July statistics

[holograph]

The July statistics are available on the statistics page. The county totals and the maps have been updated, also.

 

1,817 datasheets had new GEOCAC recovery reports this month. Most of the updates were for reports from May 14 through July 28, with a smattering of earlier reports.

 

From the map, it looks like the people out West have been busy. The Easterners, especially in the northeast, may have been discouraged by the unusually cool and wet spring and summer this year. It also looks like someone burned a trail of recoveries from Texas to Montana!

 

Kayakbird captured three new northernmost stations in the 48 contiguous states: the 8th, 9th, and 10th most northern stations of the lower 48.

 

[andylphoto]

Thanks again for your work, Holograph. It's nice seeing the updated statistics & maps. If things come together, I might have a recovery to log on the highest station in Michigan for next month. Stay tuned...we'll see if the trip works out.

[+shorbird]

Good to see the updated maps and numbers. Many thanks!!

[+m&h]

As always, our amazed gratitude!

 

Cheers,

[+Ashallond]

Awesome. and I see where my work is...I'm that little sliver of green in western Arkansas.

 

Question, can you see what the Benchmark that is initialed JA is? It might be mine, and I was just curious.

[foxtrot_xray]

I think I hit some of those Texas ones when I was out on the ghost-town trip in Texas/Oklahoma. I don't remember the date of that (early may, I believe) or the date I actually submitted recoveries.

 

Cool, thanks!

[+Harry Dolphin]

It looks as though someone had fun on that trip from Texas to Montana!

Dolphin is happy to have changed the color of two counties in Virginia, and one in Kentucky from white.

Now, back to his local projects...

[+Klemmer]

Can you believe Arizona? 2 Oldfarts (and others) have been busy! We should try to get Arizona and SoCal all red! (OK, they ARE big counties)

[holograph]

Awesome. and I see where my work is...I'm that little sliver of green in western Arkansas.

 

Question, can you see what the Benchmark that is initialed JA is? It might be mine, and I was just curious.

 

It looks like it was HV7850. It will show up in next month's statistics.

 

As a rule, when people enter the NGS reports with two-letter initials, I don't automatically assume that it is the same person that has previously entered reports under those initials. I have a secondary lookup table that I maintain by state and optionally county, to resolve two-letter initials. Since that was the only mark recovered in Maryland under the initials "JA", it wasn't automatically assigned to you. Since it doesn't look as though you get into Maryland very often, I've narrowed the match so that Maryland "JA" recoveries only in Montgomery county will be assigned to you.

 

When people enter reports with three-letter initials, I generally assume that it is the same person throughout the entire country. There are only a few exceptions, for instance Camper1 and Gnkihog both use the same "JLH" initials, and I have to separate them by state.

 

When a new set of initials shows up, I try to find a corresponding Geocaching.com log entry to find out who it is. After that, the process automatically assumes that three-letter initials are always the same person. The only way I can learn that multiple people are reporting under the same three-letter initials is when someone complains that their statistics are wrong.

 

Basically, it is a lot easier for me if people use three-letter initials, because there is less manual processing.

[foxtrot_xray]

When people enter reports with three-letter initials, I generally assume that it is the same person throughout the entire country. There are only a few exceptions, for instance Camper1 and Gnkihog both use the same "JLH" initials, and I have to separate them by state.

Eeeenteresting. A new benchmarker (who I don't recall has posted here) has posted a few finds down in Louiana back last year with my initials. (turns out they were her initials too..! And we both used three!) I only found out about it because I was updating my database, and my NGS-GPX program marked those as being "finds" for me. I was curious and found the person. We had a discussion and sicne she only had a few finds, decided to change the initials she was using. Interesting to see other people here having matching initials.

[+Ashallond]

holograph, I'm sorry about the two letter initials. I'll start going to JMA then when I do my next batch of benchmarks. I did a few a couple of days ago that are JA, they were all in Franklin County. But then I noticed that someone else is using JMA, so tell you what, you tell me which is easier for you and I'll do it.

 

As for the one in Maryland, that was a trip I was on, and happened to be near it, so I snagged it to say I got a BM and a cache in Maryland. I doubt that I'll be near there anytime soon. I would however be in the Nelson County area of Kentucky more often than that (in-laws house) so that's a probable area for me.

[southpawaz]

Can you believe Arizona? 2 Oldfarts (and others) have been busy! We should try to get Arizona and SoCal all red! (OK, they ARE big counties)

 

Thanks for noticing! I've been working towards that goal at least with regard to Arizona for a while now, in conjunction with working first on the contest earlier this year and more recently as I've been traveling to find caches needed to complete the Arizona Delorme Challenge cache.

 

I'm hoping to turn Apache Co. (northeast) red with a trip this weekend, and I have my eyes on a USGS level line running south from St. George, UT to turn Mohave Co. (northwest) red next week or the week after. Santa Cruz (south) and Greenlee (east) are going to take some doing, since neither county has a huge number of benchmarks and I've already picked off most of the low hanging fruit.

 

[holograph]

holograph, I'm sorry about the two letter initials. I'll start going to JMA then when I do my next batch of benchmarks. I did a few a couple of days ago that are JA, they were all in Franklin County. But then I noticed that someone else is using JMA, so tell you what, you tell me which is easier for you and I'll do it.

 

As for the one in Maryland, that was a trip I was on, and happened to be near it, so I snagged it to say I got a BM and a cache in Maryland. I doubt that I'll be near there anytime soon. I would however be in the Nelson County area of Kentucky more often than that (in-laws house) so that's a probable area for me.

 

You may as well continue with 2 letters then. If there are two people in the same area using the same 3-letter initials, I won't be able to keep them separate. If one of you uses 2-letters, and the other uses 3-letters, then I (actually my programs) at least know they are different people.

[+Ashallond]

Will do then. I'll send you a note to let you know if I'm out of my normal area.

[+PFF]

NGS ran the updates at the end of the week. My submissions through the 24th have been posted.

 

I predict that the August maps will show several counties in North Carolina colored in bright red!

 

-Paul-