New Feature!

[+the_bell_dingers]

I think benchmarks should be included in our little box in the corner on geocaching.com

 

example: user name

pic

caches found #

benchmarks found #

caches hidden #

 

 

anyone agree?

[+Tequila]

Nope.

[+the_bell_dingers]

why not?

[+webscouter.]

Because they are not caches.

[+the_bell_dingers]

well benchmarks should at least get a separate map like the geocaches

[+StarBrand]

I vote no.

[+Parabola]

well benchmarks should at least get a separate map like the geocaches

 

I'd like to see a map like you describe for Benchmarks. But I don't think it will happen for one reason. Alot of benchmark's are on private property, and even though there's a warning and a disclaimer, I don't think Groundspeak would offer that due to the problem's it may cause.

 

Geocaches have been place with permission or are in area's open to the public. Someone could wonder off and get nailed for trespassing, just because they where following the map in their GPS.

[GOF and Bacall]

They should have their own category over at that Waymarking site.

 

Edit to clarify. I don't think they should be on GC.com.

Edited September 20, 2009 by GOF & Bacall

[Motorcycle_Mama]

There are much more important site upgrades that this functionality. I vote "no". Not important. Sorry.

[+fegan]

My vote is NO...and I actually enjoy doing benchmarks.

[Pajaholic]

I have two objections and so vote "no":

1. Benchmarks are not geocaches and belong over on Waymarking.com IMO with all the other interesting locations that are not geocaches.

2. Benchmarks are country-specific (i.e. USA only), so most of the World can't participate and it thus seems unfair that they should be "lumbered" with a zero score than's none of their fault.

 

Geoff

[+Col. Flagg]

It already shows how many you've done on your profile, I think that is enough.

[+FunnyNose]

I think benchmarks should be included in our little box in the corner on geocaching.com

 

example: user name

pic

caches found #

benchmarks found #

caches hidden #

 

 

anyone agree?

 

Why don't you cut a notch on the side of your GPSr for every benchmark you find ?

[GOF and Bacall]

I think benchmarks should be included in our little box in the corner on geocaching.com

 

example: user name

pic

caches found #

benchmarks found #

caches hidden #

 

 

anyone agree?

 

Why don't you cut a notch on the side of your GPSr for every benchmark you find ?

I don't know about TBD but I already have more notches, gouges, and chips out of my GPS than benchmarks found.

[+flask]

since we're already counting them in our profile, we may as well count them in the little box thingy.

 

on the list of things that are important, though, i'd put it slightly lower on the list than taking an inventory of all the chewing gum wrappers left behind at a jonas brothers concert, and slightly more important than getting tickets to a jonas brothers concert.

[+Harry Dolphin]

As someone who is fond of hunting benchmarks (I've logged 800), I will also disagree. They are not caches. They're more of a public service, and an alternate way to use one's GPS. Since they are not caches, and no one owns them, there is no verification that one has actually found them. Mr. Dingers, for instance, claims to have found two. There is no photo evidence to show this. How do we know that he has actually found them? I'm sure that he has, but I've also seen quite a number of claims to finds that were completely wrong. I just saw one, where the 'finder' claimed that the lookout tower was a disk on a different mountain!

I would like to suggest a New Feature! limiting the number of New Topics that a user can enter in a week. Newbie enthusiasm is a great thing. But one should learn to work within the system, and give due thought to changes, rather than inundating the system with off-the-wall suggestions. It becomes tiresome rather quickly.

[+Ashallond]

Nope.

 

Mainly because it's already been done.

 

http://benchmarks.scaredycatfilms.com/

[+the_bell_dingers]

message from trainlove

 

Caches are at a minimum some kind of container with a log book. That's why Virtual Caches are disappearing, that category stopped allowing new additions in or around Dec 2005. Waymarking was invented some time later to serve that niche. Earth Caches went away too but as they are educational they came back last year. Web Cam caches are also disappearing slowly. Benchmarks have no owner other than some government, state, city or private organization.

 

You can make a map of all the benchmarks you want. It will take some work on your part though.

Go to www.ngs.noaa.org then click on Datasheets and then click on either Datasheets or Archived Datasheets. You can get a file of all the benchmarks in a county of a state all at once or a zip file of a whole archived state at once. The 2 formats are slightly different. They are both text files. You can import them into Excel, do Text To Column processing, and convert DDMMSS to DD MM.mmm coordinate format.

 

Magellan MapSend Topo allows you to import files that are text CSV formatted. For Garmin MapSource Topo you probably have to use something like GPSBabel to convert that to a GPX file that you can import. Or you could write a program to do all this for you. I have such a program that I wrote on a dead laptop of mine, been sitting for 3 years waiting to try to recover all from that hard drive.

 

When it comes to benchmarks, there is a difference between Scaled and Adjusted, read the FAQ on the benchmark link of www.geocaching.com

And not all benchmarks are disks.

And some listed benchmarks are a station and there are actually several reference mark disks all around it within a few hundred feet.

All the disks listed on www.ngs.noaa.gov (not necessarily the archived ones) are on www.geocaching.com but not all disks you might find in the field are on either site. There is a www.Waymarking.com category called USA Benchmarks that one can add to. I have about a dozen listed in there. There are other Waymarking categories like Water Monitoring Stations, which usually have a disk. Check the site http://www.weather.gov/oh/hads/states/NH_dcps.htm with your own state abbreviation for those near you.

P.S. The coordinates for benchmarks are mostly in NAD27 not WGS84 format, so they can be something like a few hundred feet off, and are Degrees Minutes and whole Seconds without a fractional part so that's also about +/-100 feet of error.

 

Yes most benchmarks are on private property. I'm planning on recovering all the benchmarks (40 or more) on the grounds of the Haystack Hill, Millstone Hill, NEROC (New England Regional Operations Center). A large radio telescope site belonging to the government and MIT about 15 miles from me.

 

Groundspeak will never have maps for benchmarks (I'm just guessing). Do you know how many benchmarks there are? Thousands of times more than there are geocaches. That would just be a great big drain on the many hamster powered servers at Groundspeak.