Geocaching and Amateur Radio Field Day

[emtgregg]

From what I understand, I can not place a cache in conjunction with the annual Amateur Radio Field Day event the full weekend in June. I know that many geocachers would be interesting in learning about amateur radio. Many of our members and organizers are geocachers ourselves and would love to have other geocachers come join us at our event that weekend. Last year there was actually a geocache party at the group area next to our field day campsite. I would love to publish our location as a virtual cache for others to find us and come join in the fun. Is there somewhere that I can publish this to make it a valid virtual cache?

[Wis Kid]

The answer to the question you asked is that virtual caches are no longer allowed on geocaching.com. The answer to the question you were trying to ask is, if you want to post an event cache, it must be an event that will stand on its own, not part of another event. So, if you want to host a meet and greet at a nearby restaurant and suggest that after the meeting people might want to check out the nearby radio exhibit, that would be ok, assuming you are a geocacher and people don’t HAVE to go to the radio exhibit to log the event. You will have to be very careful as to how you word all this, due to restrictions on commercialism, solicitations, promotions, and agendas on cache listings. If you want to make this event a promotion for the event, you will need to get this approved by Groundspeak in advance of listing the cache. Send an email to [email protected] to ask for permission. I wouldn’t expect a positive answer, but it can’t hurt to ask.

[RSplash40]

Yes, there are a lot of ham’s that are cachers as well…some of us are working on getting their license too 😉

[GeoPink]

Better yet…

You can go ahead and plan a geocaching type get-together at this event, and list it on our very own website!

If you’ve got a geocaching related event you are free to click on “Events” at the left of this page. Then go to the “Submit Event” Tab and type in the details. If everything is in order, and it is significantly geocaching related, I’m sure we would allow it to be listed here (though I can’t guarantee anything).

These forums are another great place to plan and announce events. For several years now the Rock Island Getaway has been planned in these forums.

[GrouseTales]

Quote from the guidelines:

Event caches are gatherings that are open to all geocachers and which are organized by geocachers. While a music concert, a garage sale, an organized sporting event, a ham radio field day or a town’s fireworks display might be of interest to a large percentage of geocachers, such events are not suitable for submission as event caches because the organizers and the primary attendees are not geocachers. In addition, an event cache should not be set up for the sole purpose of drawing together cachers for an organized hunt of another cache or caches. Such group hunts are best organized using the forums or an email distribution list.

As mentioned above, geocaching.com got rid of virtual caches years ago. It also does not fit the bill as an event cache, as the above guideline indicates.

You could publish the info in these forums and see if members would like to come see your field day site. Another option could be to place a permanant cache nearby, and have it published before Saturday. In this option, you need to conform to all the GC.com guidelines, and you would need to maintain it accordingly.

I think your best option is to post an invitation in the forums.

Field day is very interesting and a lot of fun. Anyone who visits would have the oportunity talk on the radios to people around the globe. I’d highly recommend it, and the kid will have fun too.

~kc9gmw

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