Logging protocol

[azog]

I know there's no real official protocol for logging benchmarks, but people seem to develop their own personal protocols. Just out of curiousity.

 

So.

 

Do you search for marks already found, and do you log them? If you do a proximity search and see some that have already been logged, do you by-pass them?

 

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Chickenfoot! Come back! You're not a freak! You're just stupid!

[+Black Dog Trackers]

1. I don't look for marks that have already been found. (Yes, I will bypass those that have been found already.) Some 'unfound' benchmarks are covered by a light layer of dirt or are in heavy vines and weeds. It's the challenge of finding them that I like. The horizontally scaled ones are especially interesting because you can't expect to just walk up to them using the GPS. Part of the challenge is also psychological - the benchmark might not be there at all. You must persevere until the proper amount of effort has been put into it and decide when to give up.

 

2. I log every PID I find whether I'm the first to find it or not.

 

3. I never bother with watertowers and church steeples. There is just no 'finding' to it for me. There's no underbrush covering them, no bearings to read, no distances to pace off, no thrill of the find. You just drive up and either it's there or it isn't.

 

Early on in my benchmark hunting (a couple months ago), I posted a topic asking about spoiler pictures. The response seemed to be that no one cared. So I gave up on trying to make sure my photos weren't spoilers. I'd rather make a nice picture than use photography as a locating tool, but on the other hand, no longer try to disguise the visual location. I consider benchmark hunting, at least the first-finding part, as a non-renewable resource of fun. Geocaches are renewable of course - there's new ones all the time!

[+rogbarn]

I have made a list of benchmark in order of distance from my house. I am systematically going down the list. I am far enough down that I tend to group them by location, so I'm not running all over the place, but I always start with the closest one that I haven't searched for yet. It doesn't matter if they've been found or not. When landmarks come up, I look for them too, but I don't make a special effort to find them or avoid them. I have a similar list centered around my place at work and I occansionally get out at lunch time and look for one or two. At some point the lists overlap since I'm only 9 miles (as the crow flies) from work. I also make similar lists whenever I go somewhere that I think I might have some BM hunting time available.

[rusty0101]

I search for benchmarks generally in one direction from my home at a time, looking for clusters of them to find. My area is not saturated with searchers yet, so I don't have many listed that are already visited, and when one is listed as visited, I tend to ignore it.

 

I am not at all averse to spires, towers, skyscrapers or watertowers, as at times I have found some of them to be destroyed, and this should be reported. Many make great pictures to show or post as well.

 

If I am going to be visiting a relative, I plan my trip so I have some time before I am expected to be there, or after I leave that I can look for benchmarks in that area. If I know or suspect that the relative or friend may have an interest I let them know about the hobby as well.

 

It is only in the past couple of weeks that I have started to report recoveries to the NSG. For these, I happily report any type as recovered, and make a special effort to report as best as possible the condition of any I find damaged or destroyed.

 

There are a couple of marks that I suspect are destroyed, but I don't know for sure. These I just note on the benchmark page for that pid here, not at NGS.

 

-Rusty