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I’ve always felt there should be consideration for the mobility impaired as has The Beast and others of our group. There are a few facets to the idea of handicaching. For example, do not assume that it always entails a wheelchair or such device. It could be someone who can get around but is limited to distance. For example, someone who has heart or lung problems or in my case, recent foot surgery. If I had say, a Segway scooter, I could travel most trails for miles and have enough stamina to walk off trail, over logs and such to find a cache. So, there is a variety of people who can walk short distances, those that need short distances, those that need level ground that is free from obstructions and variations of all of this.
I don’t expect everyone to get on this wagon, but a few people who might have existing caches that could meet some of this criteria might consider adding the HTML code to their cache page. Some of the prolific cache owners may think about creating one or two for the handicachers. It’s a big world out there!
Steve Bukosky
WaukeshaI applaud you for trying for accuracy. Yes, do the waypoint averaging and if you have WAAS, enable that and then average the waypoint. If you can’t get a good lock, I have sometimes walked to a clearing where I can get a lock and worked the coordinates using compass bearing and distance estimation.
Everyone should strive for a bullseye! I’ve been on caches where the owner seems to be happy just to hit the wall. When I check USAPhotomaps and the coordinates put the cache in water or on the opposite side of a river, fenceline or whatever, the cache owner is guilty of sloppiness. Yes, even with the most carefully created coordinates, you can return another time and they will be many feet off, but they WILL be more accurate and reduce the amount of area a hunter will have to search.
Finally, all this is why a good, usefull hint should be given. Sometimes a well hidden cache is tough to find even with great coordinates. A good hint will reduce damage to the area by reducing hunters overturning rock, wood and other disturbances to the surroundings.
Can’t get to it? Post a note.
Searched for it but couldn’t find it? DNF.If the cache is easy to find once you overcome all the obsticals, such as my Lowe’s Lake #1, posting a DNF if you gave up because of the water could discourage other’s by making them think the cache is hard to find rather than just hard to get to.
Energysaver, if you were trying to find a cache by watching the coordinates change, you definitely did it the hard way! I started with an eMap also and found many caches, always following the arrow and watching the distance count down.
Where reading the coordinate screen can be helpful is when you are very close and the arrow does what we call “the bee dance”. Ken Braband may still have it on his website on how to use the coordinates to triangulate, or in this case, bi-angulate ground zero. As I mentioned in my earlier posts, even at ground zero, you may have to search 3,000 sq ft or so based on coordinate error.
An easier methos is to use a compass. Unfortunately, the eMap does not give a bearing to the cache as many other models do. In those cases, like in my Garmin V and 60c, they have a compass rose and bearing arrow so I know the cache is X feet from me and at a bearing of XXX degrees true or magnitic. I can then use the compass to line up a landmark that I estimate is X feet away, walk to it and retake the distance and bearing.
Another use of this method is when the overgrowth is very dense and you can’t get a good signal lock. By moving out to where you get a good signal, you can take a bearing and distance. Then walk in the woods or brush while estimating the distance, again using a landmark such as a bush, tree or whatever.
I have also used this method when hiding a cache in order to post the most accurate coordinates that I’m able to.
I joined the first hunt that they had. It is tough to get the big prizes because it depend on two things, luck and hard work to get the announcement where the final is and win the foot race to the cache.
I took my time finding one SW of Chicago. It was pretty easy to find yet there were still several prize coupons left for free Magellan baseball caps.
All in all, it was a fun variation from the norm.
What you experienced is called signal desensing or front end overload. (too many breakfast events?) The front end being one of the first amplifying stages of any radio receiver. It is not as selective to radio frequencies as other stages and when in the presence of a very strong radio frequency signal, will weaken the tuned signal to the point of being unusable. AM radio experiences this when driving and you lose the station while driving by another strong AM transmitter. Or on the FM dial, your radio can jump from a weak signal to a stronger signal close to the tuned station. In short, your GPS is a reciever and the radar is a transmitter and a receiver. The signal strength degrades by the square root of the …… blah blah blah. (cut off by Colonel O’Niel)
If Ken isn’t there yet, nobody is! I happen to agree. I’ve tried to refer to the act of finding a geocache as hunting and the whole process as the hunt. I think that stemmed partly from people saying that they found the catch or were going catching.
Much of my pleasure, especially since being holed up in the house since the campout, has been enjoying going on ”the hunt” from my computer via USAPhotomap. Here’s to THE HUNT!
Some silly game where you whack a little white ball and keep on chasing it around until it falls into a hole or you break your whacker around a tree or throw it into a water pond. Greater Milwaukee Open.
I have a new Bearcat BC60XLT that I bought on eBay and wanted to resell it. I wanted it to have the air band and it doesn’t. Otherwise it is new and used as a display demo. The plastic is on the display and the unit is unblemished. All paperwork and box is included. I was stiffed on eBay and have not relisted it. Look the unit up on the internet and see if you are interested. I will sell it for a fraction of the new price.
Steve Bukosky
WaukeshaJust a little addition to that. Other things to keep in mind is that even if you are dead on the coordinates, ground zero I call it, this means that you have a built in error of a 3 feet radius IN ADDITION to the ever present circle of error. What that means is you may have to search as much as a 60 foot radius (almost 3,000sq.ft.) from what your GPS interprets as ground zero.
We invite people making logs to comment on the apparent accuracy of the coordinates. When logging, there is the provision to list the coordinates you found them to be, assuming that they are not giving away things in a multi-cache.
I once read for this area it is six feet. I just did a little test on Mapsource and for lattitude it is six feet and longitude it is five feet for SE Wisconsin.
Very interesting! I have many thoughts about this. First, I’m pleased to see two of my old hidden transmitter hunter friends, in addition to Lee who we hear from too infrequently, have joined our hobby. One of the hunts we went on was very similar to the sensors being described. This was a transmitter buried under some bushes and the antenna was hidden inside of a hollow reed from the area! I was first to find using a signal sniffer that I homebrewed.
I am troubled by people like Clark who believe that the government doesn’t have the right to protect matters of national security. Were Mr. Clark a geocacher, I’m sure he would be upset if his cache were plundered or otherwise publicly identified as to render it open to vandalism.
Mr. Clark seems to be of the vein of people believing that if they can defeat some technology, they have a right to do it. As I type this, the IT people at work have posted this message. “We are being hit by an email virus – WORM_BAGLE.AB…”
I put Mr. Clark in the same category of criminal as virus writers. Nothing wrong with being curious. It depends on how you implement that curiousity.
I’m pleased to see the discussion on this topic. There has been spirited discussion about this between board members in the past. Your comments certainly are what we look for to help make dicisions on this and that.
I want to use this opportunity to let you know my stance on them. Ideally, I’d like someone to be able to click on any of the past winners and be able to do the hunt. This would eliminate event caches and some short lived specialty caches. Naturally, some will be archived for various reasons from time to time and be unavailable. Collectively, we decided to let things evolve and see where to go in time.
Steve Bukosky
Waukesha$16
Search on eBay. There are lots of the amplified antennas. The one I have for my emap worked nice when I stuck the magnet to the metal button on the top of my cap!
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