Geocaching

When you break 1000 finds, it is traditional for someone to throw you a party (event cache) where other cachers will come and celebrate with you. You generally have them at a restaurant and everyone orders their own food. My wife is getting the cake, and sabidoo was responsible for setting up the cache page. The event is set for May 7 here in my quiet little town.

To bad you are a little far, I think I was able to help you with the trees.
You have to know what trees it are?

That sounds like having fun to have an event cache.
And celebrate that with other cachers you know.
A cake with a travelbug on it would be fun.

We go to the beach today and look if we can find some caches there.

The 13 caches your brother has didden were that FTF caches?
All traditional caches?

They were not FTFs. I didn't have time last week to go after them when he posted them up. All of these were micros except for one. However, most of them were great hides and worth doing.

After a long walk through the dunes we really have found the cache.
This caches was a traditional.

Do you have the same that now the trees are having leaves receiving signals from the GPS is not always good?
We were really having problems today.
That's why we only have found one.

As long as there's cellphone reception, there's a GPS for me.

While that is true, DBF, cell phones do not give you a true 3-D lock on your position as you are typically receiving your signal from the tower closest you and only a faint signal from two others. You don't have to be near three towers, however, to get phone service. Cell phones will lose their signal sooner than a handheld GPS device. A true GPS will have a 3-D lock from receiving a signal from at least 3 satellites. There are times that I have been able to receive from 11 or 12 satellites at a time. I'll take a GPS over a cell phone anyday.

alldatndensum wrote:

While that is true, DBF, cell phones do not give you a true 3-D lock on your position as you are typically receiving your signal from the tower closest you and only a faint signal from two others. You don't have to be near three towers, however, to get phone service. Cell phones will lose their signal sooner than a handheld GPS device. A true GPS will have a 3-D lock from receiving a signal from at least 3 satellites. There are times that I have been able to receive from 11 or 12 satellites at a time. I'll take a GPS over a cell phone anyday.

You might be right or wrong, but my iPhone 4 has a true GPS chip. You would be astounded by the precision, I believe. I can stand right next to the cache and it's "only" 3 meters off, which, in the big picture, is remarkable.

How much does a full-blown GPS unit ¢o$t?

3 METERS off? I can get my GPS to zero in within a couple of feet. Three meters is well over 10 feet! Is that in a clearing or in deep woods? In a clearing, I can get within inches.

A full blown GPS can be as cheap as $70 or well over $1,000 depending on your price range. The DeLorme I am using now is around the $350 mark.

Finding caches with a phone works okay, but they just suck on hiding caches. Most people discover that someone that hides caches with their phone are sometimes as much as 30 feet off of the real coordinates.

You have an iPhone 4 and have no job? Your parents should be taken out and beaten for their idiocy.

I do have a job, I deliver newspapers, pays over $80/month. Covers my bills, and then some. (I didn't appreciate the comment about my parents, by the way. Yes, they paid for the phone itself, but I could have paid for it myself.)

3 meters is the most far it gets. Most of the time it's far closer.

Remarkable for a small device that has a lot more than GPS in it, though.

My run-in with one cache (my second one) was unfortunate. There were bad coordinates and there was no hint to make it easier.

When the weather gets better I'll take my bike out to find a third cache.

Quote :

Remarkable for a small device that has a lot more than GPS in it, though.

My run-in with one cache (my second one) was unfortunate. There were bad coordinates and there was no hint to make it easier.

No doubt that the Smartphones can do a lot of things. But, they cannot do everything a computer or GPS with more computing power can do. Smartphones, while once just a way to help do business, are now the largest selling GAME SYSTEM in the world according to Steve Jobs himself. They are toys for teens.

I do apologize for coming off so strongly about your parents. It just riles me when I see kids day after day that don't have money they need for basic school supplies but the whole blessed family carries smartphones with all the perks. How people afford phone bills of several hundred dollars a month is beyond me.

danielbandfan wrote:

...... (I didn't appreciate the comment about my parents, by the way. Yes, they paid for the phone itself, but I could have paid for it myself.)

......

For someone who seems to be quick to jab at others, that comment makes you look as if you have pretty thin skin.

I'm of the opinion that any parent that would allow a child anywhere near a cell phone should be hanged. If baby blue is so joined at the hip that mommy can't be more than a speed dial away, then the troll AND THE PARENTS, should be locked away in Siberia or something.

Don't know about socialist Canada, but in the U.S., $80/month will barely get voice service only for a smartphone, especially the over rated iSpy.

No offence to Sabidoo and Alldat, but you don't sound like you have children. Teens who are responsible, have good grades, and do their chores, IMO should be allowed a phone because they are responsible for it. But that's my opinion.

It is good to be socialist in this case, Sabidoo… we have a family plan (3 iPhone 4's) and I pay $50/month for unlimited texting, a shared pool of 500 minutes of calling, and a shared pool of 1GB of data.

Instead of diverting this thread, perhaps we should open a "Cellphones and kids" thread here (and at the CMR).

P.S.

Quote :

For someone who seems to be quick to jab at others, that comment makes you look as if you have pretty thin skin.

Jabs are jabs… they are said with an emoticon to express that it shouldn't be taken seriously. However, I didn't get mad at Alldat, I just didn't appreciate the judgmental comment. (But I do appreciate where Alldat is coming from. I see very irresponsible kids in my class who have expensive phones, all the time.)

My niece is using a BlackBerry app for geocaching. She wasn't able to find a cache with that app.
I think when you use a GPS you can search more tarteged and have the ability to zoom in when you are close to the cache.

danielbandfan wrote:

Quote :

For someone who seems to be quick to jab at others, that comment makes you look as if you have pretty thin skin.

Jabs are jabs… they are said with an emoticon to express that it shouldn't be taken seriously. However, I didn't get mad at Alldat, I just didn't appreciate the judgmental comment. (But I do appreciate where Alldat is coming from. I see very irresponsible kids in my class who have expensive phones, all the time.)

You can call it what you want, I was just telling you what it looks like. And if it looks that way to me, it probably looks that way to others as well.

Also you could be the most intelligent teenager in the world (which you are not btw), but you are going to have a very difficult time having your "opinions" taken with much seriousness by adults old enough to have children your age (fair or not).
Just sayin.

So has any Geocachers been killed lately ?

(referring back to the train incidents for this very dangerous sport)

No. I don't think so.
Met some long horns while we we geocaching.

We won't be meeting any trains here. The CPR has abandoned the lines.

danielbandfan wrote:

We have a family plan (3 iPhone 4's) and I pay $50/month for unlimited texting, a shared pool of 500 minutes of calling, and a shared pool of 1GB of data.

A shared pool of 500 minutes? WOW, I use that much every 2-3 days.

sabidoo wrote:

danielbandfan wrote:

We have a family plan (3 iPhone 4's) and I pay $50/month for unlimited texting, a shared pool of 500 minutes of calling, and a shared pool of 1GB of data.

A shared pool of 500 minutes? WOW, I use that much every 2-3 days.

I'm not very talkative. I'm typative.

But I just found this interesting article on iPhone and GPS.
http://www.macworld.com/article/159528/2011/04/how_iphone_location_works.html

That's what we have figured out danielbandfan.

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

So has any Geocachers been killed lately ?

(referring back to the train incidents for this very dangerous sport)

Not recently. I do know of a guy that broke his leg last year locally. Also, back in the summer, there was a big story of geocachers saving a life when a kid ran out in front of a car. The cachers just happened to walk up, called 911, and were able to give exact coordinates for the LifeFlight chopper.

alldatndensum wrote:

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

So has any Geocachers been killed lately ?

(referring back to the train incidents for this very dangerous sport)

Not recently. I do know of a guy that broke his leg last year locally. Also, back in the summer, there was a big story of geocachers saving a life when a kid ran out in front of a car. The cachers just happened to walk up, called 911, and were able to give exact coordinates for the LifeFlight chopper.

If you follow Geocaching.com on Facebook or Twitter you'll hear a lot of geocaching stories.

Quote :

Not recently. I do know of a guy that broke his leg last year locally. Also, back in the summer, there was a big story of geocachers saving a life when a kid ran out in front of a car. The cachers just happened to walk up, called 911, and were able to give exact coordinates for the LifeFlight chopper.

In all seriousness... that is WAY cool.