+BigOpe Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 I've vacillated back and forth about whether to even post this, as it may only be a concern to cachers like me who still use vintage GPS's and software, but what the heck, forums are where you ventilate. I still use, and am perfectly happy with, an early-generation Garmin Etrex H and EasyGPS software. The ETrex does all I want it to, but when loading cache data it only allows six characters. When people put out a whole series of caches with long names that differ only in the last couple characters ("My Uncle Ed's Arthritic Right Elbow Memorial Cache #1, #2, etc.) EasyGPS tries to crunch those long names down to six characters, but they all tend to come out the same, so when dumping them into the Old ETrex, the first one goes thru and the rest are rejected. It would be a service to my small sliver of the world's 6 million geocachers if COs would try to put the DIFFERENT part of those repetitive names somewhere toward the front. Otherwise, it can get tedious manually editing all the names to be different. (See the "Desert Paw" series in Tucson -- probably a couple hundred caches, and they all translate the same in my particular technology environment.) (OK, so now will come the smart-alecky responses: "Man up, buy a better GPS and software." As they said in the Battle of the Bulge, "Nuts!" All that foofy newer stuff reduces the challenge as far as I'm concerned. Quote Link to comment
+Gitchee-Gummee Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 Not gonna say what you put in quotes. I will say that if you are using EasyGPS, it may well be possible that you can edit the name to the LAST characters of name instead of the FIRST characters of the name within EasyGPS before loading them to the unit. I don't use EasyGPS, so that is only a guess on my part. My normal suggestion would be to use the CacheID #, dropping the GC prefix as they all use that. That's what we used to do with the older Garmins and their 6-character field. Quote Link to comment
+kunarion Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 (edited) My Uncle Ed's Arthritic Right Elbow Memorial Cache #1 Even the latest GPSrs clip the long titles in a list. A newer one can display by GC number without special software. The long similar name caches still can require extra work to sort & hunt. I don't ensure my cache names will fit every GPSr screen - some early ones showed maybe eight characters - but I also don't name mine "[extra long title] #1, #2, #3", because that's obnoxious. Edited February 22, 2015 by kunarion Quote Link to comment
Pup Patrol Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 (edited) I'm a Luddite. I read through each cache and its logs, and decide whether we want to search for it or not. The caches I do choose, I save the gpx file to a folder on my computer. At that point, I will change the cache name to something manageable/recognizable. I also create a Notepad file for the day's caches. In it, I include the GC code, the name I have given the cache, the coords, the decrypted hint, and any helpful notes or coordinates from other people's logs. To load them into our Garmin GPSmap 60CSx, I use GPSBabel. http://www.gpsbabel.org/ Long, repetitive cache names are a pain sometimes. But I can see how cache owners want the series of caches to be related. B. Edited February 22, 2015 by Pup Patrol Quote Link to comment
+humboldt flier Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 Placing the cache designator number at the front end would help out a bunch. 001 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy. 002 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy. 003 Hiking to the top of Old baldy etc, etc, etc As opposed to placing the number at the back end Quote Link to comment
+dprovan Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 It would be a service to my small sliver of the world's 6 million geocachers if COs would try to put the DIFFERENT part of those repetitive names somewhere toward the front. I definitely support the sentiment in the OP. My GPSr is newer, but it still shows only 10 or 15 characters in various places just do to screen space constraints, so I've run into this problem, too, but to a lesser extent. I definitely agree COs should be aware of this problem and consider naming variations to accommodate it. But I have to admit, 6 characters is sufficiently constraining that I was going to resist asking all COs to abide by that limit, until I read... Placing the cache designator number at the front end would help out a bunch. 001 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy. ... etc, etc, etc humboldt's suggestion neatly solves the problem within the 6 character limit, so I endorse it. I've seen my share of such series, but, unfortunately, in modern times, the case I run into more often is something like "Hiking to the top of Old Baldy: Trail Head!" "Hiking to the top of Old Baldy: On the way!" "Hiking to the top of Old Baldy: At the top!" but I still think making it "001 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy: Trail Head!" is not too much to ask. (Although that doesn't solve the other problem I have, which is the title being "Hiking to the top of Old Baldy: 20 feet up in the tree!" and the CO assuming that's enough for me to know it's 20 feet up in a tree even though I can't see that part of the title. Most amusing when the hint is "it's in the title", and I'm looking at the fifth cache in a row titled "Hiking to the top of Ol". But that's a different topic.) Quote Link to comment
+TheWeatherWarrior Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 Smart phones FTW! Quote Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 Of course the answer is gsak. There is a section that allows you to do this Start with Hiking to the top of Old Baldy: Trail Head! Input: Hiking to the top of Old Baldy=HTOB And it becomes HTOB: Trail Head! And you can do this while still using your current device. BTW the newer devices and software don't reduce the challenge of finding the cache you so have to go out and get it. Quote Link to comment
+frinklabs Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 I had a similar issue with my eTrex and the plugin: DECLINED - [FEATURE] Garmin plugin cache uploads overwrite each other I ended up paying for GSAK (worth every penny) when they introduced the API integration. I used the "Smart Name" feature to craft 6-character identifiers to alleviate conflicts when sending to the GPSr I also have a series with long-ish repetitive cache names -- awareness of this issue caused me to put the unique part at the beginning of each cache name. Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 Of course the answer is gsak. There is a section that allows you to do this When I first started (before GSAK) this issue use to come up frequently. The solution was to use GC codes for waypoint markers instead of the cache name. Yes, people were actually able to find geocaches before GSAK. Quote Link to comment
+TheWeatherWarrior Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 Of course the answer is gsak. Only if you are a PC user Quote Link to comment
+The_Incredibles_ Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 It would be a service to my small sliver of the world's 6 million geocachers if COs would try to put the DIFFERENT part of those repetitive names somewhere toward the front. I did this for my 2 series. It seems like a no-brainer. Can't understand why everyone doesn't do it. Quote Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 Using the gc number won't find them in a row Quote Link to comment
+Ma & Pa Posted February 22, 2015 Share Posted February 22, 2015 (edited) We hate when the number is at the back of series name so we have the number (or letter) in front of the name in at least a dozen of our cache series. This item makes me wonder what other cachers choose to display in the name field in their gps. I use the geocaching dashboard on the compass screen of my 62S which gives me 16 spaces for the name. Rather than display the cache name I choose to display part of the GC code, the cache size and the first 8 spaces in the actual cache name. So for our regular sized cache GC4Y5M4 named 15 Route 933, the gps shows the following 4Y5M4 R 15 Route So when looking for a cache in a series, I can often avoid looking at the cache description. We accomplish this by placing the following code in the name field in GSAK when sending to the gps %drop2 %con1 %name PAul Edited February 22, 2015 by Ma & Pa Quote Link to comment
+BigOpe Posted February 22, 2015 Author Share Posted February 22, 2015 OK, thanks for all the Day 1 responses. As I anticipated, half or so were in the vein of "buy something better," but there's some helpful stuff here I'll investigate. I do know how to manipulate HTML code to find and truncate certain strings, but it can still be a little tedious. Just trying to plant a seed in the minds of those who hide long strings of caches with almost-identical names that with very little effort they could make some other cachers' lives a bit easier. Had a great caching day today, love this hobby despite all frustrations. And six million others (wow!) seem to feel the same. Y'all keep on cachin'! Quote Link to comment
+BikeBill Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Pup Patrol wrote: <<I'm a Luddite. I read through each cache and its logs, and decide whether we want to search for it or not. The caches I do choose, I save the gpx file to a folder on my computer. >> You're not a Luddite. If you were a Luddite you wouldn't have a GPS. You'd be using a cut nail suspended from a piece of twine for a compass and parchment maps depicting a flat earth. Quote Link to comment
Mr.Yuck Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Took me a while to find because I ignore most of this guy's caches, but how'd you like to see this in your ancient GPS? Back when I had a Garmin GPS 60 series, all this guys caches would show up as ....... in the GPS. example. Quote Link to comment
+MMaru Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 I use an etrex 20, which allows for considerably more characters per a title, but also cuts off a lot of these sorts of cache titles. I usually keep a paper log while I'm out in the field so that I can take notes as I go, and if I'm going after a series, the numbers at the end are often cut off, making it difficult to keep track. I usually have to backtrack into the description so I can get the GC code to go by instead. To get to the general cache site, I manually punch things into my auto GPS, and usually just make an acronym. It might be easier if COs labeled the differences in their caches in the beginning rather than the end - but then again, would that make it more difficult to know which caches were part of a particular series? For example: The Witching Hour - MMaru's Reading Challenge Book Series Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - MMaru's Reading Challenge Book Series Yukarism vol 1 - MMaru's Reading Challenge Book Series Skip Beat! - MMaru's Reading Challenge Book Series N0S4A2 - MMaru's Reading Challenge Book Series If all you're seeing are the first parts of these titles - The Witching Hour, Harry Potter, Yukarism, etc - would you necessarily know that they were all part of a specific series? I think that whether the differentiating factor is at the beginning or the end, it will present a challenge. Quote Link to comment
+narcissa Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 When I had my first GPS, I had to enter coordinates manually and I identified them by GC code. Quote Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 But back then you were lucky to find five on a long day of huntinG. Now you can stumble across that many going out to get morning coffee. Quote Link to comment
+J Grouchy Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 I'm a smartphone cacher, yet I completely agree with the OP that it's pretty annoying when folks name their caches that way. Some time ago I made the suggestion for allowing cache groups...a single heading for caches in a series. I suppose that would ultimately make things trickier for downloading to GPSrs and such, but it certainly would make viewing a series online much easier, rolling a series into one icon that you click on and then get a list of caches in the series...instead of hovering and clicking them one by one. Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 But back then you were lucky to find five on a long day of huntinG. Now you can stumble across that many going out to get morning coffee. I'm sure that you just intended that to be an exaggeration and there are certainly areas where it's heavily saturated but that's certainly not universal. There are still a *lot* of places where finding five on a long day is more typical than being able to find five during your lunch break. Quote Link to comment
+dprovan Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Of course the answer is gsak. There is a section that allows you to do this ... This lets you translate cache names that you recognize and want to deal with in advance, but for me, this typically comes up in the field, it's not a problem I anticipate when I download the caches. Besides, even if I used GSAK and even if I anticipated the problem, it still seems more reasonable for COs to think about this problem when they name their caches so other people don't have to recognize and correct the names for themselves. Quote Link to comment
cezanne Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Placing the cache designator number at the front end would help out a bunch. 001 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy. 002 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy. 003 Hiking to the top of Old baldy But the currently available search routine then cannot display all these caches as it allows only to search for title starts with. Quote Link to comment
+MartyBartfast Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Placing the cache designator number at the front end would help out a bunch. 001 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy. 002 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy. 003 Hiking to the top of Old baldy But the currently available search routine then cannot display all these caches as it allows only to search for title starts with. The new advanced search does (PM only at the moment ;-) ) The problem with the above suggestion is if you have a number of series in the area they all get mixed up, e.g. 001 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy. 001 Walking round Old Baldy. 001 Old Baldy Views. 002 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy. 002 Walking round Old Baldy. 002 Old Baldy Views. 003 Hiking to the top of Old baldy 003 Walking round Old Baldy. 003 Old Baldy Views. Better to add an acronym+number then title: HTTOB001 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy. HTTOB002 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy. HTTOB003 Hiking to the top of Old baldy OBV001 Old Baldy Views. OBV002 Old Baldy Views. OBV003 Old Baldy Views. WROB001 Walking round Old Baldy. WROB002 Walking round Old Baldy. WROB003 Walking round Old Baldy. Quote Link to comment
+cerberus1 Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Similar to, but even less tech than Pup Patrol with GPSr usage, I'd simply cut the names short (since I'm not gonna pq a ton...), knowing what they meant when I got home. Hike baldy 1, Hike baldy 2, Hike baldy 3 Baldy view 1, Baldy view 2, Baldy view 3 Walk baldy 1, Walk baldy 2, Walk baldy 3 Quote Link to comment
+cerberus1 Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 But back then you were lucky to find five on a long day of huntinG. Now you can stumble across that many going out to get morning coffee. I'm sure that's true in many areas today. But that's not how all of us play. Quote Link to comment
+Chrysalides Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 To address the OP's conundrum (caches not loading because the first 6 characters are the same) : Back in the dark ages, I'd use GSAK and load them onto my eTrex Venture HC using smart names. Conflict resolved. Alternatively, instead of the cache title, use the GC code. That should assure that they name unique. Conveniently, in GPX, the GC code is "name" and the title is "desc". When going after a cache, I use the map view, so the name is immaterial. I only look at the name if I'm searching for hints. Quote Link to comment
+narcissa Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 But back then you were lucky to find five on a long day of huntinG. Now you can stumble across that many going out to get morning coffee. I still mainly identify caches by GC code because so many names are repetitive. It's easier to use the built-in naming convention that is both short, and unique to each cache. Quote Link to comment
+BigOpe Posted February 25, 2015 Author Share Posted February 25, 2015 Well, with the "Desert Paws" series in Tucson that I mentioned, I manually changed the troublesome names to just DP1001, DP1002, and so on (actually there are two such series, so I have DP1001 and DP2001). Using a text editor and find-and-replace made it a bit easier, but still somewhat tedious. I tried GSAK once, but got annoyed when I started getting nag screens after a few weeks. EasyGPS has always been adequate for my needs other than this one thing, and hey, free is my favorite color. As for using the GC codes, whenever possible I prefer an at least somewhat meaningful name to help me remember which is which when out in the field. Quote Link to comment
+NeverSummer Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 But back then you were lucky to find five on a long day of huntinG. Now you can stumble across that many going out to get morning coffee. I still mainly identify caches by GC code because so many names are repetitive. It's easier to use the built-in naming convention that is both short, and unique to each cache. That's certainly the best way to do it. But I can never remember a GC name when I need to. Usually the location is first on my mind, and name of cache the second. Curse my brain! Quote Link to comment
+jellis Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 When I had my 60CSX & using GSAK you can truncate the name. In my 62 you can't do that. But when I look at the "view geocache" it shows the whole name. Tedious I know. Quote Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 I tried GSAK once, but got annoyed when I started getting nag screens after a few weeks. It really is annoying when a developer puts years of work into a program and then expects you to pay for it Quote Link to comment
the3gmen Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 Would it be possible for Groundspeak or maybe to reviewers to point out the problem to the cache owners when the caches are submitted for approval ? Quote Link to comment
+BigOpe Posted February 27, 2015 Author Share Posted February 27, 2015 I tried GSAK once, but got annoyed when I started getting nag screens after a few weeks. It really is annoying when a developer puts years of work into a program and then expects you to pay for it Which is why I stick with EasyGPS. Its developers don't seem to feel that way. Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted February 27, 2015 Share Posted February 27, 2015 I tried GSAK once, but got annoyed when I started getting nag screens after a few weeks. It really is annoying when a developer puts years of work into a program and then expects you to pay for it Which is why I stick with EasyGPS. Its developers don't seem to feel that way. Actually, it's developer just chose a different approach to getting people to pay for the software they developed. They're hoping that after trying the "free" EasyGPS app that many will purchased the full featured version called ExpertGPS. Quote Link to comment
+jellis Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Would it be possible for Groundspeak or maybe to reviewers to point out the problem to the cache owners when the caches are submitted for approval ? Problem is it's not their problem Quote Link to comment
the3gmen Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Would it be possible for Groundspeak or maybe to reviewers to point out the problem to the cache owners when the caches are submitted for approval ? Problem is it's not their problem A lot of things aren't necessarily problems but they take care of them. Quote Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 I tried GSAK once, but got annoyed when I started getting nag screens after a few weeks. It really is annoying when a developer puts years of work into a program and then expects you to pay for it Which is why I stick with EasyGPS. Its developers don't seem to feel that way. Two things Comparing EasyGPS which is a good program with GSAK like Atari to HAL He only asks a one time fee that is the same as you pay each year for GS and probably 1/10 of what you paid for the GPS and lets not get into gas cost. Quote Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Would it be possible for Groundspeak or maybe to reviewers to point out the problem to the cache owners when the caches are submitted for approval ? Problem is it's not their problem Some may have or maybe the community adjusted. A couple of new series' for the event in Yuma start with the sequence number. Of course if you sort all by number they are mixed together. There is no perfect solution Quote Link to comment
Keystone Posted February 28, 2015 Share Posted February 28, 2015 Would it be possible for Groundspeak or maybe to reviewers to point out the problem to the cache owners when the caches are submitted for approval ? Problem is it's not their problem A lot of things aren't necessarily problems but they take care of them. Once the listing guidelines are updated to include a rule saying that repetitive cache names need a variable element at the beginning, then I'll feel empowered to hold up cache publication over the issue. Until then, not so much. Let the community complain to the owner of such a cache series. Quote Link to comment
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