[Team Deejay]

Yes, there is a big difference between signature items (wooden nickels, combs, small compasses) and business cards. In addition to the business cards, you can feel free to remove hotel keys, fake credit cards, advertising and other paper goods, and anything else that is inappropriate or likely to be damaged by weather.

[Team Deejay]

Just some notes on this regarding the guidelines. Geocaching.com considers munzee.com to be a competitor, so you cannot mention the program on your cache page. There is a possibliity you could use these as a multi stage, but you would need to get it preapproved by Groundspeak, because of the required download to your phone. Using it as a logbook is not acceptable. The logbook must be in the cache. Did I miss any suggestions? (Note that a simple QR barcode is fine, even for a field stage. This has been preapproved.)

[Team Deejay]

@CodeJunkie wrote:

I would recommend the following for placing a cache:

1) A real GPS. Phone’s are not very accurate and may actually be way off from the real coordinates.
2) Verify the location of the coordinates by using google or bing maps. These aren’t good for placing either but at least they’ll confirm you’re in the right area.

Smartphones / map only is OK for finding caches, but neither are good for placing the caches.

+1,000,000,000,000!

[Team Deejay]

@-cheeto- wrote:

@Mister Greenthumb wrote:

I can hardly wait to see the forum discussion on the new “front yard” icon. The timing is ironic.

Didn’t really want to go there with this thread but I knew it would be mentioned. Had to be you…. 😛

Well, the attribute will help filter a pocket query. Now we just need a playground attribute and for cache owners to properly use attributes.

It’s nice to see them continually update and turn some of the feedback given into features of the product.

Still no new “virtual” comeback.

I would seriously suggest the playground attribute to Groundspeak. I bet they would do that for the reasons you are implying.

[Team Deejay]

@Muggle B wrote:

the maps are in your stats on geocaching.com, press stats, then click the tab next to milestones that says “maps”

automatically updated!!

Those are “state” maps. She wanted a county map.

[Team Deejay]

Not sure about the Android Market, but in the Apple App store, you can get a refund if the program doesn’t meet expectations.

[Team Deejay]

Welcome back! I must not be smart enough to figure out what you mean by your coordinates, unless we are going by ocean liner!

[Team Deejay]

@uws22 wrote:

figured I should report back for those considering it…

Had an absolute blast. course was the toughest I’ve done ( including cross country courses on ski hills). there were a total of 4 ski runs that you ended going straight up. the obstacles weren’t too bad. if you rush you get yourself in trouble… if you take your time it isn’t a problem.

I finished in 33 minutes. the fastest time of the day was 22 minutes. I checked the results before I left the grounds, and of the two waves (900 runners) I was 111 overall. Didn’t bring a camera because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to stow it anywhere, but when I do the race in September, I’ll definitely have it with. only 55 days or so left until the next one!

Brian, you slacker. Instead of doing the Minnesota race, you should have done this one…Tough Mudder Some of my workout buddies did this over the weekend. They said it was more difficult that running a marathon.

[Team Deejay]

My experience with phone GPS units is that they will generally match the reading on my Garmin………..eventually. If I get to a spot and stop, my Garmin settles down in about 10 seconds. My phone catches up in around 3 minutes. This assumes no tree cover. If you are in the woods (or even around a lot of buildings) the GPS in your phone is going to cut in and out as they are just not designed for this use. Worse, when your phone loses GPS connectivity, it will switch over to cell tower triangulation (probably good to about 500 feet) or, worse, address lookup based on whatever WiFi signal it can detect (basically worthless), without informing the user. This is why we get caches submitted that end up being off by more than 1000 feet. Also, your phone GPS units has algorithms built-in to anticipate where you are going. To see this in action, have someone drive your car while you look at the map function on your phone. Have them drive 40 MPH or so, and the suddenly stop at an intersection. As long as the road continues, you will see the marker on your map keep going, even though you are stopped. Wait long enough and it will “jump back” to where you actually are. This is definitely not the sort of behavior you want when placing a cache.

[Team Deejay]

@Trekkin and Birdin wrote:

Dave, What’s interesting in that rating system is the fact that “less than two miles’ from parking is rated a 2. I’d agree with that as well, if the terrain is otherwise easy movement. Yet, I’ve had complaints from people on something that ends up being a little over a half mile on flat terrain. We rated that a 2. Like becca said….all relative, I guess.

Gwen, I wouldn’t worry too much about terrain complaints. My thoughts are that we should usually err on the high side, only to avoid getting people in over their head. If people want quick numbers runs, they can always run their queries to limit by terrain < 2. When I go with Julie, I always limit terrain to be 2.5 or less, as she is still balking a bit on rough scrambles and such.

[Team Deejay]

Yeah, send it to Garmin if you want it fixed. Odds are, they will send you a completely different refurbished unit back.

[Team Deejay]

I posted this to the reviewer forums, and I will repost it here. It is unfortunate that Groundspeak has chosen to NOT make the terrain ratings specifically defined or part of the guidelines. Here is what the terrain rating mean to me (which seems to basically match up with Clayjar’s old program)

1 = Handicapped accessible to get to the cache site (not necessarily to retrieve it), paved, flat, no obstructions, less than 1/2 mile of “foot” travel…parking lots, paved bike trails, sidewalks (and yes, I think the Handicaching system is far superior, but we can only do what we can do…)

1.5 = crushed limestone trails, lawns, packed gravel trails, less than 1 mile from parking, no major obstructions or elevation changes

2 = regular trails (dirt) to within a few feet of the cache, less than 2 miles from parking, obstructions and elevation changes are completely ok here

2.5 = like 2, but with a bit of bushwacking/rock hopping/desert crossing near the cache

3 = rough trails, lots of obstructions, significant bushwacking/rock hopping/desert crossing, trails can be any distance

3.5 = like 3, but with major bushwacking/rock hopping/desert crossing, minor bouldering/rock climbing/tree climbing involved, generally climbs will be less than 10 feet off the ground

4 = like 3 but with significant bouldering/rock climbing/tree climbing/wading/swimming. Climbs might reach 30 feet.

4.5 = like 3 but with major amounts of bouldering, rock climbing (free only), tree climbing, wading or swimming. Generally a 4.5 cache will indicate some level of danger to life and limb.

5 = Boats, SCUBA, Climbing gear, or other special equipment. Again, deep water/high climbs will imply a level of danger with finding cache in this terrain rating.

Of course, this is just my opinion, but I just wish there was some sort of universal guidance for people to use.

[Team Deejay]

@labrat_wr wrote:

@sweetlife wrote:

Is there a way yet where you can search by favorite points?

on the search for geocaches page, you can search by favorite points, D and T ratings, and direction.
it does take like a 50 mile radius on the search so if you want to see favorites nearby, you could limit it with a PQ

I read this and went “How did I miss this?” After looking at the page, I believe Pete means that you can sort your list by favorite points (or terrain or difficulty) by clicking on the column header (in the case of favorites, on the blue ribbon). I do believe this is a PMO feature.

Virtually everyone thinks that the Favorites rating will end up in the GPX file (and thus handled by GSAK) soon, but that has not yet been announced.

[Team Deejay]

I really think the biggest issue has been the implementation of the Favorites issue on gc.com. As much as I liked the COTM, this seems to be a better way of identifying great caches. There is still a popularity aspect to this, but every cache I have found with 10 or more favorite votes has been a winner in my opinion.

[Team Deejay]

Actually there really are no “guidelines” for terrain (or difficulty) ratings. I really, really wish there were (as a player), but as a reviewer, I have no idea how we could actually enforce such guidelines. I suppose, back in the day, reviewers could be expected to visit most of the caches they had approved, but obviously this is no longer possible.

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