FTF

[+sacyspooh]

I've been caching for about a month now and I'm anxious for a first to find. What is the easiest way to to go about this?

[+Rattlebars]

I've been caching for about a month now and I'm anxious for a first to find. What is the easiest way to to go about this?

 

Never sleep and stay constantly logged on GC.COM

 

On your ACCOUNTS page in the far right column is "PREMIUM FEATURES" and three down from that heading is SET UP NOTIFICATIONS.

 

Click that SET UP NOTIFICATIONS link and fill in the blanks. Don't forget to set the type of cache you want notified about and check the PUBLISH LISTING box under that list. You have to do it for each type of cache you want. I do only Traditional and Multi.

 

You will get e-mail every time a cache is published.

 

Now, you can have these things sent to your cell phone if you have that capability. Your phone will get an e-mail as soon as the cache is published.

 

Then, it's up to you get to the cache before anyone doing the same thing does and be First To Find!

 

FTF! YAY!

 

Some folks use TeleFlip for cell phones if you don't have a cell phone e-mail address. I tried it, but found it less than satisfactory.

 

Standard charges for e-mail and text messaging apply.

[Fluxuated]

A lot of it is LUCK as well. Try to catch one that's published when it's dark, then plan to leave, so that you arrive at the cache at first light. That strategy has nailed me 4 FTFs and I've only been doing this for 3 weeks now.

 

Best of luck, grabbing a FTF is awesome. I did it, with my 2 kids.

[+Super_Nate]

These are all great options! A FTF takes time, and eventually one will pop up that you will easily get. It took me 5 or 6 attempts before I finally got my first one.

 

Another option that you can do if you are a premium member, is set up a pocket query of caches in your area that have not been found. If you check the right boxes, you will get a resulting list chuck full of caches that are waiting for their FTF claims.

 

Good luck

[+Cedar Grove Seekers]

Try to catch one that's published when it's dark, then plan to leave, so that you arrive at the cache at first light.

Or go for it in the dark. We've gone for several at night and even meet other FTF racers at night. Our latest/earliest was a 2 mile hike through the woods at 1AM.

[Fluxuated]

Try to catch one that's published when it's dark, then plan to leave, so that you arrive at the cache at first light.

Or go for it in the dark. We've gone for several at night and even meet other FTF racers at night. Our latest/earliest was a 2 mile hike through the woods at 1AM.

 

True. Your in Toronto, go out there and grab the 2 I placed in Guelph Friday Evening No one's logged them yet.

 

Once I order my FENIX Flashlight, I may have to try some night hunts. Sounds fun.

[+briansnat]

The easiest way is to set up a notification and be willing to leave the house or work the instant you get the notification. Could be 3 am. Could be in the middle of the afternoon, or dinnertime, but have your GPS by the door and gas in your take and be ready to take off at a moments notice.

[+Miragee]

I finally got my first FTF because it was a fairly long hike up a steep trail to a mountain peak.

 

It is harder to get a FTF in urban settings because of the competition, but sometimes the caches in the country or the mountains sit around for a couple of days. Good luck on your quest!

[crawil]

I finally got my first FTF because it was a fairly long hike up a steep trail to a mountain peak.

 

It is harder to get a FTF in urban settings because of the competition, but sometimes the caches in the country or the mountains sit around for a couple of days. Good luck on your quest!

True, true. Our first FTF was in the California desert. We were heading out of town on vacation and pulled off the Interstate to grab a friend's cache at the exit and grabbed a few others. The first one we tried had a blank log book (GCZT43- I assumed that it had been recently replaced - until I looked up the placement date on the PDA and noticed that it had been hidden two days before.

 

The rest we really had to work hard to get.

[+Bunganator]

It can also be really helpful to stalk your reviewer (in a very legal way). It seems that reviewers get into patterns of publishing. In minnesota, caches are published at about 6am, noon, 5pm, and 9pm. Of course this will vary among reviewers. Just knowing when your reviewer is likely to publish a cache will at the very least help you plan your days so you can create a prework, lunch, afterwork, or latenight window for a possible FTF.

[+Chuy!]

Rattlebars touched on this.

 

In the notifications webpage, you can include an alternate email address to get notifications. If you have unlimited text messaging, this is a good place to include your #.

See here for common text email addresses.

 

You're not going to get the coords; but at least you'll see where the new cache is relative to your home coords and call a buddy to provide the coords if you are near GZ.

[+Rattlebars]

Chuy! Thanks, that works LOTS better than Teleflip (an Teleflip is preparing to charge ya $3 a month soon).

 

Never heard of this SMS thing. Really appreciate the link. In my favorites.

 

Now all I have to do is figure out why I get TWO notifications for every PUBLISH! Dunno why it does that.

[Geo-Joe-N-Josh]

Get good at caching and watch for new caches. Be the first there.

[+Chuy!]

Chuy! Thanks, that works LOTS better than Teleflip (an Teleflip is preparing to charge ya $3 a month soon).

 

Never heard of this SMS thing. Really appreciate the link. In my favorites.

 

Now all I have to do is figure out why I get TWO notifications for every PUBLISH! Dunno why it does that.

SMS = Short Message Service

It's a communications protocol for text messaging; most cell phones support it. Send your cell phone a text message from another phone or through your email provider, and you'll know if you have it.

[+KJcachers]

my only FTF was lucky as I received it just before leaving work and it was getting dark so the hounds waited until morning. I went for the hike in the dark and made the find. It was my first otherwise I probably would not have made that hike.

[+JonInNH1]

I've been caching for about a month now and I'm anxious for a first to find. What is the easiest way to to go about this?

 

Wait for luck and location.

[+Rattlebars]

If you have YAHOO Mail at yahoo.com, you can set up your yahoo account to forward incoming mail with filters to your cell phone (mobile) or any other capable mobile device (PDA etc) for notifications. Then just set up notifications on GC.COM to send the Notify: e-mail to your XXXXXX@Yahoo.com mail address. On yahoo, add a filter for the Notify: mail to the settings shown below and make sure the "Send an alert to my Mobile Device" is checked.

 

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Chuy! Thanks, that works LOTS better than Teleflip (an Teleflip is preparing to charge ya $3 a month soon).

 

Never heard of this SMS thing. Really appreciate the link. In my favorites.

 

Now all I have to do is figure out why I get TWO notifications for every PUBLISH! Dunno why it does that.

SMS = Short Message Service

It's a communications protocol for text messaging; most cell phones support it. Send your cell phone a text message from another phone or through your email provider, and you'll know if you have it.

 

Keep in mind that SMS messages have a limit of 160 characters, and more importantly that the geocaching.com notifications are not formatted with that limit in mind. Systems like the one that Chuy! posted about and teleflip are mere SMS gateways while will take the first 160 characters of an email message and send it to a cell phone using the SMS protocol. Since the first characters of a notification is "This is an automated message from Geocaching" a lot of useless information would be included as part of the message.

 

If this were done right, the geocaching.com site would either have to set up an SMS gateway(it's not that difficult, I have done it myself) or use one of the many commercial SMS gateway services available. Then when producing the email notifications it would produce a SMS version which only had the most important information (coordinates, waypoint, cache type (it would be nice to know if it was a puzzle cache) and send. The site would also have to have a place where geocachers would enter their cell phone number and a check box to indicate that they wanted to receive notifications via SMS.

 

I just set up my geocaching.com account such that it uses a gmail address. I have a Blackberry Pearl which and a data plan so I can read (and send) email from my phone. I have it set up so that a distinctive tone is played when I have new mail from my gmail account. It does get somewhat frustrating when I hear that tone 5 minutes into an hour long meeting. Awhile back the alert when off as I was finishing something up and I checked the site to find that new cache was placed about a five minute walk from my office. In fact, it looked to be very close to where I park my car (and where my GPS was currently located) every day. I snuck out to go look for it about 15 minutes after the alarm went off sure that I would get a FTF. As I approached GZ I could see the cache from 100' away, grabbed it without breaking stride, and walked to my car to sign the log. I was *second to find*! I pulled out my GPS and checked the location and found that my car was parked 100' from where the cache was placed. I replaced the cache then returned to work and went to log my find. The FTF had already logged it. It was only 20 minutes from the time the cache was published to the first *online* log.

[+gvsu4msu]

FTF is really dependant on sooooooo many factors.

 

Your location

Cache location

Cache publication

Weather

Competition

Transportation

Cache difficulty

Cache Type

 

All of these make the hunt either easier or harder.

 

Were I am from FTFs are generally snagged by one of three or four big players. Lately some new cachers have had some success. I have been fortunate to get 4 in the last week. I had one if the previous 6 months. But here is how they break down

 

FTF #1 - was cammoed too well I think.

FTF#2 - Was a bit out of most folks range and it came out at 9:30 pm

FTF#3 - It was a puzzle and it was Zero Degrees that morning

FTF#4 - Listed as a mystery cache and it was Zero Degrees that morning

FTF#5 - It was puzle and it was morning. It was 5 miles from my house.

 

Be patient. Your day will come. Enjoy the caches you do find. They count just the same. In fact you might get to see more with doing the cache if your not racing for an FTF.

 

I do want to say that I had considered getting the cell phone notifications and all that, but figure it is not worth the extra money every month. Now that I got these others without it, I don't plan to change.

[+TheCollector]

i place a ton of new aches on days like friday that i know a ton of new caches will be posted so i distract people to my caches and i go get the FTFs on other caches that were publish so far I have 41 FTFs. I also have the notifications set up on my phone, but i use a google group to do the notifications it sends to my phone and my email it works really well.

[+Rattlebars]

Since the first characters of a notification is "This is an automated message from Geocaching" a lot of useless information would be included as part of the message.

 

If this were done right, the geocaching.com site would either have to set up an SMS gateway(it's not that difficult, I have done it myself) or use one of the many commercial SMS gateway services available. Then when producing the email notifications it would produce a SMS version which only had the most important information (coordinates, waypoint, cache type (it would be nice to know if it was a puzzle cache) and send. The site would also have to have a place where geocachers would enter their cell phone number and a check box to indicate that they wanted to receive notifications via SMS.

 

Can't agree more with that. I post only to help out those folks who don't know how.

 

And I would like GC to stop sending me TWO notifications of each new cache. This is not a problem with SMS or my phone's overflow beginning a second message. I get TWO for EACH cache in my e-mail whether I use Yahoo, Outlook Express or my phone's text address straight away.

 

TWO each. I think I'll post again in the GC.COM website forum...

[+Rattlebars]

 

I snuck out to go look for it about 15 minutes after the alarm went off sure that I would get a FTF. As I approached GZ I could see the cache from 100' away, grabbed it without breaking stride, and walked to my car to sign the log. I was *second to find*! I pulled out my GPS and checked the location and found that my car was parked 100' from where the cache was placed. I replaced the cache then returned to work and went to log my find. The FTF had already logged it. It was only 20 minutes from the time the cache was published to the first *online* log.

 

Was the written log in the actual cache book dated? I have run into FTF claims where the date in the log book is PRIOR to the publish date. Seems some share inside information when placing caches.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

 

I snuck out to go look for it about 15 minutes after the alarm went off sure that I would get a FTF. As I approached GZ I could see the cache from 100' away, grabbed it without breaking stride, and walked to my car to sign the log. I was *second to find*! I pulled out my GPS and checked the location and found that my car was parked 100' from where the cache was placed. I replaced the cache then returned to work and went to log my find. The FTF had already logged it. It was only 20 minutes from the time the cache was published to the first *online* log.

 

Was the written log in the actual cache book dated? I have run into FTF claims where the date in the log book is PRIOR to the publish date. Seems some share inside information when placing caches.

 

The FTF log was legit. I know who the person was that logged it and she works about the same distance or possibly closer than I to that cache. The difference was that I waited 15 minutes or so before leaving my office and she was able to get out just after the cache was published. Even if she waited 5 minutes after the cache was published she still would have been able to leave her office walk to the cache, find it and sign the log, and return to her office before I got to the cache.

 

For awhile I was making an attempt at FTF for most of the nearby caches that were published but after several 2nd or 3rd to finds in a row this one was the kicker that dissuaded me from becoming a full fledged FTF hound. There was a cache that was posted two days ago that I got to within 200' of (before being called away by my sons daycare because he had a fever) that still hasn't had a FTF log. It's only about 10 miles away but I am still sitting here typing this message rather than run out there. I might grab it later today but there are also several other new caches in a different direction I might hit instead.