Guest zilla Posted July 10, 2001 Share Posted July 10, 2001 Just curious.. Is it ok to ask cachers who locate your cache to post the co-ords that they had on their GPS to the cache log here?? I recently had a cacher let me know that my co-ords seemed to be off a little bit [40 feet or so] .. I went out to the cache today and let my GPS average for over ten minutes and took a new reading.. It was slightly different, enough to account for an error.. Any thoughts here?? zilla.. yep I'm a newbie Quote Link to comment
Guest KF Quad Explorer Posted July 10, 2001 Share Posted July 10, 2001 Usually if the coords are off more than 50' I will post the coords that I had in the log report. The owner can encrypt the log if he wants to. Anything less than 50' seems to be ok. It could be the sattelites your recieving are not exactally as to what was recorded. The sattelite readings change all the time. Quote Link to comment
Guest Iron Chef Posted July 10, 2001 Share Posted July 10, 2001 I usually post the coords if the original coords seem really off or if it is a cache that many others have had a really bad time with. Either that or I just e-mail the people having problems and ask them if they would like a bit of help with coords and such, but I only do this for caches that have been abandoned by their owners. ------------------ -Iron Chef _ _ _ _ _ _____ _ _ _ _ _ agefive.com/geocache/ ~ Fe-26 Lets Drive Fast and Eat Cheese! Quote Link to comment
Guest gstrong1 Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 d 2D navigation.I own the eTrex Vista also, which I believe is the top of the line eTrex,& up here in the Northeast, I don't even bother bringing it along on cache hunts.Unless the cache is located in the middle of a soccer field, the unit is pretty useless.So if someone tells me my co-ordinates are off, I keep this in mind and ignore it.If 3 or 4 cachers report that my numbers are bad,I'll go back to the cache & see if it has been moved from its original location.Hasn't happened yet.My caches have been logged about 140 times & no-one has logged a miss. ------------------ Gary "Gimpy" Strong Rochester,NY [This message has been edited by gstrong1 (edited 11 July 2001).] Quote Link to comment
Guest Quinnow Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 I think a good additon would be a section showing what GPS a person used to place a cache. In other words I could take my IIIPlus and Map76 with me and set them side by side up against any etrex (please, I am not an etrex basher)in heavy tree cover, and the IIIPlus will be far more accurate than them all, unless the map76 has an external antenna hooked to it. I went after a cache yesterday that I found to be over 50 feet off, I got this reading from both my units which sat at the cache for over 5 minutes. So if I see someone who might have used an etrex to place one in heavy brush or trees, I know I need to fan out farther in order to get to the cache at times. But...if I see it was placed with a IIIPlus, I know I can just walk up to it and it will jump into my hands at "0" feet (just kidding) ok...you Etrex owners can start sending the hate mail now ------------------ Quinn Stone Rochester, NY.14616 www.Navicache.com Quote Link to comment
Guest Quinnow Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 I think a good additon would be a section showing what GPS a person used to place a cache. In other words I could take my IIIPlus and Map76 with me and set them side by side up against any etrex (please, I am not an etrex basher)in heavy tree cover, and the IIIPlus will be far more accurate than them all, unless the map76 has an external antenna hooked to it. I went after a cache yesterday that I found to be over 50 feet off, I got this reading from both my units which sat at the cache for over 5 minutes. So if I see someone who might have used an etrex to place one in heavy brush or trees, I know I need to fan out farther in order to get to the cache at times. But...if I see it was placed with a IIIPlus, I know I can just walk up to it and it will jump into my hands at "0" feet (just kidding) ok...you Etrex owners can start sending the hate mail now ------------------ Quinn Stone Rochester, NY.14616 www.Navicache.com Quote Link to comment
Guest Markwell Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 Placing a cache and getting good coords can be done even with a little yellow eTrex, it's just more tedious. I always take a reading, walk about 50 or 60 yards away and return and take another reading. Doing this about 7 or 8 times will give me a good chunk of data to work with. Then working just with the latitudes, throw out the highs and lows and average. I then do the same with the longitudes. Final result is usually pretty darn accurate. As a final test, once you've done the averaging math (I usually do it in my car with a calculator), enter the averaged points into the GPS and try to find it using those. There have been a couple of times that I have posted on the cache site: "I was in a hurry getting these coordinates. If anyone with equipment capable of automatic averaging gets a better sample of data, let me know." Quote Link to comment
Guest gstrong1 Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 Good question Scout. I only know one thing from my experiences on cache adventures.I have visited all of Quinns caches in the Rochester,NY area.I could be off by a few, but I believe he's placed around 12-14.I know that,like myself,he takes his numbers off of his III Plus.Of all the Quinn caches I've been to, I think the most my III Plus has shown me off his numbers is about 15 feet.It's usually between 4-10 ft.Thats pretty darn good seeing as the epe(estimated position error)is always higher than that.On the other end,I've been on cache hunts where I know the cache owner uses an eTrex,and I've been off by as much as 85 ft.That happened this past weekend. After getting to the posted co-ordinates, I started my search.After about 30 minutes of searching the area,I located it.I set my III Plus & my MAP76 on the cache for 10 minutes.III Plus had a fix on 4/5 birds & MAP76 had a steady 5 including #35(waas).MAP said 85 ft. to destination,III Plus said 82 ft. Pretty definitive. I'm not knocking any particular model GPS. As I posted earlier, I also own an eTrex Vista.But the fact remains, the design of some units & there antenna obviously does play a role in the accuracy of the posted co-ordinates. What do you do?Live with it & cache on.But if I did know that I was going after a cache in a wooded area where the posted numbers came off an eTrex,I could pack a lunch. ------------------ Gary "Gimpy" Strong Rochester,NY Quote Link to comment
Guest gstrong1 Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 Good question Scout. I only know one thing from my experiences on cache adventures.I have visited all of Quinns caches in the Rochester,NY area.I could be off by a few, but I believe he's placed around 12-14.I know that,like myself,he takes his numbers off of his III Plus.Of all the Quinn caches I've been to, I think the most my III Plus has shown me off his numbers is about 15 feet.It's usually between 4-10 ft.Thats pretty darn good seeing as the epe(estimated position error)is always higher than that.On the other end,I've been on cache hunts where I know the cache owner uses an eTrex,and I've been off by as much as 85 ft.That happened this past weekend. After getting to the posted co-ordinates, I started my search.After about 30 minutes of searching the area,I located it.I set my III Plus & my MAP76 on the cache for 10 minutes.III Plus had a fix on 4/5 birds & MAP76 had a steady 5 including #35(waas).MAP said 85 ft. to destination,III Plus said 82 ft. Pretty definitive. I'm not knocking any particular model GPS. As I posted earlier, I also own an eTrex Vista.But the fact remains, the design of some units & there antenna obviously does play a role in the accuracy of the posted co-ordinates. What do you do?Live with it & cache on.But if I did know that I was going after a cache in a wooded area where the posted numbers came off an eTrex,I could pack a lunch. ------------------ Gary "Gimpy" Strong Rochester,NY Quote Link to comment
Guest zilla Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 Let me add a little more info here.. I use a Maggie 320. On the original trip to place the cache, I was getting EPE of 10 feet, had a 3D lock, showed 9 satellites locked hard[max].. I was on a butte, no trees at 7000+ feet with a clear view of the horizon all the way around.. I figured this was pretty good and took a reading.. When I went back to take a new reading and compare I also walked off a distance to a known landmark.. My original reading was off, as I checked using my maptech software at home. GPS?? or Sattelites?? I guess I'm gonna HAFTA break down and get a WAAS enabled unit.. Seriously, next time I'll let the unit average for at least ten minutes Quote Link to comment
Guest bearboy Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 I have had several people question my coordinates but they did find the loot.I currently and temporarily am using a 2000XL.I usually sit the gps on the cache for about 10 minutes or more before I save the info.Then I ll walk away at least .25 miles and walk back to the cache.If its not on 0.00I start over.Is this good enough?Also what is a (waas) enabled unit?I have been thinking about upgrading for sometime now. Quote Link to comment
Guest bob_renner Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 quote:Originally posted by bearboy:...Also what is a (waas) enabled unit?I have been thinking about upgrading for sometime now. It is a form of differential correction to the satellite signals. See the following web page for a detailed description: http://celia.mehaffey.com/dale/dgps.htm Bob Quote Link to comment
Guest CacherintheRye Posted July 11, 2001 Share Posted July 11, 2001 thing that costs ~$125-$300!!! The satellites and earth move so geometry changes...try repeating the same answers for a couple of days at different times of the day. Quote Link to comment
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