katymoe.co.uk Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 It's a situation familiar to all of us: you've found what you think is the location of a cache, but there's a person or group of people who just won't go away so you can get to it. You start to wonder: maybe they're thinking the same thing? What we need is some kind of signal by which geocachers can recognise each other with the minimum of embarrassment if they turn out just to be a dawdling muggle. Any ideas? Of course, these should be as obscure and Masonic as possible. Quote Link to comment
+Ambrosia Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 Oh, goodness. I thought this was a thread about whether or not Signal was a she or a he. Quote Link to comment
+doveroftke Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 One group should start talking on their GPSr like it's a cell phone. Then the other group will come over and say "D'ya think we're flippin' idiots?" Quote Link to comment
+Mudfrog Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 It's a situation familiar to all of us: you've found what you think is the location of a cache, but there's a person or group of people who just won't go away so you can get to it. You start to wonder: maybe they're thinking the same thing? What we need is some kind of signal by which geocachers can recognise each other with the minimum of embarrassment if they turn out just to be a dawdling muggle. Any ideas? Of course, these should be as obscure and Masonic as possible. Well,,,, I'm just too blunt i guess. When i run across someone near a cache location and if i have the slightest inkling that they may be cachers, then i just ask straight out if they're geocaching. If they look to be regular muggles then i will usually wait a few minutes for them to leave, but i'm impatient so i don't give them very long before i go up and tell them what we're doing. Depending on the person(s) reactions, i may end up having to leave and make plans to come back later. Lot's of times however, they seem genuinely interested and thats when i go into more detail and sometimes even let them help with finding the cache. Quote Link to comment
+cache_test_dummies Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 There are some who use Jeremy's hand-on-chin signal. For others, briansnat's famous New Jersey method is considered an acceptable form of greeting. Quote Link to comment
+sbell111 Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 Note to myself: New Jersey to join South Carolina on the 'States to skip' list. Quote Link to comment
+wimseyguy Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 (edited) Well, we sorta already have one. The only problem is that too many cachers are skeered to come into the forums to learn it. There's also briansnat's famous NJ welcome dance; but that's only for advanced users. aaarrgh edited to acknowledge that CTD was faster at the keyboard than me (I had to take a work break) here, you can have the TB back. Edited July 12, 2006 by wimseyguy Quote Link to comment
katymoe.co.uk Posted July 12, 2006 Author Share Posted July 12, 2006 I am informed (by an anonymous source) that if a Freemason meets someone whom he expects is also a Freemason, he asks, "What is the time, brother?", to which the reply is "9 o'clock, brother". Splinter98 had an interesting idea for a variant of this on our cycle-cache placement today... Quote Link to comment
splinter98 Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 it went something like this: you say "what's the time?, bro" and you reply "dunno but it's in degrees minutes and seconds right?" (or similar) Quote Link to comment
+cache_test_dummies Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 aaarrgh edited to acknowledge that CTD was faster at the keyboard than me (I had to take a work break) here, you can have the TB back. Thanks! I'm sure I'll be handing it over to someone else shortly. Quote Link to comment
+Lighteye Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 I usually just leave my GPS hanging from the lanyard around my neck to "identify" myself as a cacher. It has worked everytime. I look for Palm Pilots, printed out cache descriptions, or a GPS to determine if someone else is a cacher. Just look around and watch, and you'll soon be able to pick up who's caching and who's being a muggle PITA. Quote Link to comment
+OHMIKY Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 uh-oh! nobody has taught this poster the secret hand signal - somebody needs to upbraid the new member training department! Quote Link to comment
+Markwell Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 Of course, buying copious items from the Groundspeak store doesn't hurt... Quote Link to comment
+Team Neos Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 (edited) There we were, standing by a flag pole surrounded by bushes on a tiny hill in the middle of a subdivision, frisking the foliage with one hand and holding GPS units in the other hand when a red truck pulls up and the driver yells out "Hey, are you guys geocaching?" Hmmmm, what gave us away? Edited July 13, 2006 by Team Neos Quote Link to comment
+markz68 Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 There we were, standing by a flag pole surrounded by bushes on a tiny hill in the middle of a subdivision, frisking the foliage with one hand and holding GPS units in the other hand when a red truck pulls up and the driver yells out "Hey, are you guys geocaching?" Hmmmm, what gave us away? That reminds me of when I was a stockboy at a pharmacy while in college. I was standing there with 20+ boxes of tampons in my arms, and someone asked "Do you work here?" I said "No, my girlfriend is having a bit of an emergency" Duh! Quote Link to comment
+Raine Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 Classic "Here's your sign" opportunity Quote Link to comment
splinter98 Posted July 13, 2006 Share Posted July 13, 2006 All this talk of waving GPS's around to find caches make me think that my phone geocaching system may not give that much clues to what I'm doing (after all the actuall GPS bit stays in my bag and i have my phone in my hand (great for muggles dodging as they think you are just playing on your phone)) so to a geocacher it would seem rather difficult to suggest I'm searching for a cache. But ah well thats what you get if you buy your system for only 88p (plus £26 posting...) Quote Link to comment
+headybrew Posted July 14, 2006 Share Posted July 14, 2006 I just kind of stand there with my gps. That's about all it takes to be recognized by those in the know. Quote Link to comment
+radioscout Posted July 14, 2006 Share Posted July 14, 2006 More and more cachers use radios while caching. So just call on FRS Channel 2 (in Europe: PMR Channel 2). Quote Link to comment
+Team LaLonde Posted July 14, 2006 Share Posted July 14, 2006 We were at a rest stop looking for a cache last weekend when another family yelled to us, "Did you find it?!" which was followed by a brief pause. They quickly followed with, "I mean, what did you find?" We were sure they were cachers but they had seen us eating wild blueberries in the area about 200 feet from ground zero and were just curious. We showed them where the blueberries were so we could go find the cache, hidden out of sight in the woods. Quote Link to comment
+Cpt.Blackbeard Posted July 15, 2006 Share Posted July 15, 2006 Poor dyslexic Mopar could not remember the New Jersey greeting correctly. One day, he spotted someone with a GPS and called out, "Geocacher, are ye a Ho?" And the rest, as they say, is history. Quote Link to comment
+Airmapper Posted July 15, 2006 Share Posted July 15, 2006 I usually wear my Geocaching logo T-shirt, and pack my GPS openly. I was once approached by a woman on a trail in Mammoth Cave NP, where I was finishing a virtual. She looked at me and said: "are you Geocaching." I confirmed that I was, and after getting my clue, we talked for a minute back up the trail away from a tour group. Works pretty good, and the Muggles never know the difference. Quote Link to comment
dulcimoo Posted July 15, 2006 Share Posted July 15, 2006 Maybe having a GPS in your hand is kinda like a signal? If muggles are about just tell them your scanning for tribble with your tricorder. ]:8) Quote Link to comment
+Fergus Posted July 15, 2006 Share Posted July 15, 2006 If you see someone walking on a trail with a GPS, chances are they are geocaching. If you have your GPS in hand and ask this person and they are not caching, chances are that will want to know about the sport. Quote Link to comment
+shammond Posted July 15, 2006 Share Posted July 15, 2006 I'll share one of my Recent DNF logs that reflect a possibility. "Tried this one this morning with **** (3rd attempt) at 8:00am on Sunday morning. I was prepared to crawl around untill I found it this time. There was a person standing in the vicinity of the cache, and we thought it looked like he was holding a GPS. As it turns out he was a muggle holding a can of Natural Light.. The other 11 were on the ground. He said he just stopped to have a few before making his way down to Coal Grove. It's not often that you get to see such fresh trash. We thought that CITO at this moment might not be wise, so we walked around the car and went on our merry way." Quote Link to comment
Ditchdigger Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 I never liked signals special handshakes or things like that, What if I get it wrong? We are suppose to be observant so I agree with the ones who say to just pay attention to the others in the area, it has worked for me. Not paying attention reminds me of the two guys standing staring up at a flagpole. A woman comes up and asks " what are you doing"? They reply "our boss sent us out to measure this flagpole but we don't have a ladder to reach the top" The woman reaches in her purse pulls out an adujustable wrench, loosens the bolts at the base, lays the pole down, takes out a tape measure and says 18 feet 3 inches, and walks off. One guy turns to the other and says " isn't that just like a woman, we needed the height and she gives us the length" Moral: sometimes we miss the obvious answer. Quote Link to comment
+Zeute Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 I don't often see other cachers along the trail. It's only happened once and it was pretty obvious at that point. Today my family was having a picnic near where we have a cache hidden. Someone was out and about walking and my dad asked if he was a geocacher. The guy said "No, my name isn't geocacher." So sometimes just asking will work. Quote Link to comment
+D24G0N Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 Hand on chin is best. Failing that... New Jersey if only for comic effect. Quote Link to comment
+HaLiJuSaPa Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 One group should start talking on their GPSr like it's a cell phone. Then the other group will come over and say "D'ya think we're flippin' idiots?" We have never ever done that, but funny thing, we were at a cache yesterday (that ended up being a DNF) where it is mostly a paved, open path until almost the end. On the way out, we let our 5 year old son hold the GPS, and just as we're going to pop out into the crowd, out of the blue he starts putting the GPS to his ear and talking to it like it's a cell phone ("hi grandma, it's me"), we're not kidding we were awestruck! I guess the younger generation really is extremely tech savvy Seriously, we would just show our GPS in that situation I think that would say it all.... Quote Link to comment
FlagFinder Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 just flip out your pocket knife if thier geocachers they will know wut your doing but if thier not they will start running away trust me it works i needed to pull out a really snug container so i flipped out my knife and some kids were staring at me from the start once they saw the knife they ran away although that might be a bit intensejust hold your gps in your hand where its visible Quote Link to comment
Clan Riffster Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 I guess the younger generation really is extremely tech savvy Naw, if he was tech savvy, he would've punched in the coords to Starbucks. Quote Link to comment
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