Minimum Zone Radius?

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 12:49 pm

Help, please...

What is the minimum radius from a specific set of coordinates I should use for my zone? I put it in at 15-20 feet from my chosen coordinates for now... I figured that would be 30-40 feet diameter total, right? But I'm wondering if that is too small for some devices?

Thanks. I'm sure I'll have more questions as I develop this thing.

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 1:21 pm

the Waushara County and the Redgranite Tour Pt 1 by Geolivestrong seemed to have about a 2 meter zone which seemed to trigger fine.
I only recall one zone that I had trouble with but that was due to a lost signal.

I don't know how the navigation shows on the Garmin units but on my blackberry with the OpenWIG program, I could see the distance to the zone so adjusting my position was not that difficult to get into the trigger zone.

I would think that 30ft diameter zone should be okay for most applications. If you can see what you need to see from anywhere in the zone, I would guess you are okay.

WGA Member Joined: 2007-11-26 Posts: 3258

I think 15 to 20 feet is fine.

However what's also important is how you set up the rules for entering the zone. My recollection (and it's been a while since I did the programming) was that if I set the zone to 20 feet (or whatever) and set a rule to fire upon entering the zone, the rule still would not fire until I got to the exact coordinates, even if the zone was supposedly a 60-foot circle.

Therefore I to set all the rules to fire "when a player is in proximity to the zone"--20 or 30 feet or whatever. This may just be a "Garmin thing."

But getting it to work right is very important in my opinion, because it is very frustrating in the field to have to do the drunken bee dance to get to the exact zeroed-out coordinates before the rule fires off (unless that's your intent to do so). My opinion was that when you got to a spot where you could reasonably "see" something in a zone, the rule should fire, and that only worked if I did an "on proximity" rule.

Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 11:57 am

More questions...

Will the program automatically re-size photos or should I do this ahead of time?

For geocaches.... is it listed as a task at the end? Or just a location?

Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 12:23 pm

Anybody ever get this error message when trying to load a previously saved cartridge? That sucks. I spent hours working on the cartridge and now it won't open.

Error Reading Cartridge.
System.ApplicationException: Exception of type 'System.ApplicationException' was thrown. at Groundspeak.Wherigo.ZonesEngine.ZonesEngineDll.LuaDoFile(String filename) at ZonesAuthor.LuaFunctions.ReadLuaCartridge(String luaFileName) at ZonesAuthor.frmMain.OpenCartridgeFile()

WGA Member Joined: 2007-11-26 Posts: 3258

Will reply when I am.back at a regular keyboard...

Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 9:32 pm

that's ok.. I think I've pretty much given up on it.

Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 6:24 am

Which builder are you using?

Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 8:49 am

NOOO. Don't give up. We love WhereIGos and would love to see this one as part of the Cache Ba$h!

WGA Member Joined: 2008-08-29 Posts: 73

Most of the zones in my cartridges have a 200 foot radius. I know that sounds huge, but when the conditions aren't ideal, dancing around to get a zone to trigger isn't much fun. My final zones are 20 feet (with good hints).

Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 7:38 pm

gotta run wrote:

I think 15 to 20 feet is fine.

I recommend no less than 100 feet. I've been burned real bad on a 15 feet one - mine! It had people leaning way over a wide creek on a cold February day just to get it to fire. Not fun. Having to walk in circles just getting the zone to fire is no fun either. That's my general rule and what I always tell people unless you have a real specific reason to have something smaller.

Quote:

the rule still would not fire until I got to the exact coordinates, even if the zone was supposedly a 60-foot circle.

Therefore I to set all the rules to fire "when a player is in proximity to the zone"--20 or 30 feet or whatever. This may just be a "Garmin thing."

It is a known Garmin bug which is another reason why I don't use anything smaller than 100 feet. It makes getting the unit to zero out much easier.

Quote:

But getting it to work right is very important in my opinion, because it is very frustrating in the field to have to do the drunken bee dance to get to the exact zeroed-out coordinates before the rule fires off (unless that's your intent to do so).

Absolutely!

Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 7:39 pm

thepharmgirl wrote:

Error Reading Cartridge.
System.ApplicationException: Exception of type 'System.ApplicationException' was thrown. at Groundspeak.Wherigo.ZonesEngine.ZonesEngineDll.LuaDoFile(String filename) at ZonesAuthor.LuaFunctions.ReadLuaCartridge(String luaFileName) at ZonesAuthor.frmMain.OpenCartridgeFile()

Corrupted cartridge.

After having experienced this multiple times and almost on everyone of my cartridges I have learned how to go through the code line by line to see if I can fix it. Starting from scratch is NO fun. Done that too many times. No more!