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Thanks. I do have an email app on my phone, but if I jumped at every email I received during the day, I would never get any work done. A new cache posting coming through SMS does tend to get my attention,

Geocaching is an international game but most phone companies are still very 19th century about charging a premium for international SMSs. Each new cache published in a large city likely generates thousands of notification emails, so I would imagine sending those internationally by SMS wouldn't be cheap. Perhaps installing an email app on your phone might be a solution?

When attempting to register my mobile device to get geocaching text messages, the step to validate my email can't be completed because the link to validate my email address appears to be truncated. My service provider is Verizon, so I added my 10 digit phone number as an email address to my GC Settings Page/Email Preferences as XXXXXXXXXX@vtext.com , Xs are my 3-digit area code and 7-digit phone number. Once the email address is added to my list and I was able to verify I am human, and then I selected the "Verify this address" option. I quickly received this exact text message (screen shot #1): (Validate your email address) Visit this link to complete validation: https://www.geocaching.com/account/settings/emailpreferences/valida And when clicking the link in the text message, I get the GeoCaching popup box (screen shot #2) showing: Error 404: DNF We didn't find the page you were looking for..... It appears the link I receive as a text message is truncated and missing text characters. Has anyone else experienced this? Kind regards, Marlin

4.5. Instant Notifications Want to keep up on all the new geocaches in your area? Want to keep an eye out for local Event Geocaches? With Instant Notifications, you can! This Geocaching Premium feature allows you to create up to 40 custom notifications to send to your email or phone. Set up an Instant Notifications From the dashboard, select Setup notifications. Select Create a new notification. Select cache and log types. Set the location and radius (up to 80km/49.7 miles). Choose the email address where you want to receive notifications. Select Create Notification. Tip: Select the log type Publish Listing to receive notifications for newly published caches. Edit or delete an Instant Notifications Go to your Instant Notifications. Select Edit on the right. Modify the notification details. Scroll down and select Edit Notification to save your edits or Delete Notification. Set up email-to-SMS An SMS gateway allows your phone to receive email via SMS. Each mobile service providers has a different email-to-SMS address. Text messaging rates may apply. To find the email address associated with your phone number, search online for "email-to-SMS" and the name of your mobile service provider. The address will typically include your phone number and the name of your provider: ##########@MobileCarrierName.com Did this answer your question? Yes or No Can’t find what you need? Contact us.

At least in the US, most carriers have an email address that corresponds to your number for both SMS and MMS messages that you can just put in the field for email address that will mean they are recieved as a text. If you google "[carrier] email to text" you should get good info.

There are also some email apps that can alert the user when a certain kind of email arrives. No need for SMS in that case.

There is no option for geocaching.com to send you a text message. Notifications are done via email - click the link for more info. Some cell phone providers will give you an email address that will come through on your phone as an SMS, though the formatting usually leaves something to be desired. I did a quick forum search and couldn't easily find the thread, but I know it's been discussed here in the past.

Yes, but since the OP referred to "email-to-SMS" I just assumed it was standard SMS service that was used. Also I've seen in a description of one such service (probably from a US carrier) that it sent the first 160 characters of the email as an SMS.

I figured it out. Go to notifications and add email address, enter your phone number as an email address. To do this you do an online search for "email-to-SMS" and look for your carriers extension, ie; @ text.att.net , @ vtext.com etc. Hope this helps

I guess you can ask the seller to send you the code by email, sms, etc.

SPOT devices are hardly similar to Garmin inReach devices. SPOT devices offer the user a one-way outgoing emergency distress call option, that once initiated, the user can only hope and/or assume was received and help is on the way, and the emergency responders have no way ascertaining any information related to the nature of the distress call. Garmin inReach devices, which the Montana 700i and 750i are, offer bi-directional communication 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Garmin inReach devices allow the user to transmit pertinent information to the responding crew while receiving instructions that can help save lives while keeping everyone on the same page, in real time. Garmin inReach devices allow users to automatically send a bread-crumb trail of there location to the cloud where friends, family members and other authorized individuals can keep track of their location and progress, in real time, without requiring any other action on the users part. Garmin inReach devices allow users to communicate bi-directionally with the entire outside world via direct messaging, sms, and email. This means you can not only send regular detailed updates to family and friends to reassure them of your condition or any specific needs, or changes in schedule etc, but so can they send you the same types of information, available directly on your inReach device, anywhere in the world, 24/7/365. Garmin inReach devices can provide the user with highly detailed hour by hour weather forecasts for any location on Earth, from any location on Earth, at any time desired, 24/7/365, assisting the user in adapting their trip in such a way they can avoid inclement weather conditions that may otherwise leave someone stranded and/or worse. Garmin inReach devices also allow users to post timely updates about their trip to their Facebook and Twitter accounts, 24/7/365. Remember, with a SPOT, you just push a button, and then wait, hoping the signal went out and was received and someone is on the way. With a Garmin inReach device, you are always in contact with the entire world, from anywhere in the world, so you and your loved one never have to wonder or guess about your status.

I am trying to get my alerts and preferred email / SMS workin spent about 20 mins with ATT ...no blocking on their side i just now removed and re-added my sms and validated again...now emails come from “invalid@geocaching.com” with an odd html attached file any thoughts on how to get back to normal?

I can see many issues immediately! inReach sends SOS to proper authorities for your actual location, NOT where you registered the device! Seems to me this alone could be a life or death difference when response time is of the essence! Also, the inReach devices offer many additional features and capabilities that the PLB does not, including allowing others to track you progress in real time from anywhere on the planet, and allowing two way email and SMS communication between yourself and friends or family, as well as the Rescue Crew after an SOS is Triggered, which allows you to provide important information with them in real time, and that may make all the difference in a rescue attempt. inReach devices also allow the user to view detailed weather forecasts and conditions for any location on Earth, from any location on Earth, any time they desire. This feature may actually help the user prevent putting themselves into a situation that will require rescue. You know the saying... The easiest fights to win are the ones that never happen? According to multiple articles online (example 01, example 02), more than 98% of PLB distress signals are false alarms, and many agencies regard them as a nuisance, unlike inReach devices which require subscriptions to function. As always, YMMV.

Use the phone where there's service and you don't need to worry about pre-loading. Please read my posts before responding, don't just reply while ignoring my post. I don't like all the popups about no data unrelated to "preloaded phones", and the many surprises that occur when data service is weak or intermittent or failing. I can absolutely not pre-load Waze, Message Center, log sending, new cache info, email, SMS, and data on other online Apps. So I use a phone for phone things, and a GPS for GPS things. I will continue to do so. I've already asked you nicely to stop trolling about it. I'm asking again. Stop it.

I wasn't aware there was a way to have text notification sent for new caches - I only see email address listed, not phone number. Unless you are talking about an email address that actually sends a text message, like: Send SMS from E-Mail Alltel: phonenumber@message.alltel.com. AT&T: phonenumber@txt.att.net. T-Mobile: phonenumber@tmomail.net. Virgin Mobile: phonenumber@vmobl.com. Sprint: phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com. Verizon: phonenumber@vtext.com. Nextel: phonenumber@messaging.nextel.com. US Cellular: phonenumber@mms.uscc.net. If not this, then can you explain a bit more about where you are trying to change the phone number?

1. I think this is the key for me. Initial messages? Respond. Repeated messages that enter the realm of 2 and 3? Then they might be getting an ignore. 2. On first contact (or maybe 2 or 3, my judgment) I'll still respond. Sometimes a friendly response goes a long way when facing an angry or annoying person. Maybe their assumption is that I'm one of those andgry/annoying people so they start off on the wrong foot. Yep, I'll always respond first, and judge further replies on how the convo goes. 3. Did you reply initially? (I assume so). Depending on the cache, if they're just having difficulty finding it, I'd give them suggestions - ask someone who's found it already for a tip, or I might give them a tip, or say go with at least 1 or 2 friends to team up and find it; or maybe I'll offer to meet them and go find it. Without context, your #3 implies you never responded due to the question; I'd have responded. If you did and they continued, I'd have attempted to steer the person away from that basic, simple question (give'em a tip - who cares, whether it's easy or hard; or else go help them) But yeah I'd never just tell them exactly where it is or how to find it. Same, I try to do that whether it's an SMS, a FB msg, twitter DM, or GC message. So many manners of immediate contact these days, to me geocaching messaging is just another one. But in the context of geocaching, that's the surefire way of getting a hole of a cache owner - especially since a GC message also goes by email. Knowing what it's like to send a message while on site, hoping for a quick reply, I do my best to respond to GC messages ASAP. If I get that, I tend to get to the point of "I can't say any more otherwise it's a giveaway". And if it's not my cache, I'll suggest they just ask the CO. That will certainly determine whether the CO would care if someone 'gives out answers'. For my own, I'd prefer to be the one to choose whether someone is 'given' the answer or not. Really bugs me when others do that behind the CO's back. Some COs will give out their own answers, others won't. It's more like a see-no-evil-hear-no-evil under the table exchange. They don't know if the CO would care because they never asked. I try to be up front on my caches - if you want a hint, just ask me, please don't go around getting answers from people; I'm open to chatting

By presenting faceplant as the example of how to make a communication system, the OP's whole premise is flawed. Many people don't even realize you have to dig for their "Messenger" service, and many who use it don't remember to check it. I have several standing messages there, a couple of them for years, with no reply, and no other way to contact the person. And friends who do use "Messenger" also interchange that and the phone SMS and email, so today they are I guess checking only one of the three, and I get no reply this week. It's a mess, and not worth emulating. And it's pretty much what we get at Geocaching.com already. I mean, it's OK as it goes, but it's not fast.

Following up -- 2 new cache alerts. For the first one, all three notifications -- Groundspeak email to Gmail, Gmail forward to Cell SMS, and Groundspeak "email" to cell SMS arrived immediately. On the second one, Groundspeak email to Gmail, Gmail forward to Cell SMS arrived immediately, but Groundspeak "email" to cell SMS lagged by 30 minutes.

Thanks barefootjeff, you nailed it. I did not see the tiny encoded text/plain section when I looked through the email, but sure enough, it is there. Since my cell provider seems to be the problem, it will be interesting to see if the email forwarded from my Gmail to my SMS address will be delayed the same as the email from Groundspeak to my SMS address... Still waiting for the next new cache alert.

No, it's not a different email. I just looked at the source for the notification email I got for my recent multi. It contains two parts, one with "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8" and the other "Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8", both encoded as base-64. The text/html part is what I see in my email client: whereas the text/plain section, when I put the base-64 content into an online decoder, contains this: That's the bit that's being forwarded to your SMS. It's the same email coming out of Groundspeak regardless of its destination, it's just the recipient that's deciding which bit of it to display. Your delays are happening within your email to SMS provider.

Hrmrmrh... If it is greylisting, really nothing I can do. I am relying on gmail address (android phone already forces me to the have app and account) to get alerts when they actually happen. I have since setup forwarding from gmail to my sms address, we'll see what happens there... The reason I believe Groundspeak is altering the body of the message sent directly to sms is because of the language used: "Subject: New Multi-cache: cache title (GCxxxxx) x.xxmi E (xx.xxkm E) Go find GCxxxxx: http://coord.info/GCxxxxx" The link seems to be a shortcut to the cache page. In the Gmail email, the exact same subject is used. The body appears to be completely different. No where does it use the text "Go find GCxxxxx: http://coord.info/GCxxxxx" not even in the "original message" unless it's encoded in to the base64 part. The text "Go find CGxxxxx:" is coming from Groundspeak, not a 3rd party stripping things out. Can they encode the same message such that if it's going to SMS one part is sent/visible, and if it's going to email, a different part is sent/visible? Anyway, the point is to figure out why the alerts sent directly to SMS are so delayed. If Cricket is greylisting Groundspeak (why?) that's that I'll not pursue further. If the delay is something Groundspeak can fix, or pressure Cricket to fix, that'd be great! Thanks for everyone's input.

As in getting a notification from the geocaching app, or as in getting an SMS? The former would be a new feature solution. The latter has been discussed in many a thread - search for email AND SMS.

I do not believe Groundspeak sends different emails depending on your particular email client. Rather, I believe the issue could be that Groundspeak emails are all in HTML, not plain text, and your phone carrier is stripping out HTML content to reduce those emails to an SMS. That potentially accounts for both the delay and for the less than optimal content you receive. My money is on this, and not on any greylisting. If you're using a smart phone, a better solution might be to use an email app to your phone to check the address to which Groundspeak sends your notification emails. If you prefer the SMS option, this thread discusses a script that strips down Groundspeak emails, which could help. I can't speak to its utility, as I don't use it - I only recall seeing the discussion. Other discussions on SMS and email are available by searching through old forum threads. Here's the search I used. Hope this helps.

Note that you have to have your email set up just the way Groundspeak wants it for this to work. If you have a geocaching-specific address that forwards to your real address, then this won't work, because your replies will come from your real address, not from your geocaching-specific address. I had to change my email settings on geocaching.com to make this work. Here you go: The MC is fine for the same kind of communication that SMS texting is good for: short messages that won't be important a week from now. For more substantial communication, I prefer a real email system.

I currently have notifications set to send Newly Published alerts via email to my cellphone's SMS email address. (For Cricket users its your cell phone number + @mms.cricketwireless.net). The problem is that the new cache notifications rarely arrive in a timely manner -- usually 30-60 minutes later than ones sent to an actual (Gmail) address. It appears that the body of the outgoing message is altered for the SMS recipient as compared to the email recipient. Pretty sure this has to be happening before it leaves Groundspeak, since it isn't just the same information, but truncated. It has much less information, just a link to the cache page. Annoying, but tolerable. As a test I sent myself an email from my computer to my cellphone's SMS address. It arrived almost instantly. It seems likely the delay is with Groundspeak, not my wireless provider, and reformatting the message is probably part of it. Is Groundspeak the bottleneck? What can be done to get these "emails" to SMS out faster? 30-60 minutes of delay is way too much in a FTF situation. Thanks...