[jseymour84]

I use to cache with a smart phone but have since switched to the Oregon 550T and to be honest I haven’t regretted it once. I can use my smart phone to still capture video of our caching runs but other than that the 550 does everything my smart phone did.

I haven’t done whereigo but the 550T has that functionality and I did run through the whereigo tutorial on it and it appears to be a pretty nice setup.

[jseymour84]

Personally I just jot down a quick note in my Garmin and then later that night when I am logging I take the time to think of at least a few sentences – most of the times I will post some pics to.

[jseymour84]

@gotta run wrote:

During the planning for events in 2002, we established this web site as a resource for Wisconsin geocachers. Now, if geocaching.com goes off-line or if Jeremy Irish decides he’s had enough and calls it quits, you still have a way to stay in touch with other Wisconsin geocachers.

Groundspeak does have the market cornered but it is not the only resource for listing caches. There is OpenCaching.com but a quick search for caches in my area brings up zero hits.

Now while it is highly unlikely that the WGA could create a database of Wisconsin caches that would rival the popularity of geocaching.com, especially since Groundspeak has the image of the official curator of the sport, we could probably put more effort into promoting different classes of caches. Maybe a monthly newsletter or something sent out to the members via email that features a top ten list of different classes of caches such as top ten family parks, or top ten outdoor adventures, or top ten park and grabs.

Personally I would love to see some marketing assets that explain more in-depth what geocaching is, what the WGA is, and maybe some more effort in events in other parts of the state. Like I said earlier I am more than willing to do the work if someone is willing to sort of mentor me through my first couple of events and heck I will even put together some educational materials that could be distributed at WGA or geocaching events or placed in brochure racks or on community bulletin boards.

[jseymour84]

First off I didn’t read every single post in detail so forgive my ignorance which is usually heavily on display. I joined the WGA because I want to do the following activities in regards to geocaching:

Organize and conduct geocaching workshops or classes
Work with WDNR representatives to help establish geocaching friendly policies
Meet and greet with other geocachers
Organize and conduct geocaching-related events such as pathtag swaps and other events in the northern portion of the state

My background as a political activist and being actively involved in lobbying legislators and assisting with campaigns give me some experience with the above list, but my problem is that I have no clue how to get started so I joined the WGA hoping that I could be “mentored” as it were into doing the things above.

So far though all I have done is placed caches and found caches – I am completely clueless in the other areas. Just my two cents on what I see the WGA being and the things we could work towards accomplishing.

The short version of my point is that I would like to see the WGA become more active in the non-social aspects of its mission: working with state legislators, advancing the sport through education and public awareness, and organizing more events in other parts of the state for geocachers who may not know about the West Bend Cache Ba$h or may not be able to get down there for it.

[jseymour84]

I don’t think Premium Member vs Regular Member has anything to do with caching etiquette as much as ignorance of the guidelines for etiquette. One thing I would love to do is to put together a one day workshop for people who are interested in caching but not really sure how to go do it.

I become a Premium Member to get access to the Pocket Query feature and the ability to filter out caches that I had already found. For me it wasn’t because I became an expert on etiquette or knew a lot about the game, I just wanted some functionality that I couldn’t get without paying for it.

[jseymour84]

I would think it depends on the language used on the form. For example, the state DNR office provides “notification” form and not a “permission” form for placing caches on state land.

I don’t think it would hurt to give the county parks department a call on Monday if you are able to and ask someone about it.

[jseymour84]

Congrats on hitting 900!

[jseymour84]

I am very new to path tags as well, having just bought a couple from sweetlife. After exchanging emails I learned about the site pathtags.com where you can log the path tags you find and add them to your online collection.

I am sure that others know a lot more about path tags than I do, but this ought to get you a good start to your explorations.

[jseymour84]

Congrats on your first hide! I just did my first hide a week ago and I am now finding myself out hiking around wilderness areas after work snapping photo after photo of potential hiding spots 😀

I guess there are much worse things to be addicted to, right?

[jseymour84]

@Team Deejay wrote:

And, while this particular case is a fairly new hider, there are several very experienced hiders doing virtually the same thing.

With regard to the handicapped issue, there is nothing wrong with “low terrain” or urban caches. The problem lies with boring, residential locations.

Maybe part of the solution is for someone to do an online video or a page here that talks about what makes a good hide and what doesn’t, then when we as members of WGA see another Wisconsin hider hide caches in boring residential areas we can politely direct them to that resource?

As a new hider myself I was fortunate to have most of my initial 20 finds be in wilderness areas so I could see the sport for what is was meant to be – a motivator to get people out into parks and wilderness areas that they may never have gone to otherwise.

Heck, if people post enough pointers for good hides in this thread or point me to an already published resource I’ll even make an online video and post it to YouTube – but be warned I do have a face for radio (look me up on youtube if you don’t believe me – same ID as I post under here).

[jseymour84]

@Team Deejay wrote:

Well, to get the geocaches into your GPS, you don’t need anything. Your Oregon acts as an external drive, so just plug it into the computer and copy the GPX file into the proper directory ( GarminGPX ) using the standard Mac file transfer, just like you would copy a file to a thumb drive.

Getting your “field notes” back into the system is even simpler. Just create your field notes in the field while you are caching. When you get back to a computer, plug your unit into the computer (which should again pick it up as an external drive), then point your browser to http://www.geocaching.com/my/uploadfieldnotes.aspx and follow the instructions on the page for Garmin GPS units.

It’s really that easy? I will certainly give that a shot then this weekend when I run out for some geocaches. It satisfies all the basic functionality that I need, as long as I load enough data to support sponteanous caching (or I could use my iPhone to do searches out in the car when I have a signal and then transfer those caches by hand to the garmin as waypoints).

I really like the idea of just downloading a GPX file onto the Garmin. Now does anyone know of a Mac equivalent for GPS Babel? I noticed that when I try to download a search I just get the option for a LOC file but it would be awesome to be able to download a GPX file as well.

[jseymour84]

Is there a way to petition for a cache’s archival? Once reviewers approve it there doesn’t seem to be anything that can be done to “de-list” a cache. I would really hate to see the scenario that CJ describes come to pass but if there are not a lot of quality geocaches being setup and maintained then the reviewers really do not have much of a choice but to publish these “inferior” caches.

The only options I can think of now are A) lobby the reviewers to remove the listing, B) lobby the reviewers to force the CO to modify the description to prove landowner permission, C) setup plenty of quality geocaches on DNR land, parks and other friendly locations so the reviewers have the option to reject lesser quality caches.

I’m working hard on option C, having setup 5 geocaches last week and planning a few more for this weekend. 🙂

[jseymour84]

What bugs me more than residential neighborhood caches are caches placed in the parking lot of a business, and the cache description encouraging cachers to check out the main product that business is marketing.

I put that cache on my ignore list, but not really sure if I should mention it to a reviewer or someone like that because the CO may think he is being clever with a play of on words and its not really a commercial cache, but to me it feels hugely commercial.

[jseymour84]

So I have been playing with my new Oregon 550t and I have some questions and hoping someone can help me out. The camera is awesome and takes great pictures, and the geocaching part is pretty good too. After getting the browser plugin installed I am able to load data onto the GPS one geocache at a time via the download to gps link.

I tried using Maccaching but it doesn’t want to talk to my Oregon 550t. Otherwise I loved the fact that I could import my pocket queries into the software.

Does anyone have any recommendations on any other software titles to try? Doesn’t matter if it is Mac or Windows at this point. Basic functionality that I am looking for is to download pocket queries and send all that data to the Oregon 550t and then synchronize it back to the app and to geocaching.com after finding the caches.[/list]

[jseymour84]

Well I pretty much had my decision made for me on this issue today…

My wife and I took a day trip down to Oconomowoc to visit her niece’s grave and on the way back up we stopped by the Cabela’s. Of course we made our way back to the Bargain Den first and my eagle-eyed wife happened to spot a Garmin Oregon 550t. She got really excited which made me cringe inside as I would have to tell her that we didn’t really have the money for the 550t because according to my research it was a $600 item.

Then she told me the price… $390.00. Of course that got me excited because we did have that kind of cash on hand. I had the guy take it out of the box so we could check it out and everything was still factory packed, even the factory tape was in place.

Needless to say I walked out of that store clutching my new toy tightly to my chest.

[Author]

Posts