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Unless it's something dangerous, I'd expect it's allowed. AirTags simply use the tracking ability of the phone, and phones are allowed for Geocaching. But I'd prefer an option to shut off "tag trackers". There are many things that Apple either requires or won't allow, that I don't like. And now I've switched back to Android. By default Droid doesn't automatically talk to the tags. The TO's previous "Tile" tracking device traveled from the US to Europe, looks like without issue. For over a year. Until somecacher justified destroying it or hoarding it or "forgetting" it. Whatever. The usual.

So I'm getting ready to hide a few new caches and decided to use a .30 cal ammo can and a decon container for two of them. There is a small military surplus dealer in town so I stopped by to pick some up. I hadn't been there for three years but the last time I was there .30 cal ammo cans were $6.99 and decon containers were about three or four bucks. So I went in and asked for a decon container and they guy asked me weather I wanted the regular one or the geocache version. I ask what the difference is and he says the geocache version just has a note pad and a pencil in it. I ask about price and he says $10 for a regular and $30 for a geocache!!! I think my jaw hit the counter top. I didn't even bother to ask about ammo can prices but I did notice a couple of .30 cal cans sitting on the floor with price tags of $24.99! Don't think I'll be going back there again.

I'm certain I'm not alone in becoming increasingly frustrated about the lack of feedback and information from Groundspeak about the overwhelming dissatisfaction of what looks to be the majority of Geocaching.com's users. As a Premium Member who gave money in good faith to use your service, when that service is seriously downgraded (in my opinion--here in the UK we have no satellite/hybrid maps, and MapQuest is not as accurate as it should be), you have an obligation to address our concerns with more than a "I hope you get used to the new maps." Tell us in plain words what you are doing to restore your service to its previous level, or say straight out that we're going to have to like it or leave it. The vague comments and subtle snipes I've seen from Groundspeak forum moderators are creating even more bad feelings and frustration amongst those who are unhappy about the changes, so instead of allowing them to continue to communicate in this manner, please, I'd like a member of Groundspeak who has the authority to speak on the company's behalf to address the Geocaching.com community. To fellow Premium Members: I for one will not be giving any more money to Groundspeak unless the maps are sorted. I would like to let Groundspeak see how many others feel the same way. Please speak up on this thread to let them know if you will or will not be re-subscribing.

Great - I have a 'library cache', too that I'm proud of. Still, be careful in your cache writeup. It's easy to slip over the line. You can talk about what's there in the park and the trails they offer, the history, the beauty, the overlooks, but not the giftshop or how they're trying to fight Climate Change. You can say that there's an admission charge to the park if you don't have a membership, but you can't encourage people to GET a membership. You can tell cachers about how as of this year they'll have to pay for parking, but not how pissed off you are about it! You can mention the park's regular events, but not the one who's purpose is to push back against an encroaching housing development! Slippery slope stuff. And, to keep this on topic, as others have said that's not a 'partnership' cache.

But it's much too young compared to town hall of the "Queen of the Hanseatic League", so that modern town hall matches it quite well Just for classification: 50% of our team was born and raised in Lübeck, known as the Queen of the Hanseatic League. Both of us are Lübecker Kaufleute (Lübecks Merchantpeople), so we live in, with and from parts of the Hanseatic League. Churches played a great role at the Hanseatic League as well as the town halls. The most powerfull parts of the Hanseatic League were the merchants, not the kings, dukes. They decided what happend in those cities. Only the clergy had some powers over the merchantmens. Lets talk about that for a while: The City Council (which was 100% made of merchants, no Kings, no Queens, no Noblesse) had their own church which inhabited the city treasure. So if you want the Hanseatic League, you can't decline the churches. City Walls and city gates: The Hanseatic League had it's peak times in the closing mediaval times, where the times where rougher and peace was the exception, so one city had to defend them and their goods, as the City of the Hanseatic League were rich. So city walls and gates were essential for the wealth and so for the groth of the Hanseatic League. Without walls and gates, there wouldn't have been any Hanseatic League.

A hearty ARRRG! to my fellow cachers, Travel bugs, love them. I absolutely love this idea - it is one of the aspects of caching that drew me to the game. When we first started I was more eager, I think, to get bugs out into the world than actually looking for caches. But, being a good little rule follower, we waited - learning the tricks of the trade, scoping out the possibilities, and earning our time in the trenches. Finally we felt it was time to put out our first bug, a pirate coin - with a mission to wander the world hitting all the pirate hot spots. It was picked up from its starter cache, but not moved along - after a few months I contacted the cacher, and, after two or three e-mails, she finally got back to me. She said how sorry she was, and that she would move it along the next time she was out. She still has it. Our second bug was in honor of a dear pet who had recently passed away. After a good run of a few weeks in our area he was taken to Hawaii and then to Washington state - where he was picked up (I'm pretty sure by a new cacher, if my detective work is worth its salt) but not moved along. I e-mailed the cacher - no response. Do I try again? At what point does it become obsessive? Our third bug is in honor of a TV program that I have loved since I was a kid. After a good run of several weeks in our area it was picked up, and so far not moved along...although, after contacting the cacher, he has promised to place it back into play as soon as he can (I'm giving it until the end of March - it was picked up in November, if I recall - before I give up on it). What do I do? I'm kind of burnt out on losing bugs. Is it better to cut my losses and just enjoy the hunting, or should I get back on that horse and not let the sticky-fingered cachers get me down? Is there a help group for lost bugs? If not, perhaps one should be organized - we can't be the only ones that have loved and lost. Thanks. Daddy Pirate (of weepirates3)

Are there historical markers or signs that discuss and explain Hanseatic heritage? This looks like just a very cool mural to me, which can go into the Murals Category. Please explain how someone from Texas traveling in Europe would know something they saw along their journey could be waymarked in a possible future Hanseatic Heritage category Let's talk it over

So as not to disappoint my fan base, I've edited the topic title. It seemed easier than urging people to only talk on topic about the Geocache of the Week.

Perhaps someone thought there was a lot of value in the tags and that alone, regardless of what you say you were intending to do with them, was enough of a flag for the agent. That's unfortunate. Personally I might keep calling back to talk to someone about them, and hope to speak to a higher up who sympathizes and can find a way to let go of what is effectively other people's property... *shrug*

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

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.

There's no difference between the two. A cache type is a cache type as far as the data framework goes. We may talk about other types of cache experiences like puzzle caches or challenge caches or (in some places) an adventure lab considered as one (and this has been discussed before), and even Benchmarks may have been referenced as a cache type by some (showing up in the find count of 'cache types', eg). Doesn't change the fact that something either is or is not a "real" cache type. If it's not, then it has special code if there are places where its usage mimics that of actual cache types (Traditional, Multi, Virtual, Event, Earthcache, etc), like the counts of finds in our stats under "cache types". A Geotour is a category of cache types, not a cache type itself. An Adventure is similar to a Geotour in that it's a wrapper for a set of Adventure Locations. And that's harping back to the initial setup of Adventure Labs, individual 'finds' that added +1 smiley in a separate data source that was wrapped into a user's public stats. So there's already a pseudo-parallel between Geotour and Adventure. But that's a far cry from making Adventures a new actual cache type. Right, however, the structure of an actual cache type is not similar to the structure of an Adventure. And the Adventure experience is its own app, its own functionality, its own framework, and its own code. And that's why I said: it would require a complete overhaul of the Adventure system and importing all the data into the existing geocache system patchworked to make Adventures a new cache type, in some way, which I would think would look absolutely nothing like Adventures do currently... they are simply fundamentally different experiences with functionalities that are miles apart.

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...

@Mangatome Then from your perspective, we have not yet reached the limit of what we can do with lua if done correctly. What will need to be done is the following: The player app should be able to run one version of lua for all v1 cartridges (retaining compatibility, such as it is). We will run all v2 cartridges in the latest version of lua. When the player app requests a cartridge from the Wherigo API, the player app's current lua version will be included in the request. The Wherigo API is responsible for compiling a cartridge with the requested lua version. As long as the Wherigo API is updated prior to releasing an updated version of the app with a newer lua runtime environment, things will work as expected. In this manner, we can also deal with old versions of the app. (The Wherigo API reserves the right to tell the app when it is too old and must be upgraded.) Updates to the player app could include updates to either the lua environment or player app API. Because of this, once we expose an endpoint to a cartridge, it is fixed in stone and cannot be changed. I know how to version web-based APIs, but have not yet put time into determining how to version the player API. (In other words, we need to guarantee cartridges built in 2024 will still be able to run when the year is 2030--or even cartridges created in 2026 using a 2024 version of Urwigo.) I imagine we could just have an interface per player API version, which when upgraded will simply chain call into the newer method. As mentioned above, the Wherigo API's compiler service would need to load the compiler appropriate for the request. (I'll likely store a compiled cartridge when requested for the first time, then skip the compiling step during subsequent requests.) We will need to have living documentation that covers the player app's specification: lua versions, required libraries, and the player API (not only the part that allows interaction with the UI, but also that allows the subset of network features we desire). I would like cartridge state to be kept separate from the lua version if at all possible. I want to work on a more robust state management API. Other thoughts: I certainly don't mind exploring a version of player app that will allow cartridges to be written in C#. You definitely know player apps better than I: how difficult would it be to construct interfaces for the player app such that we could easily drop in different types of cartridges? Even if we stay with lua, that's my intent to preserve compatibility with v1 cartridges while continuing to update lua for v2 (unless we decide each cartridge's manifest can tell the player app the lua version against which it's supposed to run). My first priority is to everyone's security. I still would like to allow authors the ability to use network resources, so how about this idea? When an author wishes to use network resources, their cartridge can undergo review. Once approved, that particular URL scheme will be whitelisted for that cartridge. When a player app downloads a cartridge, it can also download the URL whitelist. The player API will expose a network layer whereby it will only allow whitelisted URLs to be called. In this way, we maintain security while at the same time giving authors the ability to consume network resources. As for in what the player app will be coded, I must leave that up those who will volunteer for the player app. My preference is for the environment to be something in which most people are familiar. That way, when some volunteers have to step away for a while, other people can take up the responsibility with not as much of a learning curve. My preference is MAUI or Blazor Hybrid. I know Groundspeak seems to like React Native (their Adventure Labs app is built using that), but Wherigo v2 is not going to be a Groundspeak project (though I still want Groundspeak's backing). For developing all this, I'll want public GitHub repos with a couple project leads (always more than one since we're all volunteers) set up to review and merge pull requests into the trunk. Anyone in the community can make a pull request. Whether we want these repos initially private is still a good question. I'm glad we're not all jumping into coding this. And some public news: I attended a mega event last weekend, and Jeremy from Groundspeak was there. We'll set up a time to talk with each other and see if I can get Groundspeak to agree to let the Wherigo Foundation run Wherigo if we can deliver.

This is sort of off-topic, because It's not about an actual gadget cache . Last Friday, at a local caching event, some friends and I started to talk about unusual special equipment needed to find some geocaches. We speculated what kind of "special" (but not hopelessly unaffordable) equipment we have not yet seen as required for a cache. Soon, a Geiger counter was mentioned. We then had a good laugh imagining a gadget cache design like this: At the posted coordinates, you find a box, with a small Geiger counter + instructions. The task is to find a very small radioactive item within, say, 30 meter radius (in the woods, so essentially unfindable by chance), which holds the logbook (or coordinates of the location of the logbook). To make it clear, this is not a serious cache proposal, but it was super funny to fool around with the idea. But the really hilarious punch-line here is that less than 24 hours later, I first read about the incident in Australia where they really had to find a nano-sized radioactive item with radiation counters ! You can easily google it, but for reference, here is one news link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-64481317

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

95% of couch logs so far are from very experienced players so this behavior is unlikely to be grounded in confusion about proper logging guidelines and ethics. Interestingly some are the same accounts who like to talk about game integrity in the forums The game contains this disclaimer in different locations: There's no mention of completing this game allowing players to claim a find on the respective cache. While we will try our best to curb couch logging, cheaters only cheat themselves, and it's on all of us honest players to advocate for proper gameplay in the channels at our disposal

Perfect, thank you! I'd missed that one. I spent a lot of time looking at airports back when I first started this list, but now I usually don't go back to a given airport unless one of the existing caches on my list has been archived. For Munich, I know I haven't looked at the map in at least a year. I admit, I struggle with puzzle caches. If it's easily solved, then no problem. But for many, the language barrier is too much for me to overcome. So I usually rely on (robot translated) logs. The best ones are of course any that say, "We had a 4-hour layover at the airport, which gave us plenty of time to go looking for this cache and get back for our flight." Failing that, I look for logs that talk about finding the cache on their way to (or from) the airport. That's why I resurrect this forum post now and again, so I can get feedback from folks who have found the caches on the list. Which brings us to, if any recent finders of GC5PF9M or GC2ABTH have opinions on how feasible it would be to get to either of those caches from the airport terminal, I'd be glad to hear them.

Interesting ideas all around. My 2 cents. I like the comment of Dani+Iris. Yes, it's tedious to maintain a physical location (although in my case it's not too bad honestly). On the other hand, there's plenty of examples of cartridges being (re)used outside of the original cache (the Hangman series in the US, the reverse Wherigo from Waldmeister). To attract a crowd for playing Wherigo's (isn't that what we all want), I feel the app/player experience is key. We (as builders) are obviously quick to point out the flaws/features requests of creating a Wherigo. But, in the end it's still the person that's loading a cartridge on his smartphone who's the boss. So what is it in Wherigo that can attract crowds over the myriad (successful or not) alternatives that have been launched? (I wish I had the answer to this.) Trying to dissect some of the ideas that were posted by Ranger Fox and others on the subject. 1. In general - I like the idea of having a map centric approach. It will put limits to how you can develop things, but I think it will give a much better experience for the player. - Videos: I do see use cases (eg. interaction with an NPC) but I would be deterred by the extra effort needed to create videos on top of building the cartridge. So for sure not a critical/v2.1 item for me. From that respect, Audio is more important. - Formatting of items to make it more appealing: text with different fonts/colors/..., different colors for the zones (if you still have those), ... 2. On Zones - Having a more 'stable' zone experience dealing with GPS-jitter - For most purposes, just a point is sufficient, but having a shape can be interesting (eg. I have one built on a roundabout, the zones are like a piece of a pie forming a complete circle; it's nice to have rectangles if you want to have a "gameboard" like experience) - I like the idea of having a picture/icon showing on the map, instead of just the zone shape. But we need to think about how to do it with overlapping zones/small zones (compared to the minimum picture size) 3. On NPC / Items - I like the idea of having a picture/icon showing. But we need to think about how to do it with many items on the same spot/in the same zone - I like the idea of not being forced to have these NPC/Items in a zone (or the inventory) for them to show up - Taking this one step further: what's the difference between a zone and one of these objects? From a logical perspective, not a lot (especially if you don't have shapes for zones). Only the options you have to interact with the Object might be different ("add to inventory" or "use" for Items, "talk" is typically something for NPC). 4. Online or not? - I do see the advantage of being able to play it offline. Trust me, as a European without decent/affordable data plans outside of Europe, it can become costly when visiting the US or other territories. - I like the idea of having a neatly integrated system with APIs to load a cartridge, post a "log", mark completion, ... 5. On Groundspeak/GC links - With the adventure labs, it's going to be difficult to sell a tour guide like Wherigo platform on them - From the GC posting guidelines: "specific apps" are not allowed. So they can easily block/disallow them. https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=97&pgid=297#mobileapps A small remark on this: yes, it's (more) work to create a Wherigo than just drop a pill bottle behind a tree in a forest. But I am sure some people put equally (if not more) time in building great cache containers, multi's, gadgetcaches or mysteries. That being said, to buld a community, you'll need "many" cartridges (of high quality), so you'll need many builders too. SWIPEE

I'll add one that's been present for several years now. When a PNG or GIF image is uploaded to a cache page, the contents of the file are quietly changed to progressive jpeg with no warning and no change to the file suffix. There are plenty of puzzle caches that rely on these file formats, for example where the solution is encoded in RGB values, yet this behaviour isn't even documented in the Help Centre, leaving unwary COs oblivious to the fact that their carefully crafted PNG or GIF file has turned into a jpeg without even the .JPG extension to suggest anything's changed. The only explanation given for this is that, for players on slow internet connections, it looks prettier for images to gradually come into focus than to be built up raster-fashion. Talk about form over function!

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

Be welcome! I would suggest that you do some caching for a while, attend some Events and talk to folks there... I bet all (almost) your questions will be answered just by playing. On the other hand you may be interested also in some geocaching based books and movies or series, like Splinterheads, Dark, etc. Some rare geocoins would be good things to leave in the caches, or memorabilia from pop culture, like the original artifacts in the APE Cache series, from Planet of the Apes. Enjoy and be inspired. PS: I have done a lot of covers for the portuguese versions of Goosebumps, from R. L. Stine.

I've been checking and couldn't find a thread for this type of WM. How many times can we see a satellite and we have not had time to talk with a partner, or even two partners saw a satellite, but someone who also saw it (and is within the distance of being able to share WM) is left without being able to register it? Well, here we can write down what we saw or did (especially those that were not published)

Yeah color me unimpressed lately with HQ. I definitely see them less as stewards now and more of a corporate machine that does not care about us, only about the bottom line. They talk a good game, but killing benchmarks and then messing up the search function and telling us "Sorry, we are on vacation and will get around to it when we get around to it" has me completely put off. At least I can go find a ton of adventure labs with little to no effort from a parking lot somewhere. What an adventure.

Atlas, I understand your collection. I also know you realize the difference between using them and collecting them and are prepared to use bespoke software if you can get it at all. (Good luck with that Magellan stuff that required online registration, for example.) Mineral, close call! The 600 was actually the last device that I purchased when it was substantially discounted. The 450 it replaced had gotten crash-happy. The 600 at least rebooted more quickly when it crashed. By the time I purchased it, my own geocaching was largely limited by my own health and available time to business travels when I was "stuck" out of town. South SF Bay had enough geocaches to keep me occupied and there was enough flat land that I could choose my own adventures to tailor my days to my pain level for the day. I think I probably have a thousand or more finds that I've not even logged when I cached in part of a group on GeoWoodstock weekends, but I'm pretty much a former geocacher at this point. Thanx, user13371. For a few years after my surgeries, I was "frownie face" most of the time. While I still can't predict how much time I can devote to software just due to the nature of spinal issues, I do have some random lucid hours from time to time, so I can still pop out a release or two a year even if working from the bed or something. It's just the nature of my disability. The removal is in https://github.com/GPSBabel/gpsbabel/pull/961. Once I get that build green, I'll push it and it'll be gone in the nightlies and all future builds. For some reason, the doc build is silently failing on my machine right now and I don't feel like debugging that. I'll just "spray and pray" in the build cluster at Github. Once that PR is submitted, it shall be done. In vaguely related news, the birthdate of GPSBabel's original code turns drinking age this week. It was just before the Christmas holiday in 2001 when I was still in a neck brace from my very first spinal surgery (the morning of 9/11) when I started geocaching. I had a DNF from mistyping the coordinates in my Map330 and I started writing code to talk to the device from SCO UNIX after being frustrated with the tools available at the time.