How do I find other Benchmarkers in my area?

[+Agent Okie]

I'm a newbie having just signed up tonight. Did a bit of research and found that my area has 25 markers and only two have been logged. So I figure it's my responsibility to find the other 23! I think the list speaks for itself, but how would I find other Geocachers or Benchmarkers in my area?

 

Btw, I came to Benchmarking via the Where's George.comWhere's George.com site. It is a really cool web that tracks the movement of dollar bills. You should check it out.

 

I will be adding a signature soon!

[+welch]

If your looking to see who may be in your area, just look at some of the older caches. If you see some of the same names showing up its a good bet they're around. Also if you could check the profiles of those that have logged local caches. Looking at where they've found and maybe hidden you should be able to get a rough idea of where they live.

You might also check out the Oklahoma, Tulsa cachers groups.

 

[+DBleess]

When I started getting to the point that I wanted to seriously begin to hunt BM's and massively overcomplicate things I decided to take some notes. What follows is a copy of the text file I kept that outlines the procedures I used for getting a LOT of good benchmark data that can be used in a variety of ways for tracking the little monsters down. Study all the links to software (95% of it is freeware) and decide what will help you.

 

I'll post a more legible copy to my page, and I'll try to remember to update it once in a while.

http://members.cox.net/dmbleess/geocache/benchmarks.txt

 

********************************************

 

06.08.03 DBLEESS www.geocaching.com

 

***At this point you should have: Nothing

 

Before using the first program, you need a .dat file. To get a .dat file, use your web browser to go to

 

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/datasheet.prl

 

click on the "ARCHIVED DATASHEETS" button, then click on the "YEARLY_ARCHIVES" button. Select your state and click "GET COUNTY ARCHIVES". Select the county you want and in what format you want to receive the data, then click the "Download File" button.

 

***At this point you should have: .dat - county files

 

BMGPX -follow instructions provided with program (http://parkrrrr.com/)

 

***At this point you should have: Have: .gpx - Pocket Query format without find

logs (This is the original Government not geocaching.com data)

 

You can > Feed to easyGPS http://www.easygps.com/ for data (There are some

discrepancies - GC 10 mile radius data is sometimes preferred)

http://www.geocaching.com/mark/

 

> Feed to gpx2html http://home.attbi.com/~fizzymagic/gpx2html.html

to convert for plucker (http://www.plkr.org/)

 

> Feed to watcher http://www.clayjar.com/ (in batches? doesn't seem

to work) to manage (enmasse)

 

I also transfer my data from GPS to Street Atlas 2003 for graphic display.

http://www.delorme.com/software.htm

The symbols I use in Street Atlas are:

Green star - good quality BM information - decent chance to find.

Yellow square - skulls (possibly destroyed) or frowns (no find reports)

Red x - Good documented finds made already by me or others

 

The state of Nebraska Dept of Roads also has .pdf county maps with some

benchmarks depicted. Your own state may do the same.

http://www.nebraskatransportation.org/maps/countymaps.htm

 

GC 10mi page data gpx precedence

Home 5/28/03

Blue Earth

Lanes

Waterloo

Hummel

Logan

Dunlap

Blair

WSarpy 5/21/03

 

*************.dat Counties to add

 

IA_Audubon (MJ0217) Memorial Building Audubon

(MJ0416) Airport

(MJ0417) Airport Need Coords

IA_Mills (MJ0879) Platte bridge (Missing)

(MJ0581) Logged

IA_Pocahontas (NL0211) Laurens Museum/Library (Found)

 

HTML Converted so far:

 

Washington

Douglas

Sarpy

Cass

 

Butler

Seward

Lancaster

Saunders

Dodge

 

Harrison

Pottawattomie

 

**********

Upon Find

**********

Process Pics

Log

Upload GC cropped pic

Update my site

Update gpxhtml HTML data

Update Map 10mi data

Update 10mi .gpx

 

Terraserver wide area aerial map links (manually adjust coordinates):

http://terraserver-usa.com/GetImageArea.ashx?t=1&s=11&lat=41.176670&lon=-95.997012&w=2000&h=2000

zoom

http://terraserver-usa.com/GetImageArea.ashx?t=1&s=10&lat=41.151040&lon=-95.969369&w=2000&h=2000

(If it gives a credentials error, just reload it a few times until it works

or try old Netscape 4.79)

 

SA / PP-ASEL-I