Sunday 22 February 2015

Snakes on a Geocache Trail - OBGCP61


Contact the show..

www.ohbeep.com/contact

or

feedback@ohbeep.com

This Week..

Doctor D tackles the issue of snakes on a trail

A listener from Perth tells us about his nemesis Geocache in Southern England

Has Shortyknits out dumbed Scott Berks in Dumb Stuff Geocachers Do?

Another bomb alert from the US

Edwardian Geocaching?

Want to win a copy of How to Puzzle Cache by Cully Long?  We let you know how.

Last Week..

GC46G5M Church Micro 3773 ~ Durham ~ St Mary the Less by Just-Us-Two.  A lovely little church tucked in behind Durham Cathedral.

GC2EJ55 RNLI Series - Sunderland Lifeboat by David-Joanne-Hannah.  Great location.  Some interesting sculptures to spend time appreciating (check out the photos at ohbeep.com/gallery).  BUT, seems there has been zero cache maintenance.

GC3JYHG Sewage Works View (DUSCW) by dgk.  For the third year in a row, we failed to find it.  It was a bit ripe smelling in the area too.  But we did see some wild deer running through the woods, which made the tripe worthwhile.

Nemesis Geocaches..

From Chris..

G’day Mark and Sam

I have a couple of caches that I have been unable to find but one of my most frustrating is one over there in Southern England.

It is GC17KR8, Trapezia Lick. I have been there a number of times while I have been staying there and always came away without the smiley. I would say I have searched under every tree and bush within 30 metres of GZ, fought the nettles and the brambles all without success. With such a good clue I thought this one would be an easy one.

It is good to see that people are still finding it and I will definitely give it another go next time I am over.

I am lucky that the journey I take to this one is quite a pleasant one. I go for a run in the mornings and running up to this cache along the disused rail track from Fareham is an experience a bit different from my  morning runs around Perth but isn’t that what makes caching fun.

Cheers

Keep up the good work.

Chris Gore

Dumb Stuff Geocachers Do..

From Shortyknits..

A couple years ago, over Memorial Day weekend in May 2013, Scott and I decided to go to Wisconsin for the weekend to do part of the 400 State Trail. http://www.400statetrail.org/  No, we didn’t drive the car on the trail, but in retrospect maybe we should have! The trail is an old abandoned railroad that the state turned into a recreational trail for biking and hiking and snowmobiles and horseback riding, and there are a few hundred caches along the main trail and all of its spurs. It’s about 3 hours from where we live in the Chicagoland area, but fortunately it’s only about a half an hour from where my sister lives. And more fortunately, my sister has a rental house that just happened to be between tenants that we could stay in. And even more fortunately, she had an extra vehicle with a bike rack so we could set up a getaway car at the end of the trail.

We get off to a bit of a late start Saturday morning, mostly because we had been out night caching until about 2 or 3 in the morning the night before. But we get up and load everything in the two cars and drive to our planned ending place where we drop off my sister’s car. We drive all the way back to the start of the trail in my car, unload the bikes, get our trail passes, and head out. It took us a couple hours of driving back and forth to set up the cars, and it’s close to noon by this time, which is a few hours later than we had planned to get started.

Even so, we had a great time on the trail. The weather was perfect, and we found most of the caches along the way. Back then, I was still a relatively new cacher. I hit find #1300 on the trail, and this was my first triple digit day. We found a total of 114 between the trail itself and the towns along the way. It couldn’t be a more perfect day …

UNTIL…..

We get about 13 miles in, just a miles away from the town where we parked the 2nd car. It’s getting to be evening by now, and I’m thinking that we had actually timed it just about right, and that we’d get to the end just as the sun was setting. So I’m riding along heading to the next cache, when suddenly I have the most terrible, horrible, worst ever thought. I skid to a stop and say … Ooooohhhhhhhh beeeeeeeeeppppppp!!!! Scott pulls up next to me to ask me what’s up. All I could say was, “please don’t kill me!” Eventually I reluctantly told him what I did – I left the keys in the car.

That’s right. The key to the car that’s a mile in front of us is in the car that’s 13 miles behind us. And we’re tired. And it’s almost dark. I had no choice but to call my sister. I explain to her our situation and ask her to bring me a spare key. Well there’s another problem – there’s no spare key. The only key she had to that car was the one locked in my car. She was not too happy about it, but big sisters have no choice but to come to the rescue of the little sister. It took over an hour for her to get to where we were, during which time we found the only bar in the tiny town for a few beers. When she finally got there, we locked up the bikes and she drove us all the way back to the start of the trail so that we could get my car and drive all the way back to the end of the trail to pick up the bikes and the getaway car.

We had a good plan gone all wrong. So I hope that if you or any of your listeners are ever planning to do a bike trail like this and plan on setting up a couple of cars, they’ll think of me and REMEMBER THE STUPID KEY!

News..

The Silent Child has had a name change, he's now The Silent Searcher.

Edwardian Geocaching

Dumb stuff muggles do - a pine tree bomb alert

News from Geocaching.com..

Changes to event caches:

Beginning February 18, 2015, minimum durations will go into effect for Event Caches, CITO Events and Mega-Events.

  • Event Caches will now be a minimum of 30 minutes.
  • Cache In Trash Out Events (CITO) will now be a minimum of 1 hour.
  • Mega-Events will now be a minimum of 4 hours.

PI Day souveniers..

We’re celebrating this year’s Pi Day with two new souvenirs. The first souvenir is inspired by the groups of people creating Pi Day Event Caches. Just attend an event, including CITO or a Mega-Event on Pi Day and you’ll earn this souvenir.

The second souvenir celebrates the mystery of pi - to earn it, log a “Found It” on a Mystery Cache on March 14.

Feedback..

From Redbeard4570..

Lets talk travel bugs. I think your idea about portal or worm holes for trading travel bugs is an excellent idea. Please keep us all updated on progress. I will put it to use. I have two travel bugs that have been logging miles and visits all over the world. TB4JB39, Dog Tag "BATMAN", has been dropped in GC3NTHV which is located in Colombia, South America. On its way from the USA it also visited three caches in Mexico, one each in Costa Rica and Panama before being dropped. This makes it my first travel bug to travel in North, Central and South America and visit more than two countries. Thank you to geocacher Sludge_Shoveler for taking my travel bug on vacation with him.  TB4JAZ9 has been visiting caches and logging miles in over parts of the world. After touring the Midwest section of the USA it was dropped off in Hawaii. Of all places to be dropped off. Really. Bummer. An awesome geocacher, Scottish Cavalryman, grabbed it and has had it touring the islands and other great places. So far this includes South Korea, Philippines and Thailand. Here is the fun part. Both of the travel bugs are proxy tags. Neither of the original tags logged many mile. One logged ZERO!!! That is correct, ZERO!!! It never made it past the first cache I dropped it off at. I will give details of how I made the proxy tags in the future. Cache on!

Redbeard4570

Travelbug Race..

Ask Doctor D..

Audio from CraigsOutside

GGH Tips..

Many GSAK Users are running out-of-date versions of the app. Only the last major release is available from the website with the incremental releases through the app itself. Make sure you're using the latest version picking "Check for newer version of GSAK" from "Tools" to keep your version updated.  cacheamaniacs.com/ggh-160-gsak-ii

GeoPauls Video Of The Week..

Free Little Library Muilti (GCNW) by GeoBadging..

Check out GeoPauls Youtube channel HERE

 

 

 

Ey Up Me Duck Challenge..

Listener Ey Up Me Duck will be setting us a challenger each month throughout 2015.  The current challenge is:

As Feb is the month of love and as some people declare their love for each in church, your challenge for this month is to find 5 Church Micros.

We’ve decided to extend these challenges to our listeners.  So, let us know how you’ve got on with this challenge.  As an incentive, at the end of the month we will put all the names, of those who have taken part, in to a random draw to win a prize.

So far we have two names in the hat

Trevorskil and Tony Liddell (well Tony needs to get us his proof ;))


Check out this episode!

Sunday 8 February 2015

Geocaching Over Little Bridges - OBGCP60


Contact the show..

www.ohbeep.com/contact

or

feedback@ohbeep.com

This Week..

What is the Little Bridges series?

There is a new Geocaching related podcast on the block.

Doctor D gives his opinion on cache maintenance.

GeoPaul is back.

We announce the GeoFleaz.com competition winner.

Last Week..

Caches found this morning

GC5KE1M Little Bridges #414 - Diseworth by Team-Triplet

GC5KE74 Little Bridges #417 - Wartoft Grange by Team-Triplet

GC5KEA7 Little Bridges #418 - Thistle View by Team-Triplet

GC4R27R Barn Stormer by snotpants

The Little Bridges series was started by Stanthews in 2009 to highlight small footbridges in remote parts of Wiltshire. Since then the series has been expanded by others all over the country and starting to spread fast, Damian from Winter Foxes has created and updates a list of cachers who has found 10 or more little bridges and can be found at legresley.me.uk/LittleBridges. if you would like to add to the series, please contact Stan on his Geocaching.com page stanthews and he will give you a number for your bridge, to qualify, the bridge must be a foot bridge too small for vehicles, please make sure your title exactly matches “Little Bridges # xx then name” including spaces so it will get picked up and added to Damian’s list.

We dialed in to The UK Geocaching Podcasts live hangout, whilst we were out Geocaching.

Congrats to HHH and Wife Amy on hitting 100 shows of the GeoSnippits Reboot Podcast

News..

Geocaching.com have announced the dates for CITO Weekend, they are April 25th and 26th - check out the official Geocaching.com BLOG for more information.

Newcomer to the Dutch Geocaching podcast scene Geocacheradio.eu, hosted by GeoGilian and DeMecheleirs.

New National Trust website ntlandmap.org.uk

Its main component is ‘Land History’ which covers the buildings, countryside and coastline we own, each with a short history of why we acquired them, including dates, details, scale, how it was funded, by whom and the important designations or listings.

Whether you are curious about your nearest National Trust place, want to research ownership of an area or get a visual picture of it, or find out a bit more about somewhere you plan to visit, there’s a lot to discover.

Feedback..

From Redbeard4570..

Greetings again from the American mid west. Have not gotten in a lot of caching due to the weather. It has either been Arctic cold or spring time temps. I am not into caching in wind chills below 0 degrees F.

 

I want to thank Dave Debaeremaeker for his comment on the joys of a road trip in the USA or Canada. (cue Dr. D for his trade mark statement when the name of the country Canada is spoken) Sadly, your fine and great country is lacking in size to have the option of experiencing this wonderful event. That said, this gives you yet another reason to cross the pond and visit. I do one question or correction, depending of your point of view, for Dave Debaeremaeker. I am not aware of any highways in the USA that do not have a posted speed limit. Montana did, for a short time, have the interstate highways listed as "reasonable and prudent". Sadly the law makers and enforcement officers did not believe that speeds over 100 MPH were either. So they posted a speed limit. Interstate speeds range from 55-75. Speeds are set by the states. Texas has a few highways posted at 85 MPH. Being a truck driver since 1986 I have been in 47 states and experienced all the speeds listed above.

 

Keep up the excellent work on this fine podcast.

 

One last item. What do you and your listeners think  about changing "dumb things geocachers do" to "things Dr. D might do".

Nemesis Geocaches..

GC49Y2V SB3W-04 by Team-Triplet and Cerises

Dumb Stuff Geocachers Do..

From Collin French..

So, I was out last night, cheeky spot of caching. Had the gps with me, phone is in the car. It's about midnight. Got to GZ, couldn't make the hint make any sense so started looking at the logs. We had been here about 15 minutes. Checked a couple more places and my buddy called it and we headed back to the car. Grabbed my phone and looked and the cache had been disabled sine 31 December! I have my PQ set to ignore disabled and the gps to filter them so I have no idea how we ended up hunting a disabled cache, at midnight, in a town at zero degrees C...

Ask Doctor D..

From Yorkshire Yellow..

Dear Dr D,
 
 
What’s your opinion on maintaining another cacher’s cache?
 
 
We've all seen it when we’re out caching.  It may be a full log roll or a wet cache, it might be soggy and manky contents, or a damaged container.   Should we maintain the cache?  If so, how far should we go?   If we do carry out maintenance for a CO, are we encouraging lazy cache ownership?  I’d be interested to hear you expert opinion.
 
 
Love,
 
 
Yorkshire Yellow
Yorkshire Yellows View..
My view on this is that I’ll carry out basic maintenance if the cacher is a regular one, someone who’s known to me, or someone who is clearly usually what I'd consider to be a responsible CO, as they might just be too busy to attend to maintenance and quickly as they might like to.
 
If I am planning a walk to attempt a series and see something that looks like it might need maintenance, I’ll drop a quick message to the CO. I've sometimes asked them if I can do any minor maintenance for them, even if it’s not clear from any of the cache pages if any maintenance is actually needed.
 
What I won’t do is carry out maintenance, or offer to in advance to, for any low numbers hiders (as they should be able to do this themselves quite easily), people who aren't that active in the game any more or haven't logged on to the website in a long while.
 
I will definitely not carry out maintenance on behalf of the small number of what I’d call “serial non-maintainers”. For example, in my part of the world there was someone a while back who was an active cacher and reasonably regular hider, but they never seemed to maintain their existing caches, and either left them to be disabled by a review or disabled them themselves if there was a pattern of DNF and/or ‘Needs maintenance’ logs.

GGH Tips..

A terrific option for backup power in your cachebag are Lithium AA, AAA, C, or D batteries (provided you have a GPSR or flashlight which uses those batteries of course). Lithium batteries last up to 10 years in storage (e.g. the bottom of your geocaching bag) and they last much longer than either similar alkaline or NiHM batteries (as a bonus they also weight less). You'll probably find that it's worth the extra cost for the backups you carry on the trail. Hear more on "GGH 116: Batteries III" and let us know your experience with these lightweight, high-power, disposable batteries.

 

 

 

Travelbug Race..

Oh Beep! Where Are My Other Legs? is still doing the rounds in The Australian Capital Territory.  It is currently in the hands of cacher SiteHound and was last dipped in the cache Chemical Fore!mulae (GC10EP7).

Southern S@m - Last seen in Cache Der Romer (GC1JAJK), but has now been reported as missing

GeoPauls Video of the Week..

Geocaching Around Vancouver - January 20th 2015 by Mr David Archer

 

 

 

Check out GeoPauls YouTube Channel

Ey Up Me Duck Challenge..

Listener Ey Up Me Duck will be setting us a challenger each month throughout 2015.  The current challenge is:

As Feb is the month of love and as some people declare their love for each in church, your challenge for this month is to find 5 Church Micros.

We've decided to extend these challenges to our listeners.  So, let us know how you've got on with this challenge.  As an incentive, at the end of the month we will put all the names, of those who have taken part, in to a random draw to win a prize.

Competition winner..

The winner of last weeks GeoFleaz.com contest.

What is the tagline printed on every Geoflea?

The answer is Along for the ride.

Winner Paul Weston


Check out this episode!

Sunday 1 February 2015

Dumb Stuff Geocachers DO - OBGCP59


Contact the show

www.ohbeep.com/contact

or

feedback@ohbeep.com

This Week..

A 3 in 1 dumb stuff geocachers do story.

GeoFleaz.com competition.

News on the new advanced search feature from Geocaching.com

Update on Ey Up Me Ducks first Challenge - solve and find two puzzle caches.

GeoGearheads tips on how to get good co-ordinates.

And the obligatory Doctor Who bit (during the outro music)

Last Week..

A bit of cache maintenance on Put a Cork In It (GC51924)

Plus two puzzle cache finds.

Plans also started for the wormhole cache - mentioned by Dave DeBaeremaeker in an earlier episode.

News..

GeoTalk host, Darren (aka SpinDoc Bob), has sadly lost his battle with a severe brain tumour.  Darren’s nephew, Ryan, is raising money for the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation.  Ryan Osborne (Clipping for a cure) donation page.

geocheck.org hacked:

Unfortunately, I have just learned, that Geocheck.org has been hacked. The entire database has been downloaded, including cache solutions and hashed passwords.

 

The passwords are hashed, so they are fairly secure, especially for longer or more complex passwords. However, to be sure, it is recommended for everyone to change their passwords. If you use the same password at Geocaching.com or other sites, I recommend changing them there as well. Additional security surrounding the passwords have been implemented going forward. Further, the vulnerability used to hack the site has been plugged.

 

Samuel AKA iChicken

The new Advanced Search on Geocaching.com is now available to Premium members.  We talked with Jayme, from GC HQ, on show 57 (Changes Coming to Geocaching.com (GC.com HQ Interview Pt 1)) about the new search and how Premium members can help refine it.  If you're looking for a detailed breakdown, we recommend GeoGearHeads episode GGH 160.5 Geocaching.com Advanced Search Preview, or check out the video below:

 

 

 

One for the hardcore map/geo location enthusiasts - Google Earth Pro is now free,

Feedback..

From Dave DeBaeremaeker..

Heya folks

 

Just to address Doctor D's assertion that speed limits are slow in the US based on that Top Gear (UK) episode.  It is not the case.

 

That road they were on: the Blue Ridge Parkway is indeed maxed at 45MPH.  However it is important to note that the Blue Ridge is a narrow windy mountain road, and in a normal reasonably priced car, 45 feels speedy.  Fun fact: that road is a National Park, and runs for hundreds of miles thru many states.  It is also one of my favourite roads to drive on (which I do a lot as it runs relatively close to my house).

 

The speed limit on the road I take up the mountains to the Parkway is 55MPH.  There are plenty of Interstates that do 70MPH on the east coast.  In New Mexico I40 is 75MPH, and some roads in the flat states in the middle of the country do not have speed limits.

 

Cheers

Dave

Nemesis Geocaches..

From Ey Up Me Duck..

Nemesis caches: we only call it a nemesis cache if we have looked for it at least twice & I have just scanned my DNF list and the only ones we have searched for numerous times (including twice with a bunch of Scouts!) are Look out for the Foxes (GC3DF9X) and Devilishly Difficult (GC3FVZW) - both near Colwick Woods. We haven't been to look for a while so think it is about time we went for another look to see if anything looks different.

Dumb Stuff Geocachers Do..

Image of scott geocaching

Scott Berks.  Not one, but three stories of how NOT to travel to a GZ.  Stories include tales of LEO's and being kicked out of a state.

Scott Berks on a footpath photoSecond photo of SB on footpath

 

Ask Doctor D..

From Head Hard Hat..

HHH asks for Advice as to what type of ways to safely attach a Geocache to living items, like a tree

When hiding a cache one thing to remember:

Geocaches are placed so that plant and animal life are safe from both intentional and unintentional harm.

Source Geocaching.com Guidelines

GGH Tips..

Even smartphones can get you good coords for your geocaches if you know how. We talked about it on "GGH 094: Getting Good Coords I" so check that out for much more information. Some quick tips are to make sure the GPSR in the device (smartphone or GPSR) is running at least a couple minutes and stable before checked. Then also get multiple readings, from multiple directions, at different times and average those positions.

How are you getting coords for your caches?

 

 

 

Ey Up Me Duck Challenges..

the ey up me duck geocaching challengesGC3TVA4 Cryptic Series 3 : LIIXLVIDCCXXIVIXIVDCCCLXVIII by Drackvor

This was the better of the two final hides.  Nice location by the water.  Not so sure about the bag of syringes we found.

Site used to help crack this puzzle www.onlineconversion.com

GC3P46Q The Loughborough Cryptic Series 1 by Drackvor

This one was proof that having to solve a puzzle is not a guarantee of a quality cache.  But it did help us fill in another box on our D/T grid.

Sites used to help crack this puzzle sharkysoft.com www.counton.org.

In the end both were solved using tips from the above sites and sitting with pen and paper to work the co-ords out.

Februarys Challenge..

Hi Oh Beep,

 

I see you have been getting on with working out 2 puzzle caches - have you managed to go out and find them yet?

 

February Challenge.

 

As Feb is the month of love and as some people declare their love for each in church, your challenge for this month is to find 5 Church Micros.

 

On Sunday, although we didn't set out to do it, me and The Old Soldier collected 15 Church Micros. I know this is nothing compared to some people who go out and get up to a hundred in a day but it was good for us, especially as we hadn't intended it.

 

Now this should be quite an easy task for Dr D to achieve (unless you have already done them) as there are lots in Beeston area!!!!

 

If others want to try the challenge too and don't have church micros in their area, they can find ones with 'church' in the title.

 

Good Luck Searching

Denise aka Ey Up Me Duck

GeoFleaz Competition..

What is the tagline printed on every Geoflea?

 

 

 

The Obligatory Doctor Who Bit..

I am not sure if you have seen this, but, while not geocaching-related, as a fellow Dr. Who fan, I thought you and Dr.D might enjoy

 

BTW - I started watching back in the Jon Pertwee (#3) era, when there was no CGI and cardboard monsters were the stuff of legend.  Tom Baker is still the best Doctor, sorry Dr. D.

 

I hope to hear Sophie back on the show again soon.

 

GManSan (aka Gerry)

 

P.S.  Dr. D needs to learn the word to the Celebrate song, by Kool and the Gang.  It's "Celebrate good times, come on!"  Not sure what he's saying, but it's not that.

 

 

 


Check out this episode!