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There goes geocaching for Thursday

Sol seaker
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Chrysalides

+Chrysalides

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Posted (edited)

Meh. With some of the coordinates I see, it might actually be an improvement in accuracy. Besides, I'm still waiting for one big enough to create auroras visible at 37 degrees latitude.

 

Serious post : I wonder if anyone here will be monitoring GPS accuracy by continuously collecting GPS coordinates of a fixed point through the day? Is there a better way of monitoring accuracy without professional equipment?

Edited by Chrysalides
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Sol seaker

+Sol seaker

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Meh. With some of the coordinates I see, it might actually be an improvement in accuracy. Besides, I'm still waiting for one big enough to create auroras visible at 37 degrees latitude.

 

hey, that's a great idea.

 

I'll go make a list of caches I'm going to hunt for on Thursday.

 

 

 

 

 

Let's see... where did that DNF list go??

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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

Posted
Posted

Solar flare to hit earth

 

It's already erupted. Heading this way.

 

It will make GPS more inaccurate.

 

And they're worried about power grids!!! We have caching plans! I mean, really! What's important here???

 

:rolleyes::ph34r::anibad::laughing:

 

This has become a dangerous game. If it isn't satellites shooting lightning bolts at us (see the image on the geocaching.com home page) it's solar flares "punching us in the nose". I wonder how many cachers on "cache a day" streaks are going to go out today and find a cache but not open the container so that they can go back tomorrow and sign the log and log a find.

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PokerLuck

+PokerLuck

Posted
Posted

I wonder how many cachers on "cache a day" streaks are going to go out today and find a cache but not open the container so that they can go back tomorrow and sign the log and log a find.

 

Oh, we already do. I have four geocaches already discovered but held in reserve just in case I need one on a day that's pouring down rain, or I get busy and can't get out to cache until it's late, or maybe we get a horrible solar storm and GPSs all die.

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The A-Team

+The A-Team

Posted
Posted

I wonder how many cachers on "cache a day" streaks are going to go out today and find a cache but not open the container so that they can go back tomorrow and sign the log and log a find.

I'm not working on a cache a day, but I am filling in the calendar. Tomorrow is one of the days I still need, so it's a good thing a new cache just got published in the same spot as 2 previous caches. No GPS required!

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Gitchee-Gummee

+Gitchee-Gummee

Posted
Posted

Meh. With some of the coordinates I see, it might actually be an improvement in accuracy. Besides, I'm still waiting for one big enough to create auroras visible at 37 degrees latitude.

 

We're a bit north of 46°. Have lawn chairs all set up in the snowbanks for rentals. No passport required. A nice clear (maybe) view over Lake Superior. Bring wool.

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Andromeda321

+Andromeda321

Posted
Posted

I'm still waiting for January's big solar radiation storm to hit.

 

It hit while it was nighttime in Europe, not the USA, and triggered beautiful aurorae over here. Well I would've seen 'em anyway if it hadn't been cloudy! <_<

 

This makes me wonder though, I wonder how much more inaccurate it'll be to use an iPhone vs a GPS unit? Because my understanding is those more rely on triangulation from cell phone towers with known/locked positions, so they might not wander so much... it'd be interesting to check out I think!

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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

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Posted

I'm still waiting for January's big solar radiation storm to hit.

 

It hit while it was nighttime in Europe, not the USA, and triggered beautiful aurorae over here. Well I would've seen 'em anyway if it hadn't been cloudy! <_<

 

This makes me wonder though, I wonder how much more inaccurate it'll be to use an iPhone vs a GPS unit? Because my understanding is those more rely on triangulation from cell phone towers with known/locked positions, so they might not wander so much... it'd be interesting to check out I think!

 

Some older smart phones "with GPS navigation!" used triangulation from cell phone towers in lieu of a real GPS chip but I don't think that's the case any more for any of the new devices. Some smartphones still do use triangulation from cell phone towers in *addition* to a GPS chip (called Assisted GPS or aGPS). One of the advantages is that when the device is first turned on, it can use data from cell phone towers to get a satellite lock faster. As much as you travel I'm sure that you've experienced the scenario where it take a (much) longer time to get a satellite lock if you've traveled a great distance from the last place you had your GPS turned on. With Assisted GPS triangulation from cell phone tower can provide your approximate current location and apparently result in getting a satellite lock much faster.

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stebu

stebu

Posted
Posted

So far everything is working fine. GPSr OK. Satellite radio OK. Interwebs OK. Anyone have any anomalies?

No problems.

 

I left my Dakota20 on the balcony, it sees about 50% of the sky.

I recorded GPX from 2012-03-08T10:29:01Z to 2012-03-08T17:04:14Z (local time is +2h).

The read line is about 30m (100feet). A bit inaccurate! I do not have a comparison, but I think this might be just normal behaviour.

The magnetogram graph is from about 25km. The red level is when you should start looking for northern lights.

 

aurora.jpg

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DragonsWest

+DragonsWest

Posted
Posted (edited)

So far everything is working fine. GPSr OK. Satellite radio OK. Interwebs OK. Anyone have any anomalies?

No problems.

 

I left my Dakota20 on the balcony, it sees about 50% of the sky.

I recorded GPX from 2012-03-08T10:29:01Z to 2012-03-08T17:04:14Z (local time is +2h).

The read line is about 30m (100feet). A bit inaccurate! I do not have a comparison, but I think this might be just normal behaviour.

The magnetogram graph is from about 25km. The red level is when you should start looking for northern lights.

 

aurora.jpg

 

Oh bother. I have spare batteries! I could be doing that, too. I could find a spot outdoors with 10ft accuracy, which should be interesting to see how it wanders.

 

BTW, I'm envious, I see by your chart you get 26 hour days! :lol:

Edited by DragonsWest
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Chrysalides

+Chrysalides

Posted
Posted
Found 15 caches today with sufficient accuracy from GPSr to locate GZ well enough to find them. Didn't any different from any other day without solar flareups.

Must be because light houses are relatively easy to find :ph34r:

 

(referring to your username)

 

Did anyone see any auroras? I checked the prediction map, over here the probability of me spotting is rated at "snowball in hell". Looks like the caribou herds will be in for a great show though.

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knowschad

knowschad

Posted
Posted
Found 15 caches today with sufficient accuracy from GPSr to locate GZ well enough to find them. Didn't any different from any other day without solar flareups.

Must be because light houses are relatively easy to find :ph34r:

 

(referring to your username)

 

Did anyone see any auroras? I checked the prediction map, over here the probability of me spotting is rated at "snowball in hell". Looks like the caribou herds will be in for a great show though.

Thanks for giving me the idea of looking for prediction maps! This is the best one I found: http://helios.swpc.noaa.gov/ovation/

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hydnsek

+hydnsek

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Posted

Did anyone see any auroras? I checked the prediction map, over here the probability of me spotting is rated at "snowball in hell". Looks like the caribou herds will be in for a great show though.

According to a scientist on NPR, the effects of the flare were less than expected - no serious disruptions anywhere - and the auroras are not expected to be spectacular, after all, or visible below Canada. If I was at home in Seattle, I could confirm (clouds willing) but I'm in the Carolinas, where the caching proceeded without incident today.

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Sol seaker

+Sol seaker

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My caching sucked!!

 

I tried to get one for my calendar yesterday and couldn't. I didn't get a chance to look until late last night. At that point my GPS was all over the place. It kept changing it's mind on GZ in 50 foot increments. It was stupid. I went home.

 

Now there's a nasty hole in my calendar. :(

 

That GPS has been giving me some trouble anyway. It was probably just that it chose today to go over the edge.

 

I went out today with both GPS's. I had some trouble. I was in the woods, and may have had trouble anyway. The GPS that has been giving me trouble was 248 feet off for the third cache I found. The other GPS was off about 50 feet.

 

The function of my units weren't really clear at this point. In the logs a lot of people complained about coords being off for a lot of the caches I found today.

 

One cache I had 110 feet off.

Someone in the logs said they just kept walking up and down the trail, so I gave that a try, and there it was. I went with that for the other caches and found them without much trouble.

 

Like I said, the one GPS has been acting up anyway, and I was in the woods on the side of a hill, so that could account for the other, which wasn't very far off.

 

They said it was going to be the biggest sun storm in 5 years.

Maybe that wasn't saying much??

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