Calibrating for a hunt

[sbukoskyParticipant]

What do you all think about offering a known reference point for calibrating for a hunt? What I’m talking about has happened to me several times and again yesterday at “I believe” The first two objects of the coordinates were hard to miss. The cache was almost missed by me if not for walking back to the “UFO” and noting that I was showing the spot to be 35 feet off to the SE. I returned to the cache area and went to 35 feet NW of the coordinates. Three feet away was the cache!

That got me to thinking about including a reference point for my hunts on the cache page. For example, on a nature trail, I would average the coordinates at the pamphlet box at the time that I take coordinates for the cache or any stages to it. Someone going on the hunt could then see what the “error-of-the-day” was and better find ground zero. It wouldn’t assure accuracy but would be an improvement, perhaps.

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Steve Bukosky
Waukesha

[arfferParticipant]

In your example, you indicated that your ‘offset’ was 35 feet to the SE. That amount of error can’t be corrected using a benchmark. Consumer GPSRs are only accurate, under the best of circumstances, to 50 feet. So in most cases once the GPSR says the cache is within 50 feet (assuming we’re not talking WAAS), it can be anywhere from 0 feet to 100 feet away at any compass bearing. Why 100 feet? Because both the hider and the seeker are under the same constraints; each could be off by up to 50 feet.

For all practical purposes, once the GPSR reads under 50 feet, its time to put it away, mark out a 50′ x 50′ boundary, and start hunting. If its not found, then move to a 100′ x 100′ boundary.

Being off by 35 feet is very typical…

[This message has been edited by CacheCows (edited April 07, 2002).]

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