Team MJDJ Posted March 31, 2003 Share Posted March 31, 2003 Just a thought to save everybody (cache owners and hunters alike) a lot of grief... PLEASE CHECK and CONFIRM your co-ordinates when logging a new cache. When planting a cache, I will leave my GPS "on" and then download the "TRACKS" when I get home. I can plot this on my Garmin MapSource and verify the final co-ordinates. If you don't have any sort of mapping software, then use MapQuest! This should also apply for mutli-part caches as well...VERIFY all your waypoints AND bearings. Just a thought! Quote Link to comment
+ZingerHead Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Good advice. It also helps reduce the overall error if you take several waypoints at the cache location and average them. Even better, take waypoints after approaching the cache from about 100 feet away at each of the four points of the compass and add them to the mix. If you've got a WAAS lock and 8 birds showing, this is overkill, but if you're down to three satellites and the distance to the waypoint is varying significantly, take a bunch of readings and average them. There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary numbers, and those who don't. Quote Link to comment
OlyHippy Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Good advice. Also, when you go to write up your cache report, make sure you put the numbers in the correct sequence and check your work! I made the mistake of transposing two numbers in a 10 digit grid, which gave a hunter on my cache a real headache. Fortunately he sent me the correct grid so I could make the appropriate changes. Quote Link to comment
+Bill D (wwh) Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Good advice indeed! My cache before last had the first three logs as Failed to Find. I went back and checked, and I'd somehow provided co-ords that were a hundred and fifty feet from the cache! I've no idea how I did that. And to make it worse, there happened to be something that pretty much matched the clue only twenty feet from the wrong co-ords, so of course they'd all searched there. Doh! I'm being much more careful now. Bill Quote Link to comment
Team MJDJ Posted April 1, 2003 Author Share Posted April 1, 2003 Yes...well said. There is nothing more frustrating than to spend hours LOOKING for a cache, then having to report it as "unfound" only to have the owner come back with a "corrected" version of the co-ordinates! We are all human, but that doesn't mean we have to ACT that way! Quote Link to comment
+OzzieSan Posted April 2, 2003 Share Posted April 2, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Team MJDJ:Yes...well said. There is nothing more frustrating than to spend hours LOOKING for a cache, then having to report it as "unfound" only to have the owner come back with a "corrected" version of the co-ordinates! We are all human, but that doesn't mean we have to ACT that way! In a perfect world we would not need a gpsr to find caches. But then what would pe the point? There are going to be circumstances when the hider may have what looks like fantastic coordinates but due to poor satellite geometry are off a bunch. The only way for this to be detected would be to come back to the cache at a different time and re-check the coords. Or use one of the online resources for determining the best time to be doing gps operations (both hiding and seeking). Understanding the limitations of the system as used with consumer grade units is often all that needs to be confirmed. Quote Link to comment
psyopwak Posted April 26, 2003 Share Posted April 26, 2003 Well now...ahhh shucks. Why do want to take some fun out of this??? What is wrong with giving out bad coordinates to the general public at large, soz they can go into the woods, search around for hours.. into the night hoping to find a little plasic box with a toy inside?? My buddy told me his wife waited for him to come home and when he showed her the POLLY POCKETS container he was looking for, she called him a MORON! The nerve of her!! OK....OK..... yes you should REALLY double check your coordinates. It is all fun and games until somebody drops dead in the woods, only to be found two weeks later with a etrex in one hand and a lincoln logs key chain in the other. psyopwak "Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect." Chief Seattle Quote Link to comment
martmann Posted April 27, 2003 Share Posted April 27, 2003 Is there even ONE case of a geocacher getting lost in the woods and dying? what are you talking about psyopwak? _________________________________________________________ If trees could scream, would we still cut them down? Well, maybe if they screamed all the time, for no reason. Click here for my Geocaching pictures Quote Link to comment
+welch Posted April 27, 2003 Share Posted April 27, 2003 quote:Originally posted by martmann:Is there even ONE case of a geocacher getting lost in the woods and dying? what are you talking about psyopwak? Actually yea I think there are. As for what the heck psyo's rambling about I don't know. Quote Link to comment
+southdeltan Posted April 27, 2003 Share Posted April 27, 2003 quote: OK....OK..... yes you should REALLY doublecheck your coordinates. It is all fun and games until somebody drops dead in the woods, only to be found two weeks later with a etrex in one hand and a lincoln logs key chain in the other. I'm not sure what cache accuracy has to do with preventing somebody from dropping dead (from say a heart attack, etc) in the woods. It would help spead up the recovery process, but only if the cacher was wise enough to tell somebody "Hey, I'm going off into the woods, I'll be here and here and..." It's always wise to let a family member or friend know where you're going and what you're doing. It's also wise to mark a waypoint at your vehicle so you can get back out. --- On a more realistic note - it may be wise to go back to your cache 2 or 3 times to average. If you're getting bad data on one day, it's likely you'll get bad data the whole time you're there. Averaging bad data yeilds a bad average. Checking over 2 or 3 days (if possible) would really help. southdeltan Quote Link to comment
+Team GPSaxophone Posted April 28, 2003 Share Posted April 28, 2003 I went to my newest cache to check up on it today. I found that one of the clues (4-part-multicache) was off by almost 100 feet. The first 4 cachers had no trouble finding it, but on some caches 100 feet is a big error. Quote Link to comment
dsandbro Posted April 28, 2003 Share Posted April 28, 2003 quote:--- On a more realistic note - it may be wise to go back to your cache 2 or 3 times to average. If you're getting bad data on one day, it's likely you'll get bad data the whole time you're there. Averaging bad data yeilds a bad average. Checking over 2 or 3 days (if possible) would really help. southdeltan Go back during a different time of day if you are getting bad signals. The satellite geometry varies from one day to the next by about 2-3 minutes. If you have any of the different almanac programs you can check in advance when the the signals should be the best that day. ...Of course, according to the planning chart the optimum time for GPSing always seems to be at 3:00 AM or so... ======================================== "The time has come" the Walrus said "to speak of many things; of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and Kings". Quote Link to comment
HJS Posted April 28, 2003 Share Posted April 28, 2003 Another word of advice along those lines. If you are one of the first finders, take a reading at the cache. I had a couple of finds where the owner e-mailed me to ask for my readings to help verify his coordinates. Quote Link to comment
+rayt333 Posted April 28, 2003 Share Posted April 28, 2003 quote:Originally posted by HJS:Another word of advice along those lines. If you are one of the first finders, take a reading at the cache. I had a couple of finds where the owner e-mailed me to ask for my readings to help verify his coordinates. That is a good point but in reality if you found the cache then the reading must be fairly close. I consider 100 feet to be fairly close at most caches and that is more or less the size of the circle I will look for it. (sometimes more, sometimes less) And if it is not found then what? If I am the first to seek it then I will spend more time searching and increase the area, but if still not found then I will send a message to the hider to see if it was me or their coordinates. If I find the cache and the corrdinates are off then of course I will email the user and explain what I had and let them recheck and update the coordinates if nessary. Quote Link to comment
+nincehelser Posted April 28, 2003 Share Posted April 28, 2003 quote:Originally posted by martmann:Is there even ONE case of a geocacher getting lost in the woods and dying? I think there was a geocacher who died of heat exhaustion or something like that. You'd have to search the forums. Stuff happens. I'd be really bummed out if someone died like that looking for my cache, and my coordinates were way off. George Quote Link to comment
+nincehelser Posted April 28, 2003 Share Posted April 28, 2003 100 feet! That's way too far in my book. 50 feet I'll consider acceptable. George Quote Link to comment
+rayt333 Posted April 28, 2003 Share Posted April 28, 2003 quote:Originally posted by nincehelser:100 feet! That's way too far in my book. 50 feet I'll consider acceptable. George Maybe I should rephase that, by 100 foot circle I was meaning 50 feet in all directions (to make a 100 foot circle) And 50 feet is really not very far off. If you are meaning you only consider 25 feet in each direction to be close, then you must have a better GPS then mine, and the cache owner had a better one also. When I am in woods many times I can't get under 30 to 40 foot accuracy reading, so if I am off by at least 30 feet and the owner was off by 30 feet, it could be possible the two reading were off by 60 feet total. If the area is a fairly clear area then of course I do expect better accuracy reading. Quote Link to comment
+YeOleImposter Posted April 28, 2003 Share Posted April 28, 2003 Another thing I have done is put my final coordinates into a mapping program like USAPhotoMaps or LostOutdoors.com and see that the coordinates match up with where I put the cache. If it eyeballs pretty close at 1 meter per pixel then I can be pretty sure it is close enough to find. Quote Link to comment
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