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Well, I know the Hayward Zip code.(54843) has always been screwed up for whatever reason. When you google it or punch it in the center pojnt is about 6 miles east of Hayward. Wnr I punched 54843 into Geocaching.com, it said the closest cache was about 20 east of Hayward.
Hmmm, 53167 looks to be right. In fact, it appears to center right on the post office.
53910 (Adams): 4 miles south of town, but that’s where the zip code is centered, and it’s always shown up that way.
53934 (Friendship): shows up across the river in Juneau County, about 13 miles from the center of Friendship.
53948 (Mauston): always used to show up in town, now is a few miles SE outside of town.
54494 (Wi. Rapids): Always used to show up near the center of town, now shows up SE of Lake Wazeecha, WAY far from the center of town.
54981 (Waupaca): always showed up in town, now shows up about 4 miles south of town.
The caches shown for the 54153 zip code (Oconto) appear to be from the 54101 zip code which is Abrams…about 15 miles SW. All of them in this area are off…some are way off 😯
Oconto...the birthplace of western civilization:)
I haven’t usually used the zip to create our PQs, so I’m not sure what would be “normal.” Our town’s zip code (54669) shows the center to be about a half mile west of the post office. I thought the post office location was the focal point, and there are caches closer to that than what shows at the top of the list.
maybe it was just a huge shift of the techtonic plates that has caused the zip code coords to be off…
hasn’t even gotten a comment from anyone in the GC forums after bartrod posted there, twice.
maybe it is just us…..
Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.
From what I understand, the maps are not set on the PO, but set to the geographical center of the zip area. If the shift stays I wonder if lighthouse nuts are going to have to move all of their caches?? they are no longer at the Top Spots.
@sweetlife wrote:
From what I understand, the maps are not set on the PO, but set to the geographical center of the zip area. If the shift stays I wonder if lighthouse nuts are going to have to move all of their caches?? they are no longer at the Top Spots.
Looks like you are right! Checked the Waupaca ZIP sandlanders cited above, and see that the shift appears to be due to the source of the maps, Google. So punching in the ZIP 54981 now puts it in or near an old, leaking dump south of town. So, perhaps as Google continues to consolidate its power and execute its master plan for world domination, gonna need to move some of those top spots, and add a few new attributes. 😈
We also noticed when searching at our zip of 54566 the closest cache listed is one approximately 6 miles to the southwest rather than the ones closest to the town that the zip code represents.
Checked with Groundspeak…no reply…but noticed that another cacher in AL/Georgia area expressed the same concern 😕
Oconto...the birthplace of western civilization:)
This has happened in the past. I believe Groundspeak gets a zipcode/coordinates database from a 3rd party source (probably purchased) and they most likely updated this data during the recent site upgrade. I can say that I have seen this come up in the Groundspeak forums more than once in the past after a site update.
As far as relying on this to be “accurate” data, I wouldn’t.
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