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GC.com Why don't you create a zip file for each state?


adam_w

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I am so frustrated with pocket queries. I have maxed out my pocket queries, and so now I can no longer have all of the caches in my state up to date. This is ridiculous. I am tired of going to caches only to find they are archived or out of date. There is no reason why gc.com could not create a zip file for each state and small countries each night and let members download the zip file from their site. They could even charge for this service. running 30+ pocket queries to have all of your caches up to date is ridiculous. Pocket queries should be used for those rare occasions like a road trip to GeoWoodstock or something like that, not for keeping your regular caching areas up to date.

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I don't think that what you are asking for is ever going to happen, so you have a few choices:

  • Decide that you don't need to have every cache in the state in your off-line database and pare down to a workable area.
  • Sort out from your PQs those caches that you aren't really interested in
  • Buy an additional membership so you will have twice as many PQs.
  • Move to a smaller state.

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I don't think that what you are asking for is ever going to happen, so you have a few choices:

  • Decide that you don't need to have every cache in the state in your off-line database and pare down to a workable area.
  • Sort out from your PQs those caches that you aren't really interested in
  • Buy an additional membership so you will have twice as many PQs.
  • Move to a smaller state.

 

It will happen if we ask for it loud enough. They could even charge a monthly fee for a service like this, why would they turn down a revenue option?

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I have a hard time understanding why you can't just let the website keep track of all those caches for you (for free) and then you can download (within 5 minutes or less) a PQ with just the caches you wish to seek at the moment. Not like you need them all at your fingertips. You can even change your mind and do something different up to 5 times per day. Keep in mind the PQs were created for a day or so of caching - not to facilitate offline databases.

 

Sure it would be nice to have the whole database up-to-date at all times but it just isn't practical. I think they do good to share as much of it as they do right now.

 

Think about it - the only real thing of value they own is the data in the database - we shouldn't be surprised when they limit how much of it we can keep on our own machines. After all Groundspeak is a for-profit business.

Edited by StarBrand
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Personally, I like Pocket Queries. I have no need to keep up to date on the status of all the caches in California. Heck, I can get PQs for the five surrounding areas (total diameter of about 25 miles) and have 2500 caches, easy. Obviously I'm not going to find all of them in the next day or so. So, PQs work just fine for me. If I am going further than 25 miles from here, I can always generate a special query (of 500) for that area and filter out the ones archived, etc. Do that all the time when we vacation out of state. And GSAK will do any additional filtering I need. And, none of my GPSs or PDAs will hold that many anyway - their limit is 500.

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Personally, I like Pocket Queries. I have no need to keep up to date on the status of all the caches in California. Heck, I can get PQs for the five surrounding areas (total diameter of about 25 miles) and have 2500 caches, easy. Obviously I'm not going to find all of them in the next day or so. So, PQs work just fine for me. If I am going further than 25 miles from here, I can always generate a special query (of 500) for that area and filter out the ones archived, etc. Do that all the time when we vacation out of state. And GSAK will do any additional filtering I need. And, none of my GPSs or PDAs will hold that many anyway - their limit is 500.

 

Why should I have to waste time figuring out where the heck I am going to be all time for geocaching. I can keep the whole state in my GPS, and I never have to worry about whether I have loaded up the caches for the area I may or may not be caching in.

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I am so frustrated with pocket queries. I have maxed out my pocket queries, and so now I can no longer have all of the caches in my state up to date. This is ridiculous. I am tired of going to caches only to find they are archived or out of date. There is no reason why gc.com could not create a zip file for each state and small countries each night and let members download the zip file from their site. They could even charge for this service. running 30+ pocket queries to have all of your caches up to date is ridiculous. Pocket queries should be used for those rare occasions like a road trip to GeoWoodstock or something like that, not for keeping your regular caching areas up to date.

You just don't know how to use the Pocket Queries correctly. ;)

 

Pick a "centerpoint" that will give you a wide radius to Search and set up PQs by "Date Placed." Around here, I need seven to get a 50-mile Search radius. That gives me lots more PQs to create based on "location" in case I am going outside that normal Search Radius, or if I want to create a PQ/PQs based on "Caches Along a Route."

 

As I stated in the other thread, if you use GSAK's "Last .gpx Update" filter, you can get rid of all the caches that did not update.

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.... I can keep the whole state in my GPS, and I never have to worry about whether I have loaded up the caches for the area I may or may not be caching in.

Most of us make use of the Geocaching mode and are limited to between 500 and 2000 points on our units.

 

You sound like a great candidate for using the wap site and/or internet connections via cell phone services. Might look into the "caching with your cell phone" options. Spend your money there.

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.... I can keep the whole state in my GPS, and I never have to worry about whether I have loaded up the caches for the area I may or may not be caching in.

Most of us make use of the Geocaching mode and are limited to between 500 and 2000 points on our units.

 

You sound like a great candidate for using the wap site and/or internet connections via cell phone services. Might look into the "caching with your cell phone" options. Spend your money there.

 

Even if you use your GPS that way, you still should be able to have the most current information in it. Nothing worse than hitting a cache only to find out later it was disabled or archived. While I appreciate what everyone is saying, it is ridiculous that I as a geoacher cant have as many caches as I want in my offline database. Again, gc.com can charge for this service so there is no reason for them to ignore the fact that everyone uses an offline database cache from

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You can keep your whole state in your GPS????!!!! I see you are from Utah, at least that's where all of your found caches are located. GC.COM shows 11,207 caches (active and disabled - archived aren't listed) in the entire state of Utah.

 

Yes I load them as Custom Points of Interest, and you can load millions of Custom POIs because they are loaded to your SD memory card and not to the local RAM on the GPS.

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no reason for an entire state download - I think that is a tad ridiculous. I live in New York and it would take me about 6-7 hours of driving to get to the other side. If I know I am going to travel that far away I can take 5 minutes and get a new pocket query done and loaded. You sound like a control freak to me!! Not needed, move on.

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no reason for an entire state download - I think that is a tad ridiculous. I live in New York and it would take me about 6-7 hours of driving to get to the other side. If I know I am going to travel that far away I can take 5 minutes and get a new pocket query done and loaded. You sound like a control freak to me!! Not needed, move on.

 

No need to get personal, I live in Utah, and I frequently drive to various parts of the state. If you want to have to go through the pain of running a query every time you decide to go somewhere that is your business. A nd I hope you havent already run your 5 queries for the day when you decide to go somewhere, cuz you out of luck.

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You can keep your whole state in your GPS????!!!! I see you are from Utah, at least that's where all of your found caches are located. GC.COM shows 11,207 caches (active and disabled - archived aren't listed) in the entire state of Utah.

 

Yes I load them as Custom Points of Interest, and you can load millions of Custom POIs because they are loaded to your SD memory card and not to the local RAM on the GPS.

Even though you use the POI loader to put all the caches in your State into your GPSr, you still need to update those POIs frequently to keep from looking for a missing, Disabled, or Archived cache.

 

I have no interest in getting all the caches in Southern California, much less all the caches in this entire State . . . ;)

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You can keep your whole state in your GPS????!!!! I see you are from Utah, at least that's where all of your found caches are located. GC.COM shows 11,207 caches (active and disabled - archived aren't listed) in the entire state of Utah.

 

Yes I load them as Custom Points of Interest, and you can load millions of Custom POIs because they are loaded to your SD memory card and not to the local RAM on the GPS.

 

I understand POIs. I tried that but found it not worth the effort. Not the whole description and unable to delete after I found them (don't need them to clutter the data file). I use POIs for static databases, like State Parks, Rest Areas, Starbucks, etc. But once I've found a cache, I don't need it in my database any more. Besides, if you load them as Favorites, the Treasure Chest shows on the screen. I don't think POI's do that.

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You can keep your whole state in your GPS????!!!! I see you are from Utah, at least that's where all of your found caches are located. GC.COM shows 11,207 caches (active and disabled - archived aren't listed) in the entire state of Utah.

 

Yes I load them as Custom Points of Interest, and you can load millions of Custom POIs because they are loaded to your SD memory card and not to the local RAM on the GPS.

Even though you use the POI loader to put all the caches in your State into your GPSr, you still need to update those POIs frequently to keep from looking for a missing, Disabled, or Archived cache.

 

I have no interest in getting all the caches in Southern California, much less all the caches in this entire State . . . ;)

 

Exactly my point, so a nightly zip file for my state would give me just that, then all I have to do is run the POILoader once a day after I update my GSAK database. Not to mention they could include all the logs for a cache in a zip file instead of just the last 5.

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I am so frustrated with pocket queries. I have maxed out my pocket queries, and so now I can no longer have all of the caches in my state up to date. This is ridiculous. I am tired of going to caches only to find they are archived or out of date. There is no reason why gc.com could not create a zip file for each state and small countries each night and let members download the zip file from their site. They could even charge for this service. running 30+ pocket queries to have all of your caches up to date is ridiculous. Pocket queries should be used for those rare occasions like a road trip to GeoWoodstock or something like that, not for keeping your regular caching areas up to date.

You just don't know how to use the Pocket Queries correctly. ;)

 

Pick a "centerpoint" that will give you a wide radius to Search and set up PQs by "Date Placed." Around here, I need seven to get a 50-mile Search radius. That gives me lots more PQs to create based on "location" in case I am going outside that normal Search Radius, or if I want to create a PQ/PQs based on "Caches Along a Route."

 

As I stated in the other thread, if you use GSAK's "Last .gpx Update" filter, you can get rid of all the caches that did not update.

 

There's an easier way for getting the entire state with the current PQ strategy and I do this for Washington.

 

In your PQ setup, can select the entire state, then you do it by date. Starting with May 1, 2000, increase your ending date until you reach near 500. For instance mine is 20000501-20020922. You'll get a shot gun collection of the caches hidden in your state by this method, but you'll be able to build a nice PQ spread that you can easily maintain and update as needed to condense when caches are archived.

 

For WA this means 25 PQs plus 2 to handle updates and inactive caches. Every week I have a realtively up to date database to plan from.

 

That leaves me 13 PQs I can do with whatever I want.

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You can keep your whole state in your GPS????!!!! I see you are from Utah, at least that's where all of your found caches are located. GC.COM shows 11,207 caches (active and disabled - archived aren't listed) in the entire state of Utah.

 

Yes I load them as Custom Points of Interest, and you can load millions of Custom POIs because they are loaded to your SD memory card and not to the local RAM on the GPS.

 

I understand POIs. I tried that but found it not worth the effort. Not the whole description and unable to delete after I found them (don't need them to clutter the data file). I use POIs for static databases, like State Parks, Rest Areas, Starbucks, etc. But once I've found a cache, I don't need it in my database any more. Besides, if you load them as Favorites, the Treasure Chest shows on the screen. I don't think POI's do that.

 

If you update your GSAK database daily with your finds, then they are filtered out each time you run the POILoader. Also you get custom icons with POIs so you get to see the same icons used at gc.com for caches on your map (Ghost for virtuals, Question mark for Mystery, Two yellow boxes for Multis, etc...) You can save a POI as a geocache so it saves it in your calendar too.

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Since 85% of your cache finds are less than 20 miles from your home coordinates, not sure why you need your whole state anyways.

 

But if you must, you can buy as many memberships as you want and have all your PQ's you need. There's Groundspeaks option for you to pay extra to get what you want. ;)

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I am so frustrated with pocket queries. I have maxed out my pocket queries, and so now I can no longer have all of the caches in my state up to date. This is ridiculous. I am tired of going to caches only to find they are archived or out of date. There is no reason why gc.com could not create a zip file for each state and small countries each night and let members download the zip file from their site. They could even charge for this service. running 30+ pocket queries to have all of your caches up to date is ridiculous. Pocket queries should be used for those rare occasions like a road trip to GeoWoodstock or something like that, not for keeping your regular caching areas up to date.

You just don't know how to use the Pocket Queries correctly. ;)

 

Pick a "centerpoint" that will give you a wide radius to Search and set up PQs by "Date Placed." Around here, I need seven to get a 50-mile Search radius. That gives me lots more PQs to create based on "location" in case I am going outside that normal Search Radius, or if I want to create a PQ/PQs based on "Caches Along a Route."

 

As I stated in the other thread, if you use GSAK's "Last .gpx Update" filter, you can get rid of all the caches that did not update.

 

There's an easier way for getting the entire state with the current PQ strategy and I do this for Washington.

 

In your PQ setup, can select the entire state, then you do it by date. Starting with May 1, 2000, increase your ending date until you reach near 500. For instance mine is 20000501-20020922. You'll get a shot gun collection of the caches hidden in your state by this method, but you'll be able to build a nice PQ spread that you can easily maintain and update as needed to condense when caches are archived.

 

For WA this means 25 PQs plus 2 to handle updates and inactive caches. Every week I have a realtively up to date database to plan from.

 

That leaves me 13 PQs I can do with whatever I want.

 

I have done this for Utah, but we are adding over 500 caches a month now, and I will run out of queries by this year. Also this means my caches or always up to 10 days out of date, which means I am hitting disabeld, archived caches on occasion.

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Exactly my point, so a nightly zip file for my state would give me just that, then all I have to do is run the POILoader once a day after I update my GSAK database. Not to mention they could include all the logs for a cache in a zip file instead of just the last 5.

You have a very narrow understanding of the bandwidth required to do that for everybody that would want it. Plus the size of the file that gets created would be horrendous and easily rejected by most if not all current ISP postoffices. The current practice works because the files stay under the ceiling for size limitations.

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Since 85% of your cache finds are less than 20 miles from your home coordinates, not sure why you need your whole state anyways.

 

But if you must, you can buy as many memberships as you want and have all your PQ's you need. There's Groundspeaks option for you to pay extra to get what you want. ;)

 

Again, if GC.com would simply publish zip files for each state, How many people would stop hammering their site with pocket queries? How much bandwidth do they use to send out thousands of emails each night with attachements?

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Exactly my point, so a nightly zip file for my state would give me just that, then all I have to do is run the POILoader once a day after I update my GSAK database. Not to mention they could include all the logs for a cache in a zip file instead of just the last 5.

You have a very narrow understanding of the bandwidth required to do that for everybody that would want it. Plus the size of the file that gets created would be horrendous and easily rejected by most if not all current ISP postoffices. The current practice works because the files stay under the ceiling for size limitations.

 

They dont have to email it, they could place it on their site for people to download

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Exactly my point, so a nightly zip file for my state would give me just that, then all I have to do is run the POILoader once a day after I update my GSAK database. Not to mention they could include all the logs for a cache in a zip file instead of just the last 5.

You have a very narrow understanding of the bandwidth required to do that for everybody that would want it. Plus the size of the file that gets created would be horrendous and easily rejected by most if not all current ISP postoffices. The current practice works because the files stay under the ceiling for size limitations.

 

They dont have to email it, they could place it on their site for people to download

Ok Next arguement. That makes it too easy to download the database for usage outside the TOS. It won't fly.

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I have done this for Utah, but we are adding over 500 caches a month now, and I will run out of queries by this year. Also this means my caches or always up to 10 days out of date, which means I am hitting disabeld, archived caches on occasion.

 

It would be nice to have a larger return of caches in PQs. Just not sure it's going to happen anytime soon. gc.com doesn't respond well to being asked louder and being told not providing it is rediculous.

 

Show the need, explain sensibly why it's needed.

 

In the meantime you might want to limit certain types of caches you probably won't try for as you drive around the state. Maybe filter out high terrain levels, mystery caches, etc. That way you will cover a wider area of caches you'll want to try for rather than being limited by trying to include every single cache and also keep it all current.

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We could go round and around trying to figure out why you need such a large external database and try to explain alternative methods, but I don't think you are going to accept anything but what you are asking for. Unfortunately, TPTB are never, ever going to do what you ask.

 

My advice to you is to investigate alternative solutions to your problem. You can do a search to see what has been discussed that last few times this 'solution' has been suggested.

 

My advice to the rest of us (including myself), is to bow out of this thread.

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I'm going to add you're pretty new at this game. Your state, like everybody else's is going through a seasonal rush. It doesn't stay at that rate for the entire year. If 10 days update time isn't good enough, you're going to have to learn to work with the system and get fresh queries for the area you plan to be in. If that doesn't work, learn to appreciate the fact you will become frustrated.

 

As a PM you should know your request is very unrealistic and doesn't meet business requirements. The return doesn't justify the expense to grow a server farm to meet what I call a microwave desire. Your belief that if enough people demand it will be met with acquiesence is pure fantasy. This company is a listing company and it is the database that is being protected by doling out small chunks at a time instead of large chunks such as you request. Don't think you were the only one to come up with this request. It has been met everytime with a denial to accomodate.

Edited by TotemLake
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I am so frustrated with pocket queries. I have maxed out my pocket queries, and so now I can no longer have all of the caches in my state up to date. This is ridiculous. I am tired of going to caches only to find they are archived or out of date. There is no reason why gc.com could not create a zip file for each state and small countries each night and let members download the zip file from their site. They could even charge for this service. running 30+ pocket queries to have all of your caches up to date is ridiculous. Pocket queries should be used for those rare occasions like a road trip to GeoWoodstock or something like that, not for keeping your regular caching areas up to date.

You just don't know how to use the Pocket Queries correctly. :D

 

Pick a "centerpoint" that will give you a wide radius to Search and set up PQs by "Date Placed." Around here, I need seven to get a 50-mile Search radius. That gives me lots more PQs to create based on "location" in case I am going outside that normal Search Radius, or if I want to create a PQ/PQs based on "Caches Along a Route."

 

As I stated in the other thread, if you use GSAK's "Last .gpx Update" filter, you can get rid of all the caches that did not update.

 

There's an easier way for getting the entire state with the current PQ strategy and I do this for Washington.

 

In your PQ setup, can select the entire state, then you do it by date. Starting with May 1, 2000, increase your ending date until you reach near 500. For instance mine is 20000501-20020922. You'll get a shot gun collection of the caches hidden in your state by this method, but you'll be able to build a nice PQ spread that you can easily maintain and update as needed to condense when caches are archived.

 

For WA this means 25 PQs plus 2 to handle updates and inactive caches. Every week I have a realtively up to date database to plan from.

 

That leaves me 13 PQs I can do with whatever I want.

Yep!

This is basically what I do for Montana. But I'm lucky and 5 PQs cover our entire state. I can get them all and plan any trip in one day. As long as we aren't leaving the state. ;)

 

If you do a lot of driving an alternate option would be to build a several routes and then get all the caches with 5 miles of each route. That will work for most areas except for the big cities. Those you would need to figure out circular overlap searches to get them without duplicating the state info.

 

I usually pull the PQ the day before a trip and upload it at that point. There is no reason to have an offline database that is out of date when you can pull and load within 24 hours of heading out on the road.

 

When I take business trips I pull one week or so in advance and then pull a final PQ the night before I leave to drop the inactive caches. This gives me time to work on puzzles caches and still lets me head out withthe freshest data.

-J

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There are 11207 caches in your state. Here is a full list of all of them. Enjoy. ;)

That's 23 queries, which coincidentally is the number I'm currently running in order to maintain a "ready to go" database for a 150 mile radius from my home coordinates. I've found well over 1,000 caches since implementing that system and have never once run into an archived cache that I couldn't find. My data is always fresh within 5 days or so. I load the newest caches on Friday and then start the process over on Monday with the oldest unfound caches.

 

Since I live near the border of several states, a statewide download for my home state would be of little use. I have just a few dozen finds on the extreme opposite end of Pennsylvania, but 500 finds in Ohio because the border is 30 minutes from my house. My 150 mile radius covers parts of six states. It's a system that works well and is pretty much automated once I took the time to set it up properly.

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I understand the OP's point and don't see the need to continually put him down because of what he wants, maybe because I know the feeling.

 

The reality is that it's most likely not going to happen. My advice would be to simply take a mix of the above information and come up with something that works 'good enough'.

 

I have a PQ of each general area I have a tendency to go and so far it's been working ok. Over time it will get better, as I'm sure you'll find as well.

 

Good luck and have fun!

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I understand the OP's point and don't see the need to continually put him down because of what he wants, maybe because I know the feeling.

 

The reality is that it's most likely not going to happen. My advice would be to simply take a mix of the above information and come up with something that works 'good enough'.

 

I have a PQ of each general area I have a tendency to go and so far it's been working ok. Over time it will get better, as I'm sure you'll find as well.

 

Good luck and have fun!

I guess I'm not reading the same thread. I saw folks posting their opinion the same as the OP did and try to help him through his frustration and help him gain some understanding.

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They could even charge a monthly fee for a service like this, why would they turn down a revenue option?

 

They already do this.

 

You like you can double your PQ potential. Open up another account and make it a premium account. Then you can get 5,000 caches per day. Want 10,000 per day? Open up two additional premium accounts. The current method is completely scalable. Want to keep your "finds" up-to-date? Have a single GPX of your finds that you open as the last file and it will mark all of your finds in GSAK with the "found" attribute.

 

The other thing that I came to realize is how urgent is it REALLY to have everything updated DAILY. I keep my GSAK database updated weekly, and I find that this is usually more than sufficient. So with this in mind, even with one premium membership, if you plan the PQs right, you could have 17,500 caches in your GSAK database, if you're willing to say "data that's a week old isn't all that stale - I can live with it"

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Even if you use your GPS that way, you still should be able to have the most current information in it. Nothing worse than hitting a cache only to find out later it was disabled or archived. While I appreciate what everyone is saying, it is ridiculous a bummer that I as a geoacher cant have as many caches as I want in my offline database. Again, gc.com can charge for this service so there is no reason for them to ignore the fact that everyone uses an offline database cache from

All fixed! GET OVER IT and MOVE ON. It is not "ridiculous" that you can't have what you want, nobody gets everything they want, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Why do need the whole state loaded in at once? That's a little ridiculous. I this sounds hard, but PLAN where you are going to go geocaching, then load a PQ for that area. That's all you have to do! GC.com is not going to make this an option, period.

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I am so frustrated with pocket queries. I have maxed out my pocket queries, and so now I can no longer have all of the caches in my state up to date. This is ridiculous. I am tired of going to caches only to find they are archived or out of date. There is no reason why gc.com could not create a zip file for each state and small countries each night and let members download the zip file from their site. They could even charge for this service. running 30+ pocket queries to have all of your caches up to date is ridiculous. Pocket queries should be used for those rare occasions like a road trip to GeoWoodstock or something like that, not for keeping your regular caching areas up to date.

 

what program do you use to maintain your pocket queries?

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I said it before in this thread and I will repeat it.

 

Sounds like you are a candidate for the link below. It will give you "real time" access to the gc.com database as you travel around. Always shows the nearest caches with links to the listing page.

 

You stated that you are willing to pay - here is the proper place to pay. No need for downloads of any kind whatsoever.

 

Take a look -- please.

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=148800

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That's fine that you feel that way, to me it comes across as condescending. I, too am a newbie and probably fit the mold you put us in - that's fine. It's a new world to many people, and with that comes what we think are new ideas, refreshing thoughts and 'to us' a better way of doing things. I'm not saying I agree with a nightly zip file of each state, but I am saying tolerance and understanding on both sides can go a long way.

 

By they way, someone with 1000 finds doesn't make them any better than someone with 10 finds. I typically spend a good 20 minutes on each cache I visit, some less and some more. I'm not in it for the numbers, I just enjoy it.

Edited by XopherN71
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Geocaching.com has decided for a small fee you can download a small portion of the geocaching database to use to plan your geocache outings. Some people feel that that means they should get a larger portion of the database, perhaps for an additional fee, and geocaching.com should make it easier for people to get this larger part of the database. Geocaching.com has decided that limiting pocket queries to 500 caches and limiting users to 5 PQ per day gives anyone more than enough caches to find and makes it hard enough to discourage abuse of the system that would involve downloading a significant part of the database that goes beyond what you need for your personal use.

 

But what about people like the OP who want to be able to go anywhere in their state without being tied to their computer and Geocaching.com? Geocaching.com offers a solution where you can access the site using your WAP enabled cell phone and query for nearby caches. Granted that at this point you must load the cache information into your GPSr manually. If you have a GPS enabled cell phone, they offer another alternative. For $6.99 a month you can subscribe to Trimble Geocache Navigator any be able to cache anywhere. You only need to have cell coverage when you are downloading the caches.

 

The pocket query is sometimes difficult to use but it is a flexible solution that allows for cachers to setup queries that cover their most likely caching area whether it is entirely in one state or covers parts of several states. They generally set these queries up to run periodically - once or twice a week is generally sufficient to avoid most caches that are archived. They make sure to always leave a few open slots each day so if they decide to cache outside their normal area they can grab a pocket query for that area or use caches along a route to find the caches along the route they plan to take. While people are always asking for a canned statewide query, I suspect that there are few people who actually cache this way.

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When you think about it, it's really OUR data... they just happen to have a great method of storing and displaying it.

 

Without us contributing the data to the site, geocaching.com wouldn't be what it is today. If I didn't know where I was going to be from day to day the state thing would interest me more, however I usually know a week or more in advance if I'm going somewhere out of town - and I prepare accordingly.

 

Underwear - Check

Socks - Check

Clothes - Check

Wallet - Check

Toiletries - Check

Geocaches - Check

Edited by XopherN71
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I am so frustrated with pocket queries. I have maxed out my pocket queries, and so now I can no longer have all of the caches in my state up to date. This is ridiculous. I am tired of going to caches only to find they are archived or out of date. There is no reason why gc.com could not create a zip file for each state and small countries each night and let members download the zip file from their site. They could even charge for this service. running 30+ pocket queries to have all of your caches up to date is ridiculous. Pocket queries should be used for those rare occasions like a road trip to GeoWoodstock or something like that, not for keeping your regular caching areas up to date.

 

A PQ for an entire state? I think that's inane! Either you linve in a very small state or you want a PQ that is 100's of MB's in size. How would you retreive this PQ? It certainly would not be something that can be downloaded on the fly. Also, since the most waypoints any GPS I've seen has been 2000 or less, what good would 10,000 be to anyone? By the time you had a chance to visit 10%, some would be archived, disabled or new and not in the list anyway.

 

Personally, I would rather be allowed 10 smaller PQ's than one mega PQ. Especially when travelling between states.

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Funny. It's always the cachers with just a few finds that scream the loudest for larger pocket queries. Those of us with literally thousands of finds, who find hundreds of caches a week, are fine with the current setup.

Two points

1) The cachers asking for this don't remember when there were no pocket queries. Rather than seeing them as something that Geocaching.com decided to give to premium members as benefit for supporting the site, they see PQs as a given and are simply asking for more caches for which they may even be willing to pay extra. Some also feel that this would put less of a load on the PQ servers - though I think that reasoning may be faulty as it assumes a significant number of people who would get the canned query in lieu of personalized queries.

2) The cachers with thousands of finds know to plan their geocache outing. They use tools online to select the areas they plan to cache in and set up pocket queries to get the caches in that area. Then use GSAK and other tools to plan their route and further refine the cache they will look for. The people who "need" all the caches in their state frankly state that they don't have time to plan. The want to cache on the spur of moment. They don't know in advance where they will be when they decide to look for one or two caches so they would like to have all the caches already loaded in their GPS.

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Very good summary... I think that hit pretty much every aspect of it fairly.

 

Do multiple queries put more stress on the server or do multiple downloads of large files?

 

I don't buy the argument that the data is the only reason they don't do this... if someone wanted it they could get it with or without statewide downloads. What I do buy is the load on the server argument, I just don't know which is worse without knowing the size and amount of requests that get generated daily.

 

No sense spending a lot of time and effort into figuring it out, since it sounds like it's dead off the line regardless.

Edited by XopherN71
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That's fine that you feel that way, to me it comes across as condescending. I, too am a newbie and probably fit the mold you put us in - that's fine. It's a new world to many people, and with that comes what we think are new ideas, refreshing thoughts and 'to us' a better way of doing things. I'm not saying I agree with a nightly zip file of each state, but I am saying tolerance and understanding on both sides can go a long way.

 

By they way, someone with 1000 finds doesn't make them any better than someone with 10 finds. I typically spend a good 20 minutes on each cache I visit, some less and some more. I'm not in it for the numbers, I just enjoy it.

That's funny because I thought the OP came off as arrogant. But that's just my opinion. Edited to add here it's all about perspective.

 

The point I made was valid in that he is new at the sport and he needed to look at the reasons for why the database isn't so readily available. I also appealed to his profession of choice to think it through as a Project Manager to understand why his thoughts on the database accessibility were unreasonable.

 

Fwiw, I spend weeks planning my cache assaults. If you look at my proile I have less than 300 finds in 5 years.

Edited by TotemLake
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Fwiw, I spend weeks planning my cache assaults. If you look at my proile I have less than 300 finds in 5 years.

 

That's awesome! I'd love to get another day in like I did a few weeks ago, it amounted to only 5 caches but man it was GREAT! They were all in the same park, but the required distance from one another so a lot of walking around in a new area. Cleaned/dried caches, replenished swag, etc...

 

Heck, I might do it again :D

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I just came up with the perfect modification to the pocket query process.

 

What if TPTB added the ability to select a starting date and then give you the caches starting at that placed on date up to 500 caches?

 

You could then create a pocket query starting at Jan 2000. When you receive that query you would know the next starting date for the second pocket query.

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