Telephone Cache

[+TwistedCube]

I am planning on creating a 2 stage multi-cache revolving around telephones.

 

Stage 1 - An old phone will be hidden inside of an abandoned phone booth/stand. I am going to try to put a mini audio playback/recorder in the place of one of the buttons on the phone so that the cacher has to push the button to hear the final coordinates. 

 

Stage 2 - ???

 

I still haven't figured out all of the details yet, including what the second stage will be. 

 

Any thoughts on how I can make the first stage possible, or what the second stage can be in order to be clever and fit into the whole telephone theme? 

Edited December 11, 2018 by TwistedCube
clarification

[+Max and 99]

13 minutes ago, TwistedCube said:

I am planning on creating a 2 stage multi-cache revolving around telephones.

 

Stage 1 - An old phone will be hidden inside of an abandoned phone booth. I am going to try to put a mini audio playback/recorder in the place of one of the buttons on the phone so that the cacher has to push the button to hear the final coordinates. 

 

Stage 2 - ???

 

I still haven't figured out all of the details yet, including what the second stage will be. 

 

Any thoughts on how I can make the first stage possible, or what the second stage can be in order to be clever and fit into the whole telephone theme? 

Oh man, as CONTROL's top agents and frequent users of telephone booths, I love your cache idea.  

Just something to consider: a number for them to call or text that gives an automated response? Hidden in the phone booth. 

[+Wet Pancake Touring Club]

There is a telephone based cache located in Spokane, WA. I've done this one, it is a closed system, no actual phone calling needed. I don't remember all the details, I do remember keying in a portion of the cache coords as part of getting into the cache. You may want to contact the owner to get more details.

 

 

[+arisoft]

28 minutes ago, TwistedCube said:

Any thoughts on how I can make the first stage possible

 

I have seen this kind of cache and also planned to make one at some day. You need a phone and a digital voice recorder. Some electronic hobby experience is needed of course.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

31 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

Oh man, as CONTROL's top agents and frequent users of telephone booths, I love your cache idea.  

Just something to consider: a number for them to call or text that gives an automated response? Hidden in the phone booth. 

 

Just for fun, for the first stage, after the message plays the coordinates it should say, "this phone booth will self-destruction in 5 seconds". 

 

 It would be pretty easy to wire one of the buttons on the phone to play the recorded message.  Using a complete phone number would require some additional electronics.  

 

Stage two wouldn't necessarily be in another phone booth, but could still be phone related by placing it near a cell tower, or phone company building.  While CONTROL's agents used a telephone booth to enter HQ,  Max used a shoe phone.   If you could find the right place to hide it, a shoe phone that rang when a motion detector was triggered would be a cool second stage.

 

 

Edited December 11, 2018 by NYPaddleCacher

[+dprovan]

One local cache was based on a real phone booth: Calling a number from that specific phone booth resulted in a recorded message with the final coordinates. The lesson learned from that one, by the way, was that the original recorded message was "cute" and in-theme, but it resulted in the coordinates being very hard to understand, so the CO changed it to a more straightforward message almost right away.

 

What you're talking about will be cute, but note that it doesn't really depend on a phone booth. I'd be just as amused and maybe even more impressed to find a phone in a stump out in the woods. Power is probably your main problem, and I assume you plan to supply your own no matter where the phone is.

 

Keep in mind that phone booths are being abandoned for a reason, so there's every reason to expect the phone booth itself to disappear. I hope that doesn't discourage you, but prepare yourself for losing all your work in a blink of an eye.

 

Don't worry too much about the final. Sure, being clever and in theme are both pluses, but the 1st stage is already clever enough to carry the cache if you don't come up with any cool ideas for the final. Personally, I'd make the final nearby so people can find it right away without having to drive somewhere else. Otherwise, I'd worry they forgot the important stage by the time they signed the log. But that's just me.

 

If you're really planning on making this a multi, that -- at least to me -- implies that what to do at stage 1 is spelled out with a reasonable amount of clarity in the cache's description. I'd be inclined to be a little more oblique, like having a puzzle to solve in order for the seeker to discover there's a physical phone booth involved. If you do anything like that, it should be an unknown cache type. And I'd be inclined to make it unknown even if the phone booth is the posted coordinates for stage 1.

[+Max and 99]

A very popular cache in my area was a phone in the woods. It was very clever.

[+The Jester]

There is a phone cache that is part of the HQ Geo-Tour.  Another in the region has a code to enter that will unlock the door to the cache hide (on private property so the booth won't disappear without warning).

[+Max and 99]

My neighbor has a telephone booth in his backyard. I really want to know what he uses it for!

[+TwistedCube]

Just to clarify, I want Stage 1 to be in a phone stand. more like a public telephone you'd see in American cities. Except this one would be abandoned.

 

 

[+Max and 99]

4 minutes ago, TwistedCube said:

Just to clarify, I want Stage 1 to be in a phone stand. more like a public telephone you'd see in American cities. Except this one would be abandoned.

 

 

Yes, that's what I imagined. There's only a couple left in my city, but I can't find one that works. I suspect they are all abandoned and soon will be taken away. 

[+Harry Dolphin]

1 hour ago, Max and 99 said:

My neighbor has a telephone booth in his backyard. I really want to know what he uses it for!

 

I found a telephone stand about  a mile into the woods.  Yes, it was the geocache.

[+noncentric]

7 hours ago, TwistedCube said:

Just to clarify, I want Stage 1 to be in a phone stand. more like a public telephone you'd see in American cities. Except this one would be abandoned.

As someone else mentioned, these tend to disappear suddenly.

[+coachstahly]

They're certainly disappearing fast.  Good luck!

[+J Grouchy]

19 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

 

Just for fun, for the first stage, after the message plays the coordinates it should say, "this phone booth will self-destruction in 5 seconds". 

 

 

 

Ha!  Here's an idea.  The first half of the coordinates are given...then the person has to quickly exit the phone booth within that five seconds to find the other half on a display on the exterior.

 

 

[+Joe_L]

23 hours ago, TwistedCube said:

Stage 2 - ???

 

How about a hollowed-out telephone book as the cache container?

[+NYPaddleCacher]

24 minutes ago, Joe_L said:

 

How about a hollowed-out telephone book as the cache container?

 

Those are becoming almost as rare as phone booths.  

 

If one could find an old dial phone, the mouth and ear piece on the handset screws off, and would hold a micro container.  

[+TheLimeCat]

On 12/12/2018 at 10:01 AM, NYPaddleCacher said:

 

Those are becoming almost as rare as phone booths.  

 

If one could find an old dial phone, the mouth and ear piece on the handset screws off, and would hold a micro container.  

I'm sorry I neglected to read this before typing my own comment. I was about to mention the same thing. To build on this, if you could obtain permission to place the cache container undercover, you could circumvent this size restriction by hiding a key in a matchstick case in the phone which is required to unlock the nearby cache. If you could get permission to create a rather large cache and then hang the phone on the outside, this would tie together nicely. Not to overstep, but if you could use a more traditional English style booth, you could work all of this into the same covered area. 

[+TwistedCube]

On ‎12‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 6:56 PM, TheLimeCat said:

I'm sorry I neglected to read this before typing my own comment. I was about to mention the same thing. To build on this, if you could obtain permission to place the cache container undercover, you could circumvent this size restriction by hiding a key in a matchstick case in the phone which is required to unlock the nearby cache. If you could get permission to create a rather large cache and then hang the phone on the outside, this would tie together nicely. Not to overstep, but if you could use a more traditional English style booth, you could work all of this into the same covered area. 

That would be cool!

 

My uncle (who is also a cacher) was walking around in the woods last week and found a large solid steel safe. Everything works, except you can't close it. Maybe if we are able to fix it up then we can use that for Stage 2. 

[+cerberus1]

2 hours ago, TwistedCube said:

My uncle (who is also a cacher) was walking around in the woods last week and found a large solid steel safe. Everything works, except you can't close it. Maybe if we are able to fix it up then we can use that for Stage 2. 

 

That's funny !   Don't know why I thought that only happened here...

I've found a couple in game land's  inner parking lots.  An atm once too. 

All were stolen, opened on the road, and dumped there.   

[+MNTA]

I love Phone Booth Caches! I still get the urge to check for the common spots to see if something is there. By far the best phone booth cache is Dr Who GCW6EM you enter a code and a secret compartment opens up with 1200+ favorite points. In the Portland area we had a series of Phone Booth Multis (PBMs) which had a small cult following. Some kept you going all over the metro area criss crossing the place others took you up to Seattle or on a trip of several hours to the beach, Those were classified as T5 and I got a far amount of them. They all were similar take the number or call to get it and do some math to find the next WP. The container was usually a magnetic strip with log glued to it stuck under the phone or a dna tube in the tray. The biggest challenge I saw was that the phones started disappearing over time. If I ever get to Milwaukee Wi there is a final ready and waiting for me. 

[+Gill & Tony]

I found one cache in a telephone box where the log was a blank page inserted into a phone book.  There was a clue on the description page which led you to look up a person's phone number and that was the blank page.

[+TwistedCube]

UPDATE: 

 

A new idea for Stage 2 is a pipe gadget cache strapped to a telephone pole where, in order to find the code to a combo lock, the cacher must find a phone book hidden in a tupperware container nearby and find the phone number of a certain person to look for in the book. The last 4 digits of the phone number is the code. 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2019 by TwistedCube
clarity

[+TeamRabbitRun]

On ‎12‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 5:44 PM, Max and 99 said:

My neighbor has a telephone booth in his backyard. I really want to know what he uses it for!

 

Is it big, and blue, with a light on the top?

 

If so, I might know what it's used for.

[+cerberus1]

Thought it unusual that some still find phone booths, don't remember when I've last seen a phone book. 

[+niraD]

6 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

Thought it unusual that some still find phone booths, don't remember when I've last seen a phone book. 

Here in Silicon Valley, they still deliver a phone book every year. It's a lot smaller than it used to be (less than half an inch thick, vs the 2- to 3-inch thick ones we used to get), and covers a smaller geographical area. But it's a phone book. I don't recall the last time I actually looked up a phone number in one though.

[+IceColdUK]

4 minutes ago, niraD said:

Here in Silicon Valley, they still deliver a phone book every year. It's a lot smaller than it used to be (less than half an inch thick, vs the 2- to 3-inch thick ones we used to get), and covers a smaller geographical area. But it's a phone book. I don't recall the last time I actually looked up a phone number in one though.

 

Here in the UK too, but I’m sure I heard that they’re to be discontinued.  My current one is <1 cm thick.  They used to be about 6 cm!