How many Power Squadron members does it take to report a benchmark on the same day?

[Mesa Mike 0]

Look at this one:

http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=AW0608

 

What's up with that?

[Wintertime 0]

All of the January 1st dates are suspicious; I wonder whether the information about the original dates was lost and all reports for a given year were automatically assigned to Jan. 1st. But that would still imply that many reports were made in the same year. Although these particular reports were made many years ago, I think it was "brownie point" gathering like this that led to the cessation of the reporting program.

 

Patty

[+Klemmer 0]

You would think they could have been home watching college football.....

Edited April 15, 2008 by Klemmer & TeddyBearMama

[+Black Dog Trackers 0]

There's a bunch like that in that area. I found those a few months ago when I made a national listing of the most recovered marks. This kind of game made that list rather uninteresting.

[+Ernmark 0]

..speaking of GEOCAC reporting to the NGS, in looking for new marks to hunt, I've begun to run into NGS datasheets just beyond the fringes of where I normally galavant where I'm seeing up to 3 GEOCAC recoveries in the span of 18 months. I ran across one that I myself logged on geocaching but passed on reporting to the NGS, because one of 'us' had reported a recovery about 2 years earlier but now has 2 more GEOCAC entries. Having seen water tanks or conspicuous marks in shore towns where USPSQD individuals reported NGS recoveries 1 year to the day apart for a number of years - I'd hate to see GEOCAC start to to this. This has been discussed before (length of time between visits, etc.) but I wonder if geocaching.com/mark should have a bold-type reference made near the top of the page about keeping the deatsheets clean & submitting when there have been changes of a decent amount of years between recoveries. I'd hate for US to be asked not to submit recoveries to NGS. Maybe it's not that widespread, but as more geocachers succumb to Obsessive-Compulsive Benchmarking Disorder, this may show up more often...

 

Edit - spelling error

Edited April 18, 2008 by Ernmark

[+PFF 0]

Hi, Ernmark,

 

You've brought up an excellent point. We had some duplicate reports (sometimes only a month apart) by GEOCAC in North Carolina, when some new folks joined the hobby. We solved the problem by first reminding everyone of the Interval guidelines, and second, by adding "NGS Update Submitted" to the logs on GEOCACHING.COM, so others would have a feel for what has been reported, and when.

 

In January, our state's geodetic organization began uploading a backlog of recoveries made by NCGS in recent years. It has been interesting to see that they were at a mark shortly before, or just after, a GEOCAC visit. There's no way to have avoided this, due to the several-year delay in NCGS uploads. (In case you're wondering, the logs in the NGS data sheet are in date-found sequence, rather than by submission date.)

 

-Paul-

[+Ernmark 0]

..agreed. I've been adding the NGS tag line when in this area myself. I did communicate w/ one of the loggers a while back, but I think some of these people aren't frequenters of the BM forums & think that NGS is just another place to add logs & 'stats'. I guess that's why I was thinking that "above the fold" on the geocaching/mark page might be a place to emphasize it (gosh- why would anybody need to re-report a mark ArtMan had visited a few months before?...well, unless it was hit by a meteor!)

Edited April 19, 2008 by Ernmark

[+Trucker Lee 0]

Messed up logging, or on Jan 1 of 1988, someone held a kegger on Galveston Island.

[AZcachemeister 3]

Hi, Ernmark,

 

You've brought up an excellent point. We had some duplicate reports (sometimes only a month apart) by GEOCAC in North Carolina, when some new folks joined the hobby. We solved the problem by first reminding everyone of the Interval guidelines, and second, by adding "NGS Update Submitted" to the logs on GEOCACHING.COM, so others would have a feel for what has been reported, and when.

 

In January, our state's geodetic organization began uploading a backlog of recoveries made by NCGS in recent years. It has been interesting to see that they were at a mark shortly before, or just after, a GEOCAC visit. There's no way to have avoided this, due to the several-year delay in NCGS uploads. (In case you're wondering, the logs in the NGS data sheet are in date-found sequence, rather than by submission date.)

 

-Paul-

 

Interesting.

I wonder how the NCGS is getting past the automated reply for attempted recoveries 'within the last year'?

I believe one can 'force' a recovery note by entering some supposedly relevant text in the box at the bottom of the report page.

If asked, I would be hard pressed to explain why it is OK for the NCGS (or any other similar entity) to do this, but not anyone else.

[+PFF 0]

Actually, I have never gotten an automatic reply such as you describe. I did not know there was such a thing.

 

I've sent in several in the past few years where the USPSQD logged 'em close to the time of my visit. At what point in the sequence do you get notification? I'll start watching for it.

 

-Paul-

[+Black Dog Trackers 0]

AW1034 and AW1575 have the largest number of recoveries; 61.

[+m&h 0]

We used to log a mark at NGS if it had been a year and a day since the previous report. More recently we have begun to think about workloads at the agency. Last month we were in the Phoenix area, and located a mark and its two RMs, each with its own PID, that had been very well reported by AZCachemeister in August of 2006. They are DU0876, GUN; DU0875, GUN RM2; and DU0877, GUN RM1. Only weeks later, in September of 2006, the Power Squadrons reported RM2 as not found. We found it, and reported it to NGS as found “Just as reported by ACM 8/27/2006.” We found the primary mark and the traces of RM1 also, but saw no point in doing again what had been done well less than two years ago. We did log the three of them here.

[+Ernmark 0]

..I just ran into that situation myself - I was out yesterday to find out why PADT reported a tri-station & 2 RM's as not found last year, after a previous good GEOCAC recovery - NICARY JV3401, JV3400, JV3402. I will resubmit a found good also & add any additional relevant info. I also found another station yesterday that had a GEOCAC 'found good' just a few weeks ago w/out the person verifying the station's existence...which kind of ties into my 1st post on this thread. I made note of this in my gc log, but I'm a little leery of being the 'heavy' when it comes to chiding someone who is probably honestly trying to help..

 

PFF,

 

I'll bet you never get an automatic reply because you always enter a thorough detailed description in your recovery!

 

- E

[AZcachemeister 3]

Actually, I have never gotten an automatic reply such as you describe. I did not know there was such a thing.

 

I've sent in several in the past few years where the USPSQD logged 'em close to the time of my visit. At what point in the sequence do you get notification? I'll start watching for it.

 

-Paul-

 

"This mark has been recovered within the past year without any change in status. Thank you for submitting this recovery but NGS is not entering recoveries for marks which have been recovered less than a year ago unless there has been a change in status or there is new descriptive text."

 

It pops up after you click the radio button agreeing on the station designation (second page), and ONLY if the status hasn't changed and you haven't entered any text into the recovery description text box on the first page. If you enter some text, the site assumes you are adding some useful information to the page. 'Recovered as described' isn't very informative, but it will allow the note to 'go through' and be added to the page. I suppose the only way to 'filter out' that kind of note would be a manual review.

[+PFF 0]

PFF,

 

I'll bet you never get an automatic reply because you always enter a thorough detailed description in your recovery!

 

LOL. That must be the answer, Ernmark. I get a little "wordy" at times, but I usually find something new to contribute.

 

AZcachemeister's comment is informative, and it confirms your theory. This also explains how the NCGS entries got around the Reporting Interval gatekeeper. Thanks, AZ!

 

-Paul-