My first day of hunting.

[bckane]

Ok today was my first day of hunting, I'm very new to this hobby so bear with me. First off I have a Garmin eTrexLegend. My first hunt was at a local park nearby, so I knew how to get to the park from within the park it was pretty easy to my first cache. according to my gps I was standing right on the cache, but I knew it wasn't here, first off this was the cache I was attempting to find.......

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=18673. Reason I knew I was'nt near the cache was by the (Hint) that was giving. I'm thinking there is something wrong with my new Gps. Don't remember how many sat were locked but do remember it had a accuracy of 35 feet. now I was standing out in the middle of a parking lot not under any trees. My question is how accurate are gps devices.??

Is it just the one I have (meaning I should buy a better one)I really want to get into this hobby. Any suggestions...........

PS When I got home I went online and ordered a Garmin V

TIA

Brian

[Garminator]

Brian,

 

I too, am a newbie at this GREAT pasttime. I wouldn't give up on your Garnin yet! Find a friend with another GPSr and compare. In my minute wisdom about this game(Geocaching), finding the coordinates is the easy part. Finding the cache is the hard part.

 

GoodLuck,

 

Garminator

 

PS Check the coordinates as I was recently on a benchmark hunt which the topos said it's in the area but my etrex said it was 103 miles away! Consequently, I never found the mark.

[+briansnat]

The Legend is a fine unit. Standing in an open parking lot without tree cover, you're not gonna get any better reception from the V. The V will however do a better job under a heavy leaf canopy.

 

Remember, your GPS was accurate to 35 feet while your were searching. Say the cache hider also had the same accuracy when he hid it. That means that there is a potential for your being up to 70 feet off. This goes for any unit, whether Legend, Garmin V, or Magellan.

 

The margin of error is part of the game. What fun would it be if the GPS put you right on the cache every time?

 

Looking at the logs for this specific cache, it seems to be pretty well hidden. Why don't you try a 1 star difficulty for your first few finds?

 

"You can't make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs, but by standing a flock of sheep in that position, you can make a crowd of men" -Max Beerbohm

[Rxprt88]

I have to agree with Garminator. Don't give up on the Legend yet. I have used one on the majority of my finds with no problems at all. As Brian said the accuracy of the units can be variable in the hiding and finding, so I have learned that once it you are within 15-30 feet put the unit in your pocket and start just hunting the old fashion way. The old fashion way gets easier if you read last logs and if it comes to it the hint.

[bckane]

quote:

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Originally posted by BrianSnat:

The Legend is a fine unit. Standing in an open parking lot without tree cover, you're not gonna get any better reception from the V. The V will however do a better job under a heavy leaf canopy.

 

Remember, your GPS was accurate to 35 feet while your were searching. Say the cache hider also had the same accuracy when he hid it. That means that there is a potential for your being up to 70 feet off. This goes for any unit, whether Legend, Garmin V, or Magellan.

 

The margin of error is part of the game. What fun would it be if the GPS put you right on the cache every time?

 

Looking at the logs for this specific cache, it seems to be pretty well hidden. Why don't you try a 1 star difficulty for your first few finds?

 

_"You can't make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs, but by standing a flock of sheep in that position, you can make a crowd of men" -Max Beerbohm_

---

Well the reason I started with a 1 star is that the park is across the street from my house, I was just trying to get the feel of the gps unit.

[+CCrew]

Hmm, Hint says "Top Ten hit by the Drifters".

 

Wouldn't be "Up On the Roof" would it? :-)

[+TEAM BUBBA]

Hmm, Hint says "Top Ten hit by the Drifters".

 

Wouldn't be "Up On the Roof" would it? :-)

 

Close CCrew but that was a cpl years early

1964= Under the Boardwalk

 

Are you sure you had your GPSr set to the correct datum?

[bckane]

quote:

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Originally posted by TEAM BUBBA:

Hmm, Hint says "Top Ten hit by the Drifters".

 

Wouldn't be "Up On the Roof" would it? :-)

 

Close CCrew but that was a cpl years early

1964= Under the Boardwalk

 

Are you sure you had your GPSr set to the correct datum?

---

You are right (under the boardwalk) anyhow I was going to buy the garmin V before the eTrexLegend but I didnt know if I was going to get into the hobby or not....Oh well My V should be here today I ordered overnight shipping. Hey I could alway use the V for my car and the etrax for my hunting.

PS.....With out the hint to this hunt a person would never find the cache...I guess thats what makes it fun....one thing I didnt do is compare the coordinates from my gps to my printouts.!

[+DenaliNW]

quote:

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one thing I didnt do is compare the coordinates from my gps to my printouts.!

---

 

bckane,

After reading your other post regarding the coordinates and EasyGPS, I really am wondering how your GPS is set to display coordinates. If I'm right (and granted I'm assuming some things and reading between the lines), you have your GPS set for degree minute seconds (DD MM SS), rather than degree minutes (DD mm.mmm), which is the format that appears on the cache pages. I know that this will throw you off the posted coordinates a little as well, but I don't know how much.

 

Of course, I could be smoking crack, and this is just a figment of my imagination. If I'm wrong, I'm sorry. Keep at it though, it gets easier, but as others have already said, you'll rarely be lead right to the exact spot. It's only happened once or twice in my 160 odd finds.

[bckane]

DenaliNW:

Remember Im still new to this I have learned alot just in the past several days. I just didnt know how accurate my GPS was. I know the coords from the download and the one post on the cache were very close. I was just looking for answers. Wow and I what I was looking for. I guess are close as 35 feet compared to the whole world is pretty close....And yes my GPS was setup different the what is posted here, I changed it in the Easygps program to match my gps.(DD mm.mmm)BTW I came home and ordered a Garmin V after that day thinking my new Legend was no good... What Im seeing is the V is (Way better) then the Legend, anyhow thanks for your reply

Brian

[+Geo-Johnson's]

We have the Garmin V........we're somewhat happy with it, however it seems my brother gets more accuracy with his Magellan.......Either that, or he's better at this game than we are............nah that isn't it.

 

My guess is you'll find similar accuracies with both the V and the L. Ours averages an accuracy of 30-40 feet on a good day. But that changes as you walk around. We usually end up walking back and forth and around in circles until it brings us to the same spot more than once. Out of the 34 that we've found, it's brought us to within 1 foot of the cache maybe 5 times. We've found that you have to be moving to get good readings. As soon as you stop, it points you in the opposite direction. But as many have said.....we wouldn't want our GPS to bring us right to the cache as that would eliminate the hunting part....that's the fun part.

 

Best of luck on your new addiction!

 

Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.

[+Sissy-n-CR]

Make sure you have the correct datum and readout. Here we use WGS84 for the datum and lat/long deg mm.mmm for the units.

 

Then realize the GPS will only get you so close. What we do is get to where the GPS says we're on top of it and start hunting around starting with the closest, most likely spots and moving out in an ever increasing circle to about 50 feet out, then we read the cheat and go from there.

 

We've actually increased our circle once to over 500' before we found it--we forgot the printout and didn't know it was an offset.

 

The main thing to remember is the GPS will only get you within area the cache is hidden, not the spot.

 

Hope this helps!

 

CR

 

[+BASSETSLAVE]

bckane

 

I have one site within a mile of my house and two sites within a mile of work.

I tried my first site on monday after I got off work 10:30 PM I went directly to the site because I know the site location. I kept getting weird readings. I found out that I had the waypoint in the wrong format. If I was on the mark I wouldn't have been able to find it because it was so dark that you could hardly read the writing on the grave stones.

 

I attempted another site today. I found the site but was confused on how to follow the directional arrow. I now have that straight and I belive that I am going tomorrow at lunch and see if I can find this second cache. Like everything else in life there is a learning curve.

 

My legend seem to be working perfectly it is the user at present that has the problem. I to am confused on the footage accuracy.

 

Have fun be safe.

 

BASSETSLAVE

-----------

If you have the nose of a basset there is no cache that you can not find and you are never lost.

[pdumas]

It takes a little time but it's a great sport.

[+briansnat]

quote:

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My legend seem to be working perfectly it is the user at present that has the problem. I to am confused on the footage accuracy.

---

Basicallt

 

"You can't make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs, but by standing a flock of sheep in that position, you can make a crowd of men" -Max Beerbohm

[+briansnat]

quote:

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My legend seem to be working perfectly it is the user at present that has the problem. I to am confused on the footage accuracy.

---

The best advice I can give you is that when you hit the 40 ft mark, put everything down and start looking.

 

"You can't make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs, but by standing a flock of sheep in that position, you can make a crowd of men" -Max Beerbohm

[shrekTBA]

Also, if you start with a Vista, make sure you have the bearing or course selected correctly, you can get close and lost at the same time trying to follow the same one. When you get the V, you will still need to make sure that all of the above are right. To me the GPSr is the fun, I love to figure out new stuff. If the hunt wasn't so much fun, I probably would find a new challenge. Hmm.....rockets!!!

 

It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.

[+Kite and Hawkeye]

quote:

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Originally posted by BASSETSLAVE:

I attempted another site today. I found the site but was confused on how to follow the directional arrow. I now have that straight and I belive that I am going tomorrow at lunch and see if I can find this second cache. Like everything else in life there is a learning curve.

 

My legend seem to be working perfectly it is the user at present that has the problem. I to am confused on the footage accuracy.

---

 

I always *try* to reach the point where the gps says zero feet, as a starting point for the hunt, though there isn't always such a point. If you're within twenty feet or so, the arrow gets pretty useless, unless you have built-in compass. What we do is stop when the arrow gets jumpy, look to see what the bearing is and use a regular compass to walk along that bearing. It is easier than trying to follow the arrow, which keeps changing if you're moving slowly and close to the zero point.

 

I'm surprised that the original poster was only getting 35 foot accuracy. I do recall that the very first time I turned on my etrex (we just have a yellow etrex, and we've found almost a hundred caches just fine -- cost and accuracy don't really have a linear relationship) it took a long time to settle down, figure out the satellites and get a decent reading. Our normal accuracy is 18-21 feet, and finding a cache gets significantly more difficult if we drop below that, though I don't know if we've ever had a cache hunt where we couldn't get down to 25 feet or so of error. Perhaps there just wasn't good satellite geometry at that particular time. If your GPS was putting you significantly away from the spot you knew it had to be, I'd strongly suspect a format or datum problem. Failing that, turn the device off and back on and see if it changes its mind; sometimes when it loses and re-acquires signal it seems to wake up.

 

The first time one finds a cleverly hidden cache, one might think that nobody could ever find it without the hint, but trust me, those instincts get honed and pretty soon you're looking up, looking under, looking everywhere. We were foxed once by a cache dangling over our heads -- never again . It's harder to find a cache hidden under a random bush among dozens than it is to find a cleverly hidden one, really.

[bckane]

I did go back the next day to the same cache, this time I made sure all my coords were correct it was a very clear day out. By my reading I was 10 feet from the cache. So I guess the first day was just a bad day for a Hunt.

Thanks for all the replys

PS I planning on going back this week with my Garmin V as do some compairing, BTW I havnet did any digging yet at this site.

Brian

[+ZingerHead]

Don't do any digging! The whole idea in hiding these things is to make them hard to find, but burying them is discouraged. It's been discussed before, but the problem with burial is that by the time 15 different people have come to find the cache, dug all of their holes, and left, the place looks like a war zone.

BTW, if I took "digging" way too literally, ignore this.

From the other logs on the cache you mentioned in your original post, looks like you'll be crawling around under something to get at this one.

[bckane]

Well it goes like this, it was my first gps unit, the cache was in walking distance from my house, didnt even read the manual yet. But had a good idea where the cache was. Just wanted to see how close I would get with the coords I programed in the gps. Im seeing know it has a lot to do with the type of weather out cloudy or not. So I went out on a hunt.........Didnt dig because the park ranger was working close by and was watching me very closely. But Im going back soon with my digging dudes on ready to huny treasure.

Brian

[+Smitherington]

That hint based on that top ten hit doesn't mean you have to dig at all. Geocaches in general are not hidden underground where one has to dig. There are discussions about that issue once in a while but you should be able to find this one without digging. At least I would go to find this one without any implements for digging.

 

Happy caching.

 

Smitherington

David J. Brown