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Why would they need to hide geocaches to battleship the finals? They could just use the saturation checker without actually submitting any caches for review. This is not the first time this topic has come up. Here is one of Keystone's replies to one of the earlier threads: So, suppose I tell you that your proposed location is 110m northwest of the final coordinates for "Cacher Conundrum," a five-star puzzle cache that only four people have ever solved and logged in the past three years. Armed with that intelligence, you track down the container and sign the log at the same time when you move your cache to a spot that's 162m away. What do I get for being helpful? A flaming email from the CO of "Cacher Conundrum," who also posts to three Facebook groups, and files a complaint with Geocaching HQ that I gave away secret information and ruined the puzzle cache. Having had that happen to us enough times, reviewers nowadays are constrained to be less forthcoming with details. Depending on your reviewer, you may get a hint, like "you are less than 161m from "Cacher Conundrum," GCABCDE, or you may get a hint that you should strongly consider moving to the southeast, or you may not get any guidance at all. So, that's how come. In a world where people hack lab caches and share the final coordinates of puzzle caches in Facebook groups, the inevitable outcome of such a feature would be to spoil every puzzle cache, multicache and Wherigo cache, plus a fair percentage of letterbox hybrid caches. There are people who like placing and finding these cache types. Geocaching.com has chosen not to alienate them by ruining the ability to keep the actual locations a secret. "But all I need is a distance and direction," you might say. So, the cheater simply enters enough coordinates into the planner tool to permit them to hone in on the actual location through triangulation. Think that can't happen? Talk to the travel bug stalkers who watch for drops of trackables in unpublished caches so they can figure out the locations and log a pre-publication "FTF." Talk to the group of cachers who hid traditionals in every conceivable spot within two miles of a 5-star puzzle, knowing they'd eventually "battleship" their way to a hit, and then they could do a scorched earth hunt within that area. I foiled them by publishing their cache even though it was 200 feet away from the puzzle final. Reviewers are smart humans*, you see, and that is better than an automated system. *Many reviewers are dogs.

Keystone is exactly the correct person to talk to. You can get all the opinions you want here, but ultimately he is the one who you will need to get approval from.

In the words of Adrian Monk, here's what happened: I'm browsing waymarks, and see a new Wienermobile waymark in Oklahoma, where I was JUST was, at a Homeland, where I was just at. Drats. I missed it by that much! So I look up the Wienermobile tour, and what????? It's in Yukon today! I yell to Max, "Do you have time for a trip to Yukon". Yes! I grab my coat and we're out the door. As soon as I leave the driveway, I text Snowdog to let him know of this opportunity. Turns out he was there hours earlier, and about to submit the waymark. He was kind enough to wait until I was ready, then we both submitted our waymarks. I remember this thread very well, and knew that we could both waymark the Wienermobile, which is why we didn't turn around, just continued driving to Yukon. It was so much fun to visit. I got a Wiener Whistle, took lots of pics, and even posed with the Wienermobile. I asked questions, and had a nice talk with the driver. Sure wish I could have stepped inside the Wienermobile! So cool. They're always hiring.

Your reviewer seems to be @Keystone based on your previous posts and I'd talk to him about it. I'd tell him what your idea for this series is and ask if there are any potential issues he can help you head off. Talking to my reviewer is always my first step in hiding a cache.

Ok, I'm obviously a newbie and having difficulty with my software. I've looked through old posts and can't find the answers that I'm looking for. I've also looked at Smittys(something or other) and various other step by step web sites but none of them seem to explain exactly what to do - like "ok....my screen doesn't have that "magic button" you're talking about". So....as complex as it is - can anyone either help me fully or in part with the following questions? If you'd rather, anyone willing to talk to me like I'm 4 can email and we can do it that way. I just appreciate help. By the way - my GSAK and Cachmate are paid for. So here goes: POCKET QUERIES: I see where people have them generated a couple times a week. When I generate mine I say 'send me 50 that I haven't found'. But it keeps sending the same 50, because obviously I haven't changed the information. So, I deleted all my queries and will just mark the ones I've found in the meantime. Why would I keep downloading the same 50 and having to import them every couple days and rework them? Am I missing the point of Pocket Queries? I'm certainly not finding 50 every couple days but I like a good variety in case I travel 10-15 miles down the road. GSAK: Love the program but have a problem converting the files to get them into my PDA. I have to open Cachemate, go through about 15 steps, go back into GSAK and then export them. Does everyone have to go through that every single time? Also, do you list your Pocket Queries by date as different data bases? I have several files, all differnt names, with the same info in them. Does that make sense? Aren't I just wasting computer space? CACHEMATE: I love this program! Great for my PDA. But....does it really do my any good to mark that I've found a cache, put in the time, date and comments, turn around and do the same thing on GSAK and turn around and do the same thing on Geocaching.com? I understand having to do it in one program and then again on the web, but it makes no sense to be doing it three times - I'd rather be spending all that time outside. Isn't there someway my Cachemate can sync with GSAK, other than just importing the queries into my PDA? Well, there you have it. My ignorance exposed (along with a few spelling errors, I'm sure). Again, any insight, help, or laughing would be appreciated.

This is horrible. All the talk of "hide as a noun" brought to mind that line "Tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred" and now Rolf Harris's rendition of "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" is stuck in my head.

I recieved the serial cable for my new etrex today, but am having some problems with getting the PC and GPSr to talk to each other. If the etrex is in NMEA Out mode, I can connect to the COM port using hyperterminal and see data coming in. I can also use NMEA to track my position in GPSU. The problem occurs when I want to transfer waypoints etc., as in 'GARMIN' mode I recieve errors from each program I try saying 'Timed out' or 'No data recieved'. Any advice on what to try would be appreciated, and I'm running windows XP.

Our reviewer does not talk to people. You ask any questions and you get some type of computer generated response.

Hey guy im a neww joiner so i lam unsure on what to talk about thanx guys for the help APAANDSUNLOOKINGFORFUN

According to this trip report, the road to the Boulder River Trail is washed out. Adds a mile to the hike, and parking is limited.

How ironic that I would be on here Monday and Tuesday reading about folks strange adventures while caching. Only to have one happen to us last night. For more details go here and check out my log: Bopp Playground Let's just say this made for an interesting caching adventure.

Hi, I was just wondering what a few things meant when someone logged that they visited my cache. It was "FTF" and "TNLN" i was just wondering if they were abreviations like ASAP or something that i didnt know the meaning of. Thanks.

Wow! Talk about learning something new! All these years I never knew that those Cache Names were clickable and would give a list of all caches included. (Except GPS Adventures Exhibit)

Noble Knobs that is! Just a shameless plug for my new cache placement.

Okay, I'm kind of new to this, I was introduced to it a while back ('03) but LIFE occupied most of my time, so I'm just now starting to put some equipment together and have some issues. I'm using MapSource 4.09, GSAK 5.5.1, and a borrowed eTrex Legend. 1. I've DL'd waypoints from gc.com into GSAK now how do I get them over to MapSource (or the GPSr)? 2. I also have waypoints loaded in the GPSr, how do I DL those into MapSource or GSAK? In GSAK when I go to 'GPS>Receive Waypoints>Yes' it gives me "Error sending waypoints: GARMIN: Can't init COM3". MapSource seems to read the GPS from COM3 with no problem but I don't see how to load waypoints from GPSr into MapSource at all! I'm leaving for vacation on Sunday and would love to have this up and running for the trip up as well as doing some caching while in N. Georgia. Thanks, Randy

I have an interesting plan for a new hide. I need to incorporate some sort of plaque into the cache placement. Is there any body out there that would have some sort of idea on how to create one? I have considered getting small peices of marble and trying to use a dremel / rotary tool to engrave it,... this however could become expensive very quickly as I don't even have a dremel. The plaque would need to fit the following critera in the end. - Nice finish, or the ability to hold paint to apply finish - Longevity in the outdoors, aging is no problem but I don't want it to be destroyed by moisture or cold (may rule out clay, don't know) - Not easily cracked or chipped - Somewhere around 4 inch diamter, or 4 x 4 square.... not set on these dimensions but would like it to be near that size. Cannot be made of cement as the place it will be mounted that we are creating is made out of that and it would not look all that thrilling. Ideas anyone?

I was heading out with a friend today. Just after we put the first cache away, a Forest Service truck drove up. We ended up talking to this 24-year veteran of the Forest Service for more than an hour. She had never heard about Geocaching. She actually found a cache one time (DeCon container), but it did not have a log inside it, or any other information about it being a Geocache (only a whistle and one other thing), so it ended up in the trash. As we explained Geocaching, she was very open to the sport and thought her own children would like it. However, one thing that surprised me was when she said that even with a big label on a cache container, it wouldn't have meant anything. In this area they have to contend with a lot of trash left by illegal aliens, so without knowing about the game, even a well-marked ammo can might have ended up in the back of the truck to be tossed out. Does it surprise you that someone who works for the Forest Service has never heard about Geocaching? How would you proceed so the local Forest Service personnel become aware of our sport?

http://www.skype.com/ i find this good free inter net phone my user is craigmawdesley

Assuming it was logged into the cache, then obviously retrieve is the right log. You did remember to drop it in the cache, right? But maybe something else happened, or maybe he just used grab by mistake. The only one that knows is the person that has it. That gave you a good reason to contact the geocacher right away to ask, so you can certainly contact him now to ask about that and about his plans for it now. But I think what you really want to know is how quickly you can ask about a TB someone's holding. The basic answer is "it depends", but the more general answer is, you can talk to someone holding your TB whenever you want as long as you're polite. Demanding he place it in another cache is not polite. Asking what his plans are for it starts a conversation and has the happy side effect of reminding him he took it in case he forgot. To improve the side effect, mention the cache and where it was to help jog his memory, if he needs it. After talking it over you might, depending on what you learn, decide to request he move it along now. Or you might decide it's in good hands and you just need to be more patient. As I say, it depends. So that's my advice, and it applies to all cachers, newbies or not. But having said that, newbies are, by definition, not the best cachers. It's OK to imagine that because of a newbie fail, things are not good for your TB and you may not even be able to learn its fate. But try to avoid injecting those thoughts into the conversation. After all, if he made a mistake, you want him to learn from it. We *all* want him to learn from it. That's less likely to happen if he feels like he's being berated for his mistake instead of being given advice about how to geocache better.

If you were a muggle (I know it may be hard to think in these terms), and your friend, who happened to be a geocacher, decided to teach you the game, what would you think? Not knowing what you know today, would you believe him to be crazy; would you regard him as an inspiration; would you disregard him?

There was a ~110 stage multi in my area which I co-ftf'd with a few friends. Non-stop for two nights, and lots of talk with the CO as numerous stages had issues. The cache didn't last long. Being sequential (each stage had coordinates to the next), any problem with one stage and the cache is not findable. Nightmare to maintain. So maybe there needs to be a distinction - longest linear waypoint multi vs non-linear waypoint multi?

You were given a clue more than a year ago. How much progress did you make? I get that it can be daunting when starting from zero, but did you even try? If not, someone offered to create a service for doing it in the last thread: did you talk with them, tell them it's something that would really help you out?

I was wondering what others use to clean their precious Garmin 60cs/60c screens. I've been using a little Windex, or a little soap and water. To wipe it dry I have a small "silk?" sunglasses bag. I think this is safe. I don't have a screen protector on so the actual screen gets dirty and smudged. What do you use to clean and wipe? (YOUR SCREEN !)

I've looked at ever major store in my area for those little tiny baggies people use for micro caches. Where can I get them????!!!

Hello Everyone!! I am the administrator of a new site called GPS Gab. I started this site because I enjoy GPS Technology and am fascinated with it's funtionality. I have live news feeds from the technology sector and update the site with GPS news almost daily. I also am buiilding an extensive list of links and quite possibly may have GPS update software on the site at some point. We have a nice big forum with a lot of nice new topics to post in also! So, stop by and say hello and if you have any comments, gripes, or problems, email me at admin@gpsgab.com Please Visit http://www.gpsgab.com Happy Hunting! Mike Admin for GPSGab.com