Cache series

[Todd300]

After hitting quite a few caches in the WSQ series as well as a few other cache series under different names, I’ve gotten used to it and have my own way of doing it.

Basically, when I’m war driving (i.e. driving and looking for caches within a certain distance, say a quarter of a mile) and I know there are WSQ caches in the area, I sort the cache list on my PDA by GC number.

So when said cache pops up on my GPS, I see the GC number, then refer to my PDA that has the sorted list by GC number and can easily read the description and go from there.

I don’t really see a problem going after caches that are part of a series.

I’ll be war driving a lot more once I get my own Nuvi. Currently, I would set my handheld to find caches roadside within 1200 feet and just drive until I see one pop up on the GPS, but that was hard to do for obvious reasons. So I often had to plan a route in advance for a cache run and that took too much time and it became tedious.

Then Bartrod showed me his Nuvi and how he could cache on the fly with it. I was impressed. I then borrowed my ex-wife’s Nuvi to give it a shot myself when I went to Pike Lake and found a few caches when they popped up on the Nuvi. The Nuvi itself also showed identical names cut off near the end, but it also showed the GC number in full and it was easy for me to refer to that number on my handheld so no problem.

I so can’t wait until I get my own Nuvi. Still searching for deals until I can find one, but that’s another topic.

Back on topic, If owners want to make cache names all the same, fine by me, I can work around it – no problem. I will be doing a series of my own soon as I find certain types of containers that I have in mind.

[Miata]

I just stopped at a Wisconsin Spirit Quest – … cache today on the way back from the cabin. Cachemate has a field of 27 spaces. 24 spaces are used for the name of the series.

The cache was clearly on my GPS and in a Cemetery at St John’s Lutheran Church if I remember right. I had 4 pages of them to wade through. I found it tonight under “Wisconsin Spirit Quest – S…” (one of 8 or 9 just like it).

I have as many WSQ caches in that packet and almost every one makes some sense. I will not avoid these caches as I find many of them to be very enjoyable.

[Miata]

I just read Tood300’s answer about adding the waypoint to the name, and that looks better but i don’t have the GC numbers in the waypoint info yet. I think I can do that with a macro to add it to the notes field.

[Team Deejay]

Miata,

You might not have noticed, but the newer versions of GSAK include a way to “force” substitution of common phrases with abbreviations when computing the smart names for the cache. (Smart names are unique identifiers for each cache in your database, so they can be used instead of the GC Code, for anyone not using them.) From the main menu, select Tools | Options. On the dialog box, you set the conversions in box marked “Conversions” (go figure!) and enter them in the format “Long text=abbreviation” separated by semicolons. Here is a link to a picture. With these settings, a cache named “Wisconsin Spirit Quest – St. Mary’s Cemetery” has the smart name of WSQStMarysCeme if you use 14 character smartnames.

If you really want to go whole hog, you can use a macro to change all occurrences of repetitive text in the NAMES in the database. Here is a link to a macro file which does exactly that. Link to text replacing macro.

Just save this file to the macro directory (or anywhere you like, really), and then run it using Macro | Run from the main menu. The macro will prompt you for the long text, the abbreviation, and then do the replacements. Note that if you then reload the gpx file, the names will be changed back (unless you lock those changed records, which is NOT recommended). Some suggestions for replacement would be “One Degree of Separation”, “Another Walk In The Park”, “Wisconsin Spirit Quest”, etc. Anything so long that it makes it difficult to go paperless. For you techies out there, this program also accepts regular expressions in the long text entry, so for example, you could say “One Degree of Sep[ae]ration” to take care of those who don’t know how to spell.

[Miata]

Thanks Team Deejay! I just updated to GSAK version 7 a couple of weeks ago after Clyde helped me out with Windows Vista compatibility problems with the older version……and didn’t know about converting phrases. I currently screen out the non letter type things.

I figured there must have been some sort of a macro to do the same type of thing and I will look into the link you have provided. I never cared so much how the smart names came out, but I can see how this would make things a lot nicer. I have my smart names limited at 6 letters due to the limitations of my GPSIII and GPSV, but now that I have the GPSmap 60CSx I could probably go higher.

I am guessing that a macro to “rename” the actual cache names is what it will take to clean up Cachemate. Note: This macro renamed all of the caches perfectly and will make Cachemate a dream now! PERFECT!

Anyone know off the top of their heads how long the waypoint names can be in the GPSmap 60CSx? Note: I fired up my GPS and answered my question…it is 14! Much better too!

Thanks again!! 😀

[Miata]

I think I found another macro that will make things permanent. you say that it is not a good thing to lock names in GSAK, but perhaps this would save me from running the macro a lot? What problems would this create and could they be easily reversed? I delete the old database every time I reload a fresh PQ.
ShortenSeriesName.gsk

I thought about editing the macro you showed me to do what I want without having to reenter the long and short names each time, but I couldn’t figure a simple edit. For now it is fantastic!

[Team Deejay]

The guts of that macro are the same as mine, although it has forms and all that fancy stuff. The one difference is that it locks records after you run it. The effect of locking a record is to prevent a pocket query from updating the cache record (except for new logs). This means that if you load a new pocket query on top of the old database (I do this because I like to keep a lot of logs), those locked records will not change. If someone moved the cache, changed the description, name or hint, it would not update. On the other hand, if you are deleting everything before you load, you will have to rerun the macro again in either case. Once you delete all the records, there is nothing left to “lock”. If the records are deleted, GSAK cannot “remember” that you changed the name and locked it.

If you want to modify my short macro to lock the records after changing them (not really needed, given your process) you replace:

$d_name = regexreplace(Long,$d_Name,Short)

with

$Found = RegEx(Long,$d_Name)
$d_name = regexreplace(Long,$d_Name,Short)
if $Found
$d_lock=true
Endif

The first line searches the name for the “long” string and sets $found to true if it find it. The third through fifth lines just set the lock flag.

[Crow-T-Robot]

As long as this is about cache series, I have a question. I was looking at the A Honey of a Cache http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=329753 series. I’ve found some of the caches needed (but never wrote down the codes 🙁 , so the ones I can, I’ll have to revisit), but one of the cache owners listed as having a honey cache is Taxman. I did a search using that name and came up with nothing. I tried Tax-man, Tax_man, -Taxman-, …still nothing. It seems this Taxman doesn’t exist 😯 Is there a special way to spell the name that I’m missing?

Also, I know that Bit O’Honey was archived. Having not written down the codes, I don’t know if the cache can be found without these missing numbers/letters and if not, will there be another cache placed or used to get those codes back in circulation?

Bruce

[Crow-T-Robot]

Well, doing a search for caches with the name “Honey” in them netted me the cache I needed, hidden by Taxman1. Seems so simple now 😯

Bruce

[Miata]

@Bassanio wrote:

Well, doing a search for caches with the name “Honey” in them netted me the cache I needed, hidden by Taxman1. Seems so simple now 😯

Bruce

There is also a bookmark list of all of the caches one the main page and mine for sure, at least I remember making one…. 😕

[Crow-T-Robot]

@Miata wrote:

@Bassanio wrote:

Well, doing a search for caches with the name “Honey” in them netted me the cache I needed, hidden by Taxman1. Seems so simple now 😯

Bruce

There is also a bookmark list of all of the caches one the main page and mine for sure, at least I remember making one…. 😕

Ah yes, there are bookmarks on the page. Sort of sticks out like a sore thumb now. Thanks for the info, Miata.

Bruce

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