here...

I'm sorry you feel this way. Geocaching events are not equivalent to "meetings" at all, at least in my neck of the woods! And the variety of events means you can choose what you want to do! We gather to have pizza, and socialize - very informal, and we have learned a lot about our fellow geocachers, met some very nice folks, and made many connections that have helped us along in our retirement hobby. We meet to clean up a park (CITO), have coffee in the morning, sip wine on a patio, play with gadget caches, work on puzzles, all are unique and different. We too, began geocaching when hubby retired (2017). We greatly enjoy attending events and getting out to meet others. Of course, we like meeting others on the road as well, but I wouldn't ever lump all events together as "meetings" akin to work meetings....I think you are missing a big piece of what geocaching is about! We've come to realize that we are people with a different kind of hobby that not everyone understands or "gets" - and to be able to meet with like minded folks and talk about experiences is one of the things we enjoy most about geocaching! Maybe try a local event, just once, just for this one souvenir. You may be surprised!

There's been a lot of talk lately about Power Trails, with very heated opinions on both sides of the coin. Seems to me the crux of the con argument is the uninspiredness (I'm aware that's not a real word) of a film can or hide-a-key every 528'. That kind of got me thinking. We have some pretty good rail trails around my town. I'm thinking a power trail of sorts geared toward newbies, kind of a way for them to "get their numbers up" and address one of my little annoyances, caches with the wrong size rating. Start out with the micros: Cache 1 is a blinky, cache 2 a bison tube, then film cannister, etc. Move on up the food chain, culminating in a five gallon bucket. If done right, I could wind up with a 20-30 cache "Power Trail". Now if I can just get the time off work and get the wife to let me out of painting the house this spring, I'll be all over it.

Agreed. Such as Hint: red. Real example. You only get the hint on the hard to find cache when you remove the cover and see the red cache. Doh!!!!. Annoying. Want people to talk about your cache with annoyance, and that reflects badly on the CO and their intelligence, or lack of, thinking that was a hint? Give a non-hint like that!

I didn't even own a smartphone 10yrs ago. So I didn't use an app at all, but I remember talk about phone apps back then. I don't care about the premium caches right now and yeah, I know they've been around since I was last a premium member. What irritates me the most is the inability to filter caches on the website and I'm pretty sure that functionality was available to basic members in the past. Just to be able to display caches on the map that were harder, or larger containers (so I could filter out all the lamppost micros, or micros-in-the-woods that I don't like searching for) so I could download the .gpx for them to transfer to my garmin. but without paying, I have to just click on stuff until I find something that meets my criteria. that sort of thing is going to get old really fast.

I've helped with Intro to Geocaching classes sponsored by a county parks department. The instructor presented a quick "chalk talk" at the parking lot, ending it with a challenge to spot a camouflaged geocache right there where the "chalk talk" had been given. (It was a "hidden in plain sight" camouflage cache.) Then we broke up into small groups with an experienced geocacher assigned to each group. Each group was also given a preprogrammed GPS receiver with 8-10 caches on a nearby trail. The caches were rather varied, but close to each other. The new geocachers could find several different types of hide and be back at the trailhead by lunchtime. But yeah, with beginners, each group needs an experienced geocacher just to catch the things they forgot from the "chalk talk".

Hi all, I'm trying to locate someone in the NYC area who might want to speak at an event we run called Hobby. It's a monthly event where we invite 4 speakers to talk about their hobbies for 5 minutes each, and answer some questions from a group of very interested semi-strangers. We've got an event coming up very soon, (Tuesday, November 16th, from 7pm-8pm), and we'd be thrilled if someone in the NYC area wanted to share with us? Here's our HOBBY page: http://www.getHarvest.com/hobby and here's out HOBBY channel, with video of previous lectures: http://vimeo.com/channels/hobby What do you think? Anyone game? Feel free to contact me directly at karen [at] getHarvest [dot] com - We'd love to have one of you geo-caching mavens share with us about what you do! Best Wishes, Karen — Karen Community Manager, Harvest — Harvest / 212.226.4160 / 187 Lafayette St, 6th Fl, New York City http://www.getHarvest.com http://twitter.com/harvest

Yes, and it leads to a little bit more of a mystery... Went out when I could, and started digging around. I did, in fact, find the station that the carsonite post was for! .. But it was NOT for the station that I had expected - it's for an Azimuth mark for a triangulation station, a 3/4 mile away at the top of a mesa. Station has not been recovered since 1958, so the carsonite post is newer than that. Neither the station that is destroyed there, or the description of the AZ mark make references to each other. I have plans on getting the station on the mesa - I need to talk to the ranch owner first. And will need to get a metal detector, and start sweeping the general area for possible hits.

Have you tried to talk with the leader

This post is being written as a community member, not as a moderator or Groundspeak volunteer. My opinions are my own. Urwigo is likely the most fleshed-out of the third-party builders, followed by Earwigo. We don't have a more fleshed-out builder because Groundspeak hasn't really done anything to encourage the community. I haven't heard anything to the contrary about reviewers being advised not to publish Wherigo geocaches that specifically cite the (free) third-party builder app used to create the cartridge (yet cache listings involving certain other services that have a premium tier are allowed). Internally, the community has talked about revising the Wherigo specification, which has also likely had an impact upon development (but without the community's hosting the listing service, specification changes wouldn't be able to be listed on Wherigo.com, which would then certainly cause Wherigo geocache listings not to be published). I had created a second version of Kit, but never published it because I'd then have to finish the rest of the site's design and I tired myself out. My job over the past five to six years has willingly and eagerly been interested in consuming all free time I would like to put into developing software. I figure it's better to put the time into my job and have what I create be used than attempt to continue Wherigo development--especially the cartridge listing service--and chance it likely never really being used. Besides, recreating it with a modern API, Blazor front end, and microservices in the back end would increase the cost I pay to host Kit and the Wherigo Foundation site. I already pay a not insignificant cost every year to host everything. It would be sad to double it or more with a microservices-based infrastructure if it's not going to go anywhere. In early February, I requested a meeting be set up with me, but I haven't heard anything since. I wanted to talk about Wherigo's future and what active role Groundspeak could play in the community. I myself am not that good in keeping a group of people engaged in a pursuit. I'd need one or two other people to play off of. I'm willing to give it one more shot if we can keep an active and engaged team. I guess for me, the largest obstacles are lack of encouragement, lack of anyone who might want to assist with developing a professional web-based builder, and Groundspeak's seemingly-apathetic stance on the matter.

To start off, I was in Maine yesterday and met a customer right at the Delorme building exit off of I-95. I went in and bought a spiral bound atlas. Looked at the software for the pn-60, NEAT!!! My question is... Can you use your laptop as the screen for a pn-60. Bascially, if I have a mount for my laptop in the truck, can the gps talk back to the laptop and display the information? Since the 60 has a small screen I thought thismight be kind of cool. I know thay offer the small gps units to plug into the laptop, but I thought this might just save some $$$. Don't know why I didn't ask when I as at Delorme. Thanks Hud

When interacting with other people, it's important to distinguish what you consider "poor behavior" from what, to an impartial observer, is a difference of opinion. I spoke up here precisely because I thought the consensus here is wrong. And if there's an established guideline that supports you, I'm not aware of it because the only commonly cited standard is to keep TBs moving, and these are moving. And even if there is something in the guidelines, it couldn't be called "established" because I regularly see this behavior. Anyway, the point remains that you should approach this as a difference of opinion, not being judgemental with your "good behavior" vs. their "bad behavior". Saying "you are behaving badly" -- an accurate reflection of your opinion -- is not significantly different from saying "you're a jerk" even if you feel better about it. Setting a time limit is actually part of this wrong thinking. If you don't like what they're doing but you are respectful of their point of view, you don't have to wait a month. You can talk to them as soon as you notice. The whole idea of "one month or two?" is based on the assumption that they're doing something wrong, so you want to give them some time to come to their senses or whatever. They aren't doing anything wrong, they just aren't doing what you'd like them to do because until you tell them, they won't know what you want them to do. Sure, some of them might not listen to you. Some might even be annoyed what you talk to them. I don't know. But I do know it's more likely they're react negatively if you come at them with "poor behavior"....or even if they're quietly reading this thread and know you're thinking "poor behavior" even though you try to pretty it up in your messages.

If you can eliminate the presumption of "poor behavior", the best course is to contact them and discuss it with them. They've been geocaching a long time. You have not. If you talk it over with them, you can get better insight into what they think they're doing. My guess is that they are under the impression that TB owners like to see their TBs travel, and that most TOs don't really care whether the TBs stop in any particular cache so they can pass from person to person. That might very well be because that's what they like for their TBs. And since it's happen to you multiple times with various geocachers, it sounds like a cultural position in your area you need to be aware of. Like you, I'm not that interested in mindless visits to vast numbers of run-of-the-mill caches. If you talk to them, you can explain your feelings about it to them. But it won't get you very far if you start by accusing them of being jerks. Yes, it's true, some of them may have entirely forgotten that they grabbed the TB and don't know where they put it, but even if that's the case, it will be counterproductive to lead with that possibility. But, actually, that seems unlikely to me because these are seasoned geocachers. If they're acting poorly, they must be doing this with hundreds of TBs by now, and that's hard for me to believe. So I'd assume they have the mistaken belief that they're doing good over the possibility that they're doing it for no particular reason just because they're not nice people.

If you don't need the vicar in the zone after the player talks to him, you could move the vicar to the next zone as the first command when you talk to him. If you still need him around in the current zone, you should be able to disable the command, at which point the player app is supposed to be smart enough to recognize there isn't an object in that zone anymore that has that command. If that's not the case--it really depends on how the player app handles things--disabling the command and then toggling the zone's enabled state should do the trick. So: - On Talk() - - Disable Talk command - - Set zone.Enabled = false - - Set zone.Enabled = true - - Do things for Talk

Please can you advise how to shut off the talk to command for each zone. I am doing a Church Wherigo and I want the vicar to pop up at each question point. As such he is in zone 1, has a talk to command, asks a question, gives commands to move on or retry if answer wrong or right. I am stuck at the next bit, as in how do I turn off the talk to, or attribute it to one zone only so I can do a further talk to at zone 2...

So there are threads about crazy caches you have been to or stuff you found in them....but what about caches you have hid? Which is your favorite? What kind of swag do you put in them? What size is your favorite to hide? What general area are most of you caches in (woods, public, outta the way places, etc..)? Camo Job? Basically just talk about YOUR geocache containers. Even brag a little if you want. We all wanna learn some other cache hiding/creating techniques.

왜 무조건 영어로 대화 하나요!! 한국어로도 대화해요! 무조건 한국어로 대화하는 창입니다 꺄하하하 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 포럼에 나밖에 안노는건 아니겠쬬? ㅠ_ㅠ 완전 슬픔! 날씨 좋은날에는 모두 함께 지오캐싱을 하러 갑시다!

To clarify, the moderating team's message to you explained that your prior post was hidden from view because it described a workflow using an "unauthorized application," but the message went on to say that it is fine to "use the Geocaching forums to discuss the official Geocaching apps and authorized Geocaching Live! partner applications." Therefore, it's fine to talk about solutions involving GSAK or Cachly, for example, because these authorized partners use the Geocaching API. That said, the OP asks about websites, not apps.

Hi! I have a newspaper assignment on geocaching and need someone to talk with to add "local flavor" to the piece. Is there anyone in Green Valley, Arizona willing to help (either with or without real names)? I'm also an absolutely new member (just getting ready to order my 1st GPS unit) and want to get started. Would love to talk with locals about that too. Are you out there Green Valley? annette in gv

First, if there's no issue with the cache, then answering reviewer questions shouldn't be a problem or an issue. Rather it should be great if he can talk to a reviewer and confirm that the cache is good to go; that firms his stance and the cache status. Second, if his initial response to your OAR log is anger given what you said, that is not a nice CO and I wouldn't bat an eye if the reviewer decided to do something about the cache. This is another reason why having a strong community is so important! More local events, let cachers meet each other and get a sense of who each other are and what their ethics are. Even ideally build a good rapport with others around. hmph.

I feel like a total dummy... I know I need a pda...I looked above at the FAQ, only the wiki link worked and I felt overwhelmed by all the info. I use a garmin etrex legend, I think it's H? It's the blue one. I do not have the cords so I have to hand enter each cache, if that matters. I also use an apple macbook. And I do not have a smart phone. If I were to get a pda...what should I get? I'd be looking to get something used, or on the cheaper end (as much as possible...), and am willing to save up to get one if I have to (I am going to start saving up for a new gps with cords too! This one by one thing is too much). I know I'll have to become a PM for PQs, and then do I HAVE to have GSAK? or no? And then I'll need another type of software, too...am I right? So much to know... Thanks for any help!!

I've been all about challenges for years. We started the Challenge Talk podcast in 2020 which is great for challenge enthusiasts. Personally there are so many challenges in Ontario now that I'm not so much working focused on specific challenges any more, but passively working on any I don't qualify for yet As mentioned above, I have a doc that lists all the challenges I know of and I periodically update them all with current progress, and whether they're qualified (then log it as such with a note); and if I sign in first I mark it in the doc as found as I know once it's qualified I can just log it found. Going on trips is prime time to prioritize finding qualifying caches. But I also have them sorted by priority. Dates needing find specific qualifying caches go straight on my calendar so I know "today I've got to find 5 caches, 2 letterboxes, 1 Other, and a 3.5/4" for example. If I'm traveling then region and location becomes priority. Any rare caches in the vicinity of travel go on the stop-and-find list. Especially region oldests, jasmer caches, rare DTs, or even just properties that don't appear nearly as often near to home. Rarely ever on a trip do I just casually find caches. There are too many and the vast majority don't help towards any qualifications. Even so, before casual caching I'd be searching for high favourite points for the best chance at maximizing my travel's experiences. Challenges give that extra goal, a new layer on top of regular geocaching (like geocaching on top of the real world :P)

would like to discuss with local geocacher about geocaching & how to go about hiding them