Not Exact Coordinates OK?

[+Suburban Hillbillies]

We think we found a nice spot for an ammo box cache, and currently awaiting permission to put it there.

If it's listed as such, can the coordinates be off by maybe 15-20 feet, as to encourage "Looking" for it, as long as it's noted as such, and possibly the diffuculty bumped up a notch for that?

 

Basically, I didn't want to make it so obvious.

 

Thanks!

[bogleman]

Get them as close as possible - 15-20 feet is well within range for anyone looking for a regular sized cache. I've found others that were off by over 100"

 

Do not put the numbers off to make the hide more difficult - bad juju

[+Miragee]

Welcome to the Forums!

 

GPS units are not so accurate that they will pinpoint the location. I always try to get very accurate coordinates and if for some reason, interference from trees or canyon walls, I give an explicit hint.

 

I place my caches so people can enjoy the location itself, not spend time excessive time looking for a cache because my coordinates are off . . .

[+Moose Mob]

If the cache is known to be somewhere other than the posted coordinates, then technically it is a mystery/puzzle or a multi/offset cache. After all, this is a game about location, not "stump the seeker".

[+Suburban Hillbillies]

Thanks for the replies. Maybe a puzzle cache is in order. That would add in the factor of "Have to think about it" which is what we wanted to do.

 

Duh, Why didn't I think of that at first?

 

Thanks!

[+StarBrand]

Bad coordinates do not not bump up the difficulty. They are just that - bad coordinates.

[+Miragee]

Thanks for the replies. Maybe a puzzle cache is in order. That would add in the factor of "Have to think about it" which is what we wanted to do.

 

Duh, Why didn't I think of that at first?

 

Thanks!

Keep in mind that a Puzzle cache will get many fewer finders than a Traditional cache. Some people have trouble figuring them out so they filter all of them out of their Pocket Queries.

 

Why do you want to make your cache more difficult . . . ?

[+wsgaskins]

Thanks for the replies. Maybe a puzzle cache is in order. That would add in the factor of "Have to think about it" which is what we wanted to do.

 

Be aware that making something into a puzzle cache will automatically restrict your pool of potential finders. The ability to filter caches in PQs means that people who don't like to solve puzzles simply skip these outright - they never even see the cache page.

 

I had a puzzle cache where basically, I told you on the page exactly how to solve the puzzle that was necessary for doing the cache -- you could even solve the puzzle in the field- but it had about 3 finders in 4 months before the foliage changed significantly and made what I thought (in the height of summer) was a well concealed location into one that was clearly visible from the trail 100' away. End story there - the cache was muggled before even some of the local area puzzle cachers went to find it.

 

I thought that it may have had more finders, but alas, as a puzzle cache it didn't even come up for consideration for many people.

 

On the original topic, if you post bad coordinates, you may get people who are very "helpful" who will post waypoints with their logs showing their measured coordinates at the cache location. So to that end, it is not a bad idea to give as good coordinates as you can. But there's nothing wrong with making people *think* that the coordinates are bad..... Call it 'Bad Coordinates Cache' - and give a long sob story about how you just can't seem to get a good reading.

[+whistler & co.]

Why not make it a clever and hard-to-detect hide with GOOD coords rather than a banal hide with POOR coords? Either way they'll have to spend time searching, but the first will get great reviews in the logs whereas the second will get complaints.

[+cache_test_dummies]

CacheNCarryMA has one that is somewhat related to what you are thinking about. The idea is to experience the difference between Selective Availability being On versus being Off. It's listed as a traditional, but I don't know if they would allow new ones like this to be listed as anything other than Unknown (Mystery) at this point.

 

Selective Availability ON

 

I've never done this one, but it's on my to-do list.

[+Sapience Trek]

Please consider the impact bad coordinates will have on the immediate environment. People are more likely to be a bit destructive when a cache can't be found.

[+tozainamboku]

Please consider the impact bad coordinates will have on the immediate environment. People are more likely to be a bit destructive when a cache can't be found.

Blaming bad coordinates as an excuse for slash and burn searching techniques is irresponsible. If you can't find a cache, log a DNF or come back another day. Don't rip out ever tree and then blame the hider for making it too hard to find.

[+Renegade Knight]

Please consider the impact bad coordinates will have on the immediate environment. People are more likely to be a bit destructive when a cache can't be found.

Blaming bad coordinates as an excuse for slash and burn searching techniques is irresponsible. If you can't find a cache, log a DNF or come back another day. Don't rip out ever tree and then blame the hider for making it too hard to find.

I think you missed the point. NYCacher was saying to keep in mind what seekers will do when looking for your cache. That doesn't excuse their behavior, but it is the reality we cache owners have to keep in mind.

[+Moose Mob]

Please consider the impact bad coordinates will have on the immediate environment. People are more likely to be a bit destructive when a cache can't be found.

Blaming bad coordinates as an excuse for slash and burn searching techniques is irresponsible. If you can't find a cache, log a DNF or come back another day. Don't rip out ever tree and then blame the hider for making it too hard to find.

Building on RK's statement, during the course of searching for a cache, people will walk into flowerbeds, across the landscaping, turn over rocks, check the sprinklers to check if they are fake, climb up posts, peek and poke into the shrubbery, whatever it takes. Bad coordinates just increases the circle of tertiary damage.

[+Trucker Lee]

Please consider the impact bad coordinates will have on the immediate environment. People are more likely to be a bit destructive when a cache can't be found.

Blaming bad coordinates as an excuse for slash and burn searching techniques is irresponsible. If you can't find a cache, log a DNF or come back another day. Don't rip out ever tree and then blame the hider for making it too hard to find.

Building on RK's statement, during the course of searching for a cache, people will walk into flowerbeds, across the landscaping, turn over rocks, check the sprinklers to check if they are fake, climb up posts, peek and poke into the shrubbery, whatever it takes. Bad coordinates just increases the circle of tertiary damage.

All of which illustrates that we need to encourage cachers to respect the location while searching. If you roll a rock over, roll it back. Never pull out shrubbery or plantings, the hider didn't after all.

 

If we tear up every place we go, we will not be welcome anywhere.

[GPS-Hermit]

Better to have good co-ordinates with lots of places to hide the cache - if you have an accuracy of about 30 feet that means you are somewhere inside a circle about 60 feet across and when a seeker come by he will be somewhere else in an overlaping 60 foot circle - so that is enough playground for a good hunt without making it worse. Cache On! and have a ball. It is cool enough in WV to climb some hills.

[+the hermit crabs]

Deliberately altering the coordinates is the lazy hider's way of making a "difficult" cache. If I knew a hider purposely did that, all of his current and future caches would immediately go on my ignore list.

 

If you want a hide that is actually difficult, then find the right location and the right type of camo for your container so that finders can be standing right at your posted coordinates, staring right at the cache, and not even realize it.

[danoshimano]

...besides, it won't be long before someone with an accurate GPSr will come along and post corrected coordinates in their log.

 

Also, I will attest to what wsgaskins says about people ignoring puzzle caches, because I am one of them! Some people like them, but I want to load up my gear and get out there, not site around trying to figure out a puzzle. That's why they don't even make it onto my radar.

[4wheelin_fool]

We think we found a nice spot for an ammo box cache, and currently awaiting permission to put it there.

If it's listed as such, can the coordinates be off by maybe 15-20 feet, as to encourage "Looking" for it, as long as it's noted as such, and possibly the diffuculty bumped up a notch for that?

 

Basically, I didn't want to make it so obvious.

 

Thanks!

 

Most hides are off by 15-20 feet anyway

 

If you intentionally try make it 15-20 feet off it will end up more like 40-50.

 

If you want to encourage people to "look" for it, make it a puzzle with tight cords, and then have them follow a compass bearing for the final 50 feet..

[+wimseyguy]

Intentionally bad coordinates are a bad idea. It doesn't add to the FUN factor one bit.

Edited October 2, 2007 by wimseyguy

[+TrailGators]

Please consider the impact bad coordinates will have on the immediate environment. People are more likely to be a bit destructive when a cache can't be found.

Blaming bad coordinates as an excuse for slash and burn searching techniques is irresponsible. If you can't find a cache, log a DNF or come back another day. Don't rip out ever tree and then blame the hider for making it too hard to find.

I think you missed the point. NYCacher was saying to keep in mind what seekers will do when looking for your cache. That doesn't excuse their behavior, but it is the reality we cache owners have to keep in mind.

I agree because I see the "reality" all the time. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" applies here. Caches in which the owner purposely provides bad coordinates go on my ignore list. I'm also apt to ignore the rest of their caches as well.

[+rdaines]

Deliberately giving misleading or wrong coordinates is a poor way to make the find more difficult. As stated above, someone will post the correct ones anyway. Being creative with the hide will generate a bigger "Wow" factor rather than a negative experience.

[+avpas]

AvedisWolf,

 

If you haven't done them yet, look for the 2trux caches that were created by boundertom. They are good examples of what you can do to make an ammo can in the woods more even with limited space. Check out "What's Your Rush," "A Safe Place," and "Two Bridges Cache."

 

"A Safe Place?" was fantastic in that it was five years old with the original log book. That's one great upside to the decreased traffic.

[+J-Way]

What about posting intentionally bad coordinates in order to skip around the 528ft "guideline"?

 

There's a local Traditional cache hidden right beside the dining deck of a restaurant, hidden in the past few months. The description says that the coordinates will get you into the parking lot, then you're supposed to look for the "obvious" place to hide a certain type of cache. In reality, the coords put me in the next parking lot over, with a chain link fence between me and the business described by the cache title. After driving to the correct location I had to use the clue to find the cache. The coords were 300+ ft away from the final hiding location.

 

The cache was about 450ft from an older cache directly to the north, and about the same distance from another cache directly to the south. The owner put the coordinates 300ft to the east of the actual cache location, which made it more than 528ft from either of the older caches.

[+Suburban Hillbillies]

I've read all your responses, Thanks for taking the time.

Now that I think about it, Being a bit off would not be the best thing to do, as maybe finding a better hiding place would.

 

I was more or less looking to try to make something that would take a little time and hunting, and not just a quick find, as there are many of those around already. ( I have nothing against quick finds, for the record ) Just wanted to do something a little different.

 

I think I'm going to put my next cache on hold, and try to find a better than usual hiding spot, and look at some of the caches that were referenced in this thread.

 

Thanks!

[+briansnat]

We think we found a nice spot for an ammo box cache, and currently awaiting permission to put it there.

If it's listed as such, can the coordinates be off by maybe 15-20 feet, as to encourage "Looking" for it, as long as it's noted as such, and possibly the diffuculty bumped up a notch for that?

 

Basically, I didn't want to make it so obvious.

 

Thanks!

 

 

Odds are that no matter how hard you try to get accurate coords they are likely to be 10-25 feet off anyway.

 

Rarely are they dead on.

[+edscott]

Please consider the impact bad coordinates will have on the immediate environment. People are more likely to be a bit destructive when a cache can't be found.

Blaming bad coordinates as an excuse for slash and burn searching techniques is irresponsible. If you can't find a cache, log a DNF or come back another day. Don't rip out ever tree and then blame the hider for making it too hard to find.

 

Simply spending extra time tramping around the area will do excess damage. Each cache location will take so many man-hours of searching before it starts to look trampled. If everyone spends lots of time there, it will begin to show after fewer finds. I personally like the challenge of multiple route choices to ground zero over a "needle in the haystack" search once I get there. Make 'em accurate please.

[+imajeep]

I personally hate ( that's H-A-T-E) intentionally bad coordinates! But I let my emotions run away with me. It's just that I have spent too much time looking for a hide at the posted coordinates, only to find out later that the cache owner intentionally posted bad coordinates, in an effort to make the hide more interesting. It doesn't--it only makes the hide more evil.

 

There--now that Mr. Hyde has vented all of that hostility and pent-up frustration out of his system, Dr. Jeckyl would like a word. Some people (myself included) get all crazy when a hide has intentionally bad coordinates. The best way to make a hide more interesting is to find a really nice place to put it. Beverly, one of the oldest active caches in existence, is in one of the nicest spots I have ever seen--a pine forest with no underbrush and a floor of pine needles.

 

Another way to make a hide interesting is to make it clever. I once found a cache cammoflouged as a fake 'constructed by' sign on a chain link fence. It took me two tries to find it and I loved every minute of it.

 

But then, I went after another cache whose coordinates pointed directly to a lamppost. The cache was actually stuck under a park bench fifty feet away. That's not clever--it's just evil, and it irritates the daylights out of people like me.

 

So enjoy, and thaks for placing those caches. But please--don't make them evil.

Edited October 5, 2007 by imajeep

[tmike2552]

But then, I went after another cache whose coordinates pointed directly to a lamppost. The cache was actually stuck under a park bench fifty feet away. That's not clever--it's just evil, and it irritates the daylights out of people like me.

 

What I don't understand is how the hider expects you to find something like that. The last thing I want to do in the middle of a busy sidewalk is to be seen crawling around on my hands and knees checking the bottoms of benches, especially by our boys in blue.

[+Trucker Lee]

AWolf, check out THIS interesting twist on a puzzle I came across last night. It's an idea!

[+edscott]

We think we found a nice spot for an ammo box cache, and currently awaiting permission to put it there.

If it's listed as such, can the coordinates be off by maybe 15-20 feet, as to encourage "Looking" for it, as long as it's noted as such, and possibly the diffuculty bumped up a notch for that?

 

Basically, I didn't want to make it so obvious.

 

Thanks!

 

It's sort of like inviting a friend over to play cards and use a deck of 50. He comes to you expecting a fun and fair game and may go away somewhat displeased. If you put that information on the page I would probably ignore the cache unless it was really close to home and I had nothing better to do.

Edited October 5, 2007 by edscott