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Hello! Our family has just started geocaching, we got equipment for Christmas and have already had a good time trying to find some local caches. We got the GeomateJr and it has worked pretty well thus far, but I'm wondering if I can augment our experience with my phone. I have a TMobile Gravity T phone like this one: http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/Phones/cell-phone-detail.aspx?cell-phone=Samsung-Gravity-T I don't generally have a data plan, but right now I do have data access that I got for free for a month. I've never had a phone with data, so I'm pretty inexperienced with it, plus it doesn't seem all that intuitive or easy to use. Would I be able to geocache with this phone even after my free data month goes away? If so, what would I need to install? Any help would be appreciated very much! Thank you! - Kirk

Who do I contact and talk to if I have a problem with a reviewer? I am trying to hide and publish my first geocache but the volunteer reviewing my geocache asserts that it is in Indian Reservation Land despite the fact I have a vast amount of evidence to prove it is not. Please help.

Hi all, I was asked to do a "Nerd Nite" talk- a ~30min talk on a nerdy topic, usually to an audience of 20-30 somethings, at a bar over beers on a Friday night- about geocaching. This isn't for two months, so I have time to prepare! But I was wondering, has anyone given such a talk before for the general public about geocaching, and if so are there any resources for writing one? Obviously, the first part I know has to be a general explanation about how geocaching works, and I have a mess of pictures from my adventures in exotic destinations where I found geocaches (like Tibet and Argentina), so was thinking one or two anecdotes from there. I was also thinking of highlighting one or two local caches that I think are cool, but don't want to pick ones that are too easy to find if you just want to vandalize them... luckily here in Amsterdam we have one or two "by boat" geocaches under bridges, so one of those might be cool to show. But hey, these are just some ideas I'm tossing around, and I'm happy to hear any others folks might have. Thanks all!

I eagerly anticipated attending an event hosted by a sort of infamous new geocacher who placed hides on private property, had hide coordinates hundreds of feet off, etc. In fact, several of those of us who attended were really interested to meet this person and talk to them about proper hide techniques. The event owner never showed up. Bummer! And hasn't hidden a cache since. And I think all their caches are archived at this point. I still attended the event with several others and we all logged it as attended. The event owner didn't though lol.

I bought a Samsung Gravity 3 yesterday. Is there a compatible geocaching app for it? I've looked and looked, but I'm so new, that even if I found a compatible app (and recognized it as compatible in the first place), I wouldn't know how to get it to my phone. Geobeagle (which I have heard good things about) supports the Samsung Gravity 2. But the 2 wasn't an option when I was shopping. I figured the 3 was just a newer version. The tutorials are vague (at best), assuming that app buyers know how to download and install the app in the first place. Is If there isn't, I have 30 days to trade it for something that will work. Any help is appreciated! Diane

Watch it. I love learning. I dislike having to prove it. Weird is pretending you can "place" or "find" these geology quizzes, as if they were something tangible. Weird is that it's mixed in with a game about containers. Weird is that you need landowner permission to "place" nothing at their land. I'm EC-free for well over 10 years now. That hasn't changed. Oh, since they nuked Brass Cap Cache (searching for tangibles), I'm done with virtuals too. I offer the same ridicule for them as the special-case virtuals about geology. EDIT to avoid dragging this out. Nothing weird about events; we talk about finding caches, and don't pretend to "place" or "find" events. I love events.

Avast! Got me event on the calendar and the port authorities notified to expect a band of hardies to drop anchor on the 19th of September. Anything going elsewhere?

Everyone, Say what you need to say! Its 2:00!!

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.

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.

I just recently bought a Samsung Gravity Touch. And was wondering if anyone knows if there is an app or widget for these phones. I was just curious. Thank you.

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*

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.

Good evening fellow cachers! So a friend and I may be taking a mini-detour to SLC on our road trip to Denver in a few weeks and I was wondering if any locals know anything about the gravity hill near the capitol? Apparently, (on this hill) when you put your car in neutral it will appear to roll uphill due to an optical illusion from the surrounding scenery. If anyone knows the exact location of this place (coordinates would be great), I would greatly appreciate it if you could post them here. I've googled it, but the location descriptions are kind of vague only indicating that it is somewhere near the capitol. I know it kind of sounds like a silly request, but it's something I heard about when I was a kid and always thought it sounded like an interesting place to visit. And of course, any suggestions for good nearby caches would be appreciated as well Cheers!

@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.

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.

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

I'm sure all geocoincollectors saw this coin before. I like it very much and because there is such a great description of the designer Chris Mackey I think it is worth it, to open a thread. I know for sure that there are the following versions: - LE Antique Copper - LE Antique Silver You can get them in several shops, so just google for the coin Here is the official description: International Talk Like a Pirate Day is celebrated annually on September 19th. It is a day where speaking pirate is not only acceptable, but encouraged. This detailed coin commemorates this special day and will be available for a limited time only. This coin was designed by Christian A. Mackey and measures 2 in. in diameter. What is the meaning behind this design? Glad you asked... The pirate skull side... •The skull with mouth open of course is the pirate talking, but the patch on the right eye is courtesy of "One-eyed Willie" from the Goonies movie. •The symbol on the patch is the crucifix found stamped on dozens of different "doubloon" coins during the reign of the pirate age. •In latin on the left from bottom to top is "Talk Like (a) Pirate" and on the right is 9/19/2013 for this year. •1995 is the infamous year upon which the holiday began after an injury during a raquetball game. •The Spear/Hourglass/Heart symbols were used by a bunch of the most notorious pirates in history and each had various meanings. Most commonly the spear was a symbol of imminent attack, the hourglass was a warning to enemy ships to not try to stall for time, and the heart was a symbol of warning that no quarter would be given and all put to death if surrender was not complete and immediate. •The S.-B. within the speaking pirate skull is a tribute to Summers and Baur who began to promote the idea for a holiday. •The odd raised elipses on the edge of the coin were a common design element in all the coins regardless of origin in that particular era. The Crest side... •Cache on crown - Cache is King •The pillars are the infamous Pillars of Hercules depicted on coinage of the era representing the old world and the new. •Plus Vltra - latin inscription for Further Beyond and denoted new discoveries in a newly discovered hemisphere of the world. •The floating crown was a symbol of oversight of the new colonies from the government back home. •The 8 and R on the pillars indicates 8 Reales and what led to the coins being called "Pieces of Eight" where coins would be commonly cut into 8 equal pieces like a pizza during trades. •Signal and Yelling man are self explanatory •Spreading laurel in the background is symbol of victory and growth in the new world. •The fleur de lis (lilly flower) was a common european symbol of royalty. •The Latin on left - "Explore the World" and "Share the Experience" from the Groundspeak homepage. •The S at the bottom is commonly the City of Origin for the coin and this case would be Seattle. •The Dahlia is the official symbol of Seattle, The City of Flowers. •The shield center crest is the GPS signal lightning bolts (normally the three crosses of the holy trinity on a doubloon).

my old lady has never enjoyed anything I do(well she does enjoy shooting as much as me and her son does). she won't ride the Harley.she hates the hot rod cars I have built in the past. says they make her feel like she left her guts in the road when we take off!!! I tried to explain geocaching to her and got that deer in the head lights look(she doesn't enjoy deer hunting either like I do). I loaded her and my 3 year old daughter up in the car and took off. she was getting into it by the second cache!!!! hey i'm 40. she's 38 I think!!!! I don't keep up with years on her. i'd trade her in if I did. well me and campdogg took her 10 year old boy and my daughter with us the other day. each of them loved it. I think I got chiggers, but still loved it!!!! this is something that friends can do or a family. it is honest clean fun. i'm a locomotive engineer for the railroad and stay in Chattanooga more than I do my own home. I just picked up two gps units that have geocaching made into them. one for home and one for Chattanooga!!! that's right i'll be doing it all over the place!!! i'm planning on getting some travel bugs because there are a few places I want to send them if people will honestly help out!!! I live in the east and want to send some out west. sterg's, golden gate bridge, mount rushmore, you get the ideal. im enjoying this with family and friends. I live in Kentucky, but I work with guys from Chattanooga, Georgia, and Alabama that are geocachiers!!! we are going to start finding these things in a 4 state area!!! got to love this!!

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

If you hold a normal compass (mine is an old Boy Scout compass) flat the arrow points to Magnetic North. You then rotate the base to point towards your waypoint to set the bearing. All works fine, but if you tilt the compass it will display corrupted information. The same could be true for GPSr units, however... On my GPSr I display the heading arrow and the actual bearing to the next waypoint. The bearing is determined by the GPS signal, but the heading is determined by either motion (>1.5 mph) or, if no motion, magnetometers. Just like my BSA compass, tilting the GPSr will corrupt the heading unless corrected. Older GPSr used a bubble level to fix the compass’ orientation but now most GPSrs use accelerometers. There are three accelerometers that are used to orient GPSrs by determining which way is down (center of the earth) by measuring the acceleration forces in 3-space (XYZ). Gravity is an acceleration force. Magnetometers are constantly changing as the GPSr moves through local lines of magnetic flux. Accelerometers are calibrated once (unless they become corrupted) so the GPSr knows how it is oriented. If tilted the GPSr can mathematically reorient itself to find the center of the earth. It should be noted, magnetic compasses don’t necessarily point to Magnetic North. They align themselves to the local lines of force which generally point to Magnetic North. These lines of force are subject to local disturbances that may bend them and throw off the compass needle.