Advice on what app for hiding geo cashes on Android phone

[Nikalwilson]

:rolleyes:Hi

 

I am new to geocache and have started finding them using my Smartphone. I have downloaded the paid app for geocashing but I would like to have a go at hiding some. Please can some recommend a good app to down load which will give me the cordinates to be able to do this. Any help would be grately received.

 

Via Android market paid of free I don't mind.

 

Thanks

[+mtn-man]

Cell phones are notorious for bad coordinates. You should really use a hand held GPS when you hide a cache. I would suggest enjoying finding caches until you can take the extra step and buy a hand held GPS unit.

[+eusty]

The other option is get get a £15 bluetooth GPS and use that instead of the BT on your phone. This will give you far better accuracy

[+Munkeh]

get a gps and forget the phone

[+Arenalife]

You know nothing about his phone. If you've done a good few caches and are getting the usual accuracy readings of 5' to 10' when you're standing over them then that's a good enough unit. I can't recommend an android app but the geocaching display your location and let you set markers. If it's rubbish the logs will soon let you know.

[+Dorsetgal & GeoDog]

I'd err on the side of caution and not use a phone for setting a cache, perhaps buddy up with a local cacher and get them to bring their gpsr to help verify the accuracy of the co-ordinates?

 

Might be a good ice breaker in finding a new 'caching pal too.

 

There are several regional forums where I'm sure you'd find a willing volunteer to help show you the ropes.

[+Ve8]

To answer your question the other day I noticed a free app called GPS Averaging in the market place ($1.50 without ads).

 

I've not tried it myself but in theory it should give an accurate result if you have not got access to a dedicated GPSr.

[+NickandAliandEliza]

get a gps and forget the phone

 

What he said.

 

My phone with the Android app is only ever used as a back up when I don't have my GPSr.

[+Delta68]

Double checking on Google Earth will tell you if the co-ords are wildly inaccurate

 

 

 

Mark

[+mtn-man]

You know nothing about his phone. If you've done a good few caches and are getting the usual accuracy readings of 5' to 10' when you're standing over them then that's a good enough unit. I can't recommend an android app but the geocaching display your location and let you set markers. If it's rubbish the logs will soon let you know.

We have plenty of experience with phones at Groundspeak. I have one of the most accurate new Android phones (Motorola Droid X) and I tested it recently and the coordinates generated in a parking lot with no trees were about 8 metres off. That is a parking lot. Now, if you take your Android phone into a group of trees to find a cache, you will constantly see it freeze up and you have to be patient and sometimes get out of the dense vegetation to get the phone to reacquire. This isn't the exception, this is the norm. I now use the GC.com Android App all the time and when I see caches in trees I carry my GPS just in case I need "real" GPS satellite lock. I have done this enough to where I typically just set the phone down and let is settle out and occasionally come back to it to move it a bit and see where it is pointing to. Most of my finds now are done through the phone as I test new versions of the app and since it is just so easy to log field notes using the voice recognition software to simply speak my logs into the phone (which just flat out rocks).

 

Your solution to just publish caches with incorrect coordinates leads to frustrated first to find seekers due to these errors and environmental damage as people trample around in the wrong area taking extra time to actually locate the cache. In the early days we saw the latter more frequently with less reliable antennae in older GPS units. Newer designs are better, which any long-term cacher will probably agree with. Shoot, I see a difference in our Garmin 60CSx and the Oregon for heavens sake. The Oregon is newer, but the 60CSx is way more accurate. That's a fact.

 

The best advice is found in this post. Excellent suggestion here:

 

I'd err on the side of caution and not use a phone for setting a cache, perhaps buddy up with a local cacher and get them to bring their gpsr to help verify the accuracy of the co-ordinates?

 

Might be a good ice breaker in finding a new 'caching pal too.

 

There are several regional forums where I'm sure you'd find a willing volunteer to help show you the ropes.

[+NickandAliandEliza]

..............If it's rubbish the logs will soon let you know.......

 

........you are joking aren't you?

[+dfx]

You know nothing about his phone. If you've done a good few caches and are getting the usual accuracy readings of 5' to 10' when you're standing over them then that's a good enough unit.

 

The accuracy readings on smartphones are generally a joke. My phone occasionally tells me that it's +- 1 meter, while the coordinate readings are actually wandering all over the place. Jokes!

[+Delta68]

...If it's rubbish the logs will soon let you know...

 

Like this one?

[+Bear and Ragged]

Obviously didn't use a device with the co-ordinates plugged in, to go and check the cache was still there at the coordinates...

[+Guanajuato]

I've not got the coordinates for hiding a cache using a phone. But I've used Trekbuddyon an android phone for finding them. That'll do waypoint averaging. And as a bonus, you can load GPX files into it and get them plotted on an offline map, if you use Mobile Atlas Creator. I've just noticed that it'll no longer get OS maps though.

[+Semper Questio]

..............If it's rubbish the logs will soon let you know.......

 

........you are joking aren't you?

 

I'd expect not. We have a relatively new cacher in our area that uses a smartphone to place caches and says right in his listing that his coords are probably off and would some of the first finders please shoot new coords and log them so he can update his cache pages accordingly.

 

This is one of those cases where I wish we could ignore caches by owner.

[+The Patrician]

....and are getting the usual accuracy readings of 5' to 10'....

 

Whatever you do don't believe that these figures mean you're within 5 or 10 feet of the displayed position (this doesn't just apply to phones but also to dedicated GPS receivers). GPS tends to have larger errors than this. See:

 

http://www.kowoma.de/en/gps/errors.htm

 

for a nice simple explanation!

[+Amberel]

...If it's rubbish the logs will soon let you know...

 

Like this one?

A year or two back I went for an FTF at Runnymede and didn't find it. Turned out the co-ordinates were half a mile out!

 

It is the case that phones on the whole tend to be less accurate than dedicated GPSrs, but you can't use that to extend from the general to the specific. I have an Acer PDA/phone that has the most accurate GPSr of any unit I have ever owned, and I currently own fifteen or more GPSrs so I have considerable practical experience. But my iPhone 3GS is woeful, easily the worst of the lot.

 

And not all dedicated GPSrs have good accuracy - I have an Oregon 550t, and while I use it because of it's caching features, the accuracy is dissappointing.

 

Rgds, Andy

Edited April 18, 2011 by Amberel

[+Vettahead]

I use an iPhone 4 and the accuracy to me seems good, always takes me right to the cache. I may get a dedicated GPRS if I'm going to see an improvement?

[+Guanajuato]

Turned out the co-ordinates were half a mile out!

Probably not down to the GPS then

I once went looking for a cache and was confused by the distance to the cache not reducing as I marched in the direction of the arrow. Eventually I twigged it was showing (a few hundred) km rather than m to the cache and I'd transposed W and E. Close to Greenwich, the error wouldn't be so obvious.

[+Amberel]

Turned out the co-ordinates were half a mile out!

Probably not down to the GPS then

Absolutely down to the phone/GPS, though usually combined with an inexperienced user. An iPhone (for example) will give you a solution even if it can't get a decent fix, this can easily be a mile out. In the hands of an inexperienced user, into which category many iPhone users fall, any solution provided is what they will use.

 

Rgds, Andy

[+Bear and Ragged]

I use an iPhone 4 and the accuracy to me seems good, always takes me right to the cache. I may get a dedicated GPRS if I'm going to see an improvement?

If only for improved battery life, and better 'bad weather' protection, it's worth getting a dedicated GPS.

 

It doesn't need all the 'bells and whistles' if you still have the phone with you.

[+The Patrician]

When I'm at home my iPhone position typically tells me I'm at a crossroads about 1km away. When I'm sat in my office (about 20 miles from home) it's pretty much spot on. Whether this has something to do with the fact that it connects via EDGE at home and 3G at work I'm unsure.

[+Gushoneybun]

I would like to have a go at hiding some.

Thanks

 

Congratulations on your first hide, with some decent comments on it as well, I can see you put some effort in, well done.

[+drsolly]

The other option is get get a £15 bluetooth GPS and use that instead of the BT on your phone. This will give you far better accuracy

 

<P>THe last one I got was £9.95, it was a Copilot, new, on Ebay. That's a bluetooth GPS, Sirf III chipset, it should be as good as it gets. Add that to your Smartphone and you have a top flight system, but do make sure that your phone is using the GPS,, and not its own internal stuff.

[team tisri]

When I'm at home my iPhone position typically tells me I'm at a crossroads about 1km away. When I'm sat in my office (about 20 miles from home) it's pretty much spot on. Whether this has something to do with the fact that it connects via EDGE at home and 3G at work I'm unsure.

 

More likely due to the method it uses to locate itself.

 

My phone has a GPS and when it can get a signal it's usually pretty good, within 20-30 feet or so. When it can't get a signal some applications will attempt to triangulate its location based on mobile phone masts - when that happens the accuracy is sometimes spot on (as in, it can identify my house on Google Maps from my location) and sometimes up to half a mile out. In areas with fewer towers I can see how it could be even further out.

[+eusty]

And using the phone signal can be really bad...in my office at work my Galaxy tells me I'm about 5 miles from where I am!

 

Like you say the issue is the number of masts, where I am I have one nearly next door and all the others are a long way off.

[+The Patrician]

Distance from the cell tower is probably right, at work in an urban location I'm within a couple of hundred metres. Home is semi-rural. Cell towers are probably few and far between.