Coords: How on should they be?

[+dprovan]

I don't know how they determine who is correct...

I'm sure they use a commercial grade GPSr, although it would be amusing to use the adjusted coordinates from a benchmark just to see if anyone hits it when they plant their flag.

[4wheelin_fool]

Ah, thanks sounds like it could be fun.

 

I was wondering about this too:-

I don't know how they determine who is correct

 

but I guess the fact that the flags are spread about says a lot.

 

A few are placed far away, and there is always a cluster, but not always where the predetermined spot is. I suppose many people follow others and just go near where everyone else placed theirs. There is no real way to determine the exact spot, as most GPS units are accurate to only 2 decimal digits. Even the accuracy displayed on the screen is off in some cases. If the choice for the 3rd digit was either a 5 or a zero, mostly everyone would choose the same number with averaging.

[+L0ne.R]

Ah, thanks sounds like it could be fun.

 

I was wondering about this too:-

I don't know how they determine who is correct

 

but I guess the fact that the flags are spread about says a lot.

 

A few are placed far away, and there is always a cluster, but not always where the predetermined spot is. I suppose many people follow others and just go near where everyone else placed theirs. There is no real way to determine the exact spot, as most GPS units are accurate to only 2 decimal digits. Even the accuracy displayed on the screen is off in some cases. If the choice for the 3rd digit was either a 5 or a zero, mostly everyone would choose the same number with averaging.

 

How have the apps worked out in the flag game?

[+Dogmeat*]

I've had cachers jerk me about because my coords were three feet off. The reason they were three feet off, is because the cache was in a tree with long branches. In order to get to the cache, you had to get closer to the body of the tree. When you're in there, the GPS actually says 0ft but they were looking at it from outside the tree.

 

So to answer your question, it doesn't matter if it's 3 feet off, people will still moan.

[+CanadianRockies]

There is no real way to determine the exact spot, as most GPS units are accurate to only 2 decimal digits.

That's about 38 feet of inaccuracy in the N/S direction. I suppose that's possible if you include smartphones, laptops, cameras, automotive GPSrs, etc. These days, I think most handheld, consumer GPS units probably are accurate to within 10 feet about 95 percent of the time (especially with WAAS turned on).

[Clan Riffster]

I don't know how they determine who is correct...

I'm sure they use a commercial grade GPSr, although it would be amusing to use the adjusted coordinates from a benchmark just to see if anyone hits it when they plant their flag.

I've participated in several of these.

To date, every one of the initial pins was placed by a civilian grade GPS unit.

The circle of flags on each ranged from 10 to 15' across.

I think random placement would be as effective as following the arrow to GZ.

[+NotreDameFan11]

The best way to have an accurate waypoint for a cache is after you are done, just try it yourself. If it's not as accurate as you want it to be, create another one.

 

Actually with consumer grade GPSr's the best way is to average the coordinates. It's kinda like shooting at a bullseye, if you take one shot and it is 3" off then your accuracy is 3"' if you take two shots and one is dead center and one is 3" off the average is 1.5". The more shots you take the better your average gets.

[+wmpastor]

Posting soft coords is LAME!!!!

Yes! Soft coords help guarantee less favorite points. They leave the searcher vaguely upset or downright angry. If I run into bad coords, I'm probably not going to one of the CO's other caches.

[+Fridge01]

There is a CO whose coordinates often point at nothing. In the middle of the street, in an open field, etc. The cache is generally on the nearest searchable object. I think he does it on purpose, not to make it more difficult as much as to force people to use their geosenses.

 

There are a couple other people I suspect offset their coordinates. I'm suspicious because there is a pattern to it, always the same style of offset. If equipment error were the culprit then the errors would be more random.

 

Oldtime geocachers seem to be less concerned about accuracy, possibly because the technology was worse when they started.

[+WarNinjas]

The game in my opinion is to use a GPS to find the cache. So why would anyone want to not use the GPS to get to the right spot? We work really hard to get the coords as spot on as possible and feel bad if we have them off a little. To figure out the right coords and then make them off would be crazy in my mind. Heck you probibly don't even have perfect coords to start off with and then to mess them up even more? We would never even think to do that.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

The best way to have an accurate waypoint for a cache is after you are done, just try it yourself. If it's not as accurate as you want it to be, create another one.

 

Actually with consumer grade GPSr's the best way is to average the coordinates. It's kinda like shooting at a bullseye, if you take one shot and it is 3" off then your accuracy is 3"' if you take two shots and one is dead center and one is 3" off the average is 1.5". The more shots you take the better your average gets.

 

On the other hand, if your first shot hits the bullseye, but the new two miss it by an inch or two, using the coordinates of the first shot would be better if you just used the first shot.

 

I used to play darts competitively and hitting the center bullseye with all three darts is very difficult. I've only done it once in competition.

 

 

Edited October 5, 2013 by NYPaddleCacher

[+cheech gang]

Or you could search through the forums to find that guy who a couple days ago claimed his smartphone gave him 1 meter accuracy. See what his secret is.

[+BCandMsKitty]

If I ever came across deliberately fudged coords, It would be the last cache of that Co that I'd find, and I'd do a NA log and let the reviewers sort it out.. And I wouldn't be shy about letting my caching friends know either!

I might not have the best of memories, but I remember pretty well when I've been screwed around!

Edited October 6, 2013 by BC & MsKitty

[+wmpastor]

If I ever came across deliberately fudged coords, It would be the last cache of that Co that I'd find, and I'd do a NA log and let the reviewers sort it out.. And I wouldn't be shy about letting my caching friends know either!

I might not have the best of memories, but I remember pretty well when I've been screwed around!

I've got one for you - I just read the posting. It's a 3/3 near Hershey, PA, published this afternoon & still unfound. The post says the cache is "about 20 feet from the listed coords." Why would he do it? Why would a reviewer allow it???

[+BlackRose67]

If I ever came across deliberately fudged coords, It would be the last cache of that Co that I'd find, and I'd do a NA log and let the reviewers sort it out.. And I wouldn't be shy about letting my caching friends know either!

I might not have the best of memories, but I remember pretty well when I've been screwed around!

I've got one for you - I just read the posting. It's a 3/3 near Hershey, PA, published this afternoon & still unfound. The post says the cache is "about 20 feet from the listed coords." Why would he do it? Why would a reviewer allow it???

I wonder if that was added to the cache page after it was published. I wouldn't think that a traditional cache would be published knowing that.

 

We had one like that here where it turned out that the CO had purposely placed the cache away from the posted coordinates to make it more difficult (the reviewer did not know that at the time).

 

Someone posted the correct coordinates, a urination festival ensued, the CO deleted the logs and disabled the cache, and then it got archived by a reviewer because it was disabled for more than 3 months.

[+Ambrosia]

Well, 20 feet is within a normal range for a gps, I wouldn't think much of it. They may not have done it on purpose, it may just be the way it is.

[+SirDonB]

I'm not really sure how smart phones operate but I believe their GPS is actually derived from a triangulation of the phone tower locations rather than satellites...

They will rely on that to get an initial fix. And some will also triangulate on WiFi hotspots also, using databases of known hotspot locations. But further, most cellphones that advertise a GPS capability really do have a GPS chipset and receive satellite signals.

 

For example, this article says the iPhone 4 uses a Broadcomm BCM4750 single chip GPS receiver, and that the 4S uses the Quqlcomm MDM6610 to get both GPS and GLONASS signals.

 

Yes this is true, My Casio Commando has a "stand alone GPS" and I have been in an area or 2 without cell coverage and GPS still worked and was spot on. Infact the better GPS capability is why I went from the Commando to the Commando 4G LTE. Both phones have the stand alone GPS and part of the reason I got them. The other is they are Rugidized, but that's a whole thread of it's own.

[+Harry Dolphin]

I've wondered about these (Looks like she was using Google Streets?):

#1 Mom & B. Coords at the nearest road. Corrected coords listed but not updated. Only a few hundred feet off!

And: Museum Hide & Seek . Coords over a hundred feet off: but that's the nearest Google Streets point. 145 feet off.

Oddly, her third cache had good coords. But she does not correct the coords even after cachers list corrected coords.

[+tango501]

When I place I try to get as perfect spot-on coords as possible. to me its all about the hide/camo of container that

makes the hide, and location too of course.

 

Using multi gizmos and checking those coords in maps or Google Earth etc helps too

 

have fun, be safe and happy hunting