Cache coordinates

[steveid]

Was wondering does anyone have the problem loading coordinates to hide a cache then GC publishing the wrong ones

[steveid]

I am using my iphone for coordinates is this wrong to do

[Keystone]

The above two posts were split from a thread in the New Zealand forum.  Since steveid hid a cache in California, the location of his question was wrong.

steveid, as your reviewer explained to you, neither Geocaching.com staff nor its Community Volunteer Reviewers alter the coordinates that you enter when you submit a cache page.  It's rather bad form to post on your page that "Reviewer published wrong coordinates."

The website has an audit trail for this sort of thing, and the records confirm that the cache coordinates did not change from what you originally submitted.  Each change would have been recorded behind the scenes.

It would be far more productive to have a discussion about common mistakes made by new cache hiders when trying to figure out coordinate formats.  I will get that discussion started.  To obtain your coordinates, did you use your iPhone's compass app (the basic one that comes with the phone)?  That compass uses DD MM SS format, which is not precise enough for geocaching.

[+Manville Possum]

2 hours ago, steveid said:

I am using my iphone for coordinates is this wrong to do

 

There are apps for obtaining coordinates. I use Geocache placer on my Android.

[Keystone]

Commander Compass is an inexpensive option for the iPhone.

One may also use the official Geocaching App, by navigating to any nearby cache and using the functionality for adding a waypoint while navigating.

[+niraD]

3 hours ago, steveid said:

Was wondering does anyone have the problem loading coordinates to hide a cache

Yes. As Keystone indicated, one common mistake is to enter the digits in the wrong format. For example, the following sets of coordinates all use the same digits, but they use different formats and therefore they refer to different locations:

N 37.15522° W 121.57260°
N 37° 15.522' W 121° 57.260'
N 37° 15' 52.2" W 121° 57' 26.0"

The thing to remember is that minutes (e.g., 15') and seconds (e.g., 52.2") work the same way with coordinates as they do with time. So there are 60 seconds in a minute, and 60 minutes in a degree. So half a minute (0.500') is the same as 30 seconds (30.0"), and half a degree (0.500°) is the same as 30 minutes (30.000').

3 hours ago, steveid said:

then GC publishing the wrong ones

Nope.

3 hours ago, steveid said:

I am using my iphone for coordinates is this wrong to do

Modern smartphones are at least as accurate as the handheld GPS receivers that were used to get geocache coordinates 10 years ago. It is possible to get accurate coordinates with both.

It is also possible to get inaccurate coordinates with both.

For reference, see the Help Center article How to get accurate coordinates.

[+Bear and Ragged]

Also watch out for North/South and East/West, which may/may not have a " - " instead of a letter...

[+CAVinoGal]

21 hours ago, niraD said:

On 10/28/2017 at 8:57 AM, steveid said:

I am using my iphone for coordinates is this wrong to do

Modern smartphones are at least as accurate as the handheld GPS receivers that were used to get geocache coordinates 10 years ago. It is possible to get accurate coordinates with both.

It is also possible to get inaccurate coordinates with both.

For reference, see the Help Center article How to get accurate coordinates.

Our smartphones seems to be pretty accurate for finding and hiding caches.  We typically visit the location for ahide several times, over a period of a few days.  We take multiple readings with both of our phones.  Then choose what we feel is most accurate, or closest to our hide's GZ.

Then go back using those coordinates to "lead" us to the cache.  If we get within a few feet, those are the coords we submit with the cache write up.

[+colleda]

11 hours ago, CAVinoGal said:

Our smartphones seems to be pretty accurate for finding and hiding caches.  We typically visit the location for ahide several times, over a period of a few days.  We take multiple readings with both of our phones.  Then choose what we feel is most accurate, or closest to our hide's GZ.

Then go back using those coordinates to "lead" us to the cache.  If we get within a few feet, those are the coords we submit with the cache write up.

Why not average your multiple readings and see how that goes?

[+NanCycle]

9 hours ago, colleda said:

Why not average your multiple readings and see how that goes?

I take multiple averaged readings on multiple devices (I usually do not go back on multiple days, but agree that would be even better.). Then I list them all, throw out the high and low numbers and use the medians.  

[+fuzziebear3]

My android is terribly slow at acquiring and having good accuracy.  Until that point, it basically uses the last known position (often my last wifi access).  My GPS does not give any coordinates until it has at least acquired a reasonable accuracy level.

Understanding how and when your device reaches a decent level of accuracy is important.

 

 

[+hal-an-tow]

On 28/10/2017 at 4:56 PM, steveid said:

Was wondering does anyone have the problem loading coordinates to hide a cache then GC publishing the wrong ones

No , that's never happened to me, and I've had over 70 caches published.

Mind you, I have had our very helpful local reviewer get back to me before publishing a listing,and query if I really meant those co-ordinates .. turned out I had transposed a pair of digits ( e.g. typed .024 instead of .042 ) without noticing that it put the cache in some innocent muggle's garden ...

[+NanCycle]

On 10/28/2017 at 9:56 AM, steveid said:

Was wondering does anyone have the problem loading coordinates to hide a cache then GC publishing the wrong ones

Nope. Never. In over 90 caches published.

I have had a reviewer contact me pre-publication and remind me that I had forgotten to change the final coordinates of a puzzle so that they were not the same as the listed coordinates, or vice versa--I forget which way it went.

[+niraD]

25 minutes ago, fuzziebear3 said:

Understanding how and when your device reaches a decent level of accuracy is important.

Absolutely. I've seen my Android phones give wildly inaccurate locations for a short time. Usually, the inaccurate location is somewhere I've been recently, and it just hasn't updated. But a couple times, the location has been a hundred miles off the coast, or somewhere else that I haven't been anywhere near.

But those inaccuracies have been relatively short-lived, on the order of a few minutes at most. When my Android phones have remained inaccurate, that has been caused by having the GPS services turned off, and they were using only cell tower triangulation and WiFi networks to establish my location. In that case, the location was within a few hundred feet of my actual location, but never got any better until I enabled the GPS services.

When I've let my Android phone get a lock and have used the coordinates averaging feature of the CacheSense app, I've gotten coordinates that have been virtually identical to the ones produced by my eXplorist.

Edited October 30, 2017 by niraD
typo

[+CAVinoGal]

1 hour ago, NanCycle said:

11 hours ago, colleda said:

Why not average your multiple readings and see how that goes?

I take multiple averaged readings on multiple devices (I usually do not go back on multiple days, but agree that would be even better.). Then I list them all, throw out the high and low numbers and use the medians.  

Basically, I think we ARE averaging, just not using math and pen and paper - the #'s are usually pretty close so we can average "in our heads" - and choose the numbers to use.  Then we test those to see how close we get.

The caches we have placed so far are pretty close to home, and places we visit often so multiple day readings are not difficult to get. Future cache placements may not get the thoroughness and diligence to accuracy as these have; we are new to this and want to get it right!!

[+hzoi]

22 hours ago, fuzziebear3 said:

My android is terribly slow at acquiring and having good accuracy.  Until that point, it basically uses the last known position (often my last wifi access).  My GPS does not give any coordinates until it has at least acquired a reasonable accuracy level.

Sadly, same here.  My Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini cannot get good accuracy in the caching app.  Which is odd, because the EPE it reports (at times ranging from +/- 300 feet to +/- 1 mile) doesn't appear to bleed over into, say, Google Maps -- EPE that vague would put me blocks away from my location, but it's only the geocaching app that gives me such fuzzy results.

The other day, I never got an EPE better than 57 feet when looking for a cache with the app.  Thankfully the cache had a good enough hint that we didn't have to spend too long looking around.