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Seattle Geocacher seeking advice for first hide


erik.braziunas

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I'm looking to hide a few geocaches. I already have done most of the work regarding designing and hiding them now I just need to go through the process of activating them. I'm having a little difficulty however in two areas.

 

First, I don't really understand who to go to in my area to ask for permission to hide a cache. All the caches I'm interested in hiding are on public land. Most are urban caches. One is on a bridge, one is on a railing on the sidewalk near a parking lot, and one is on a parking sign on the sidewalk. Who do I contact about these? I live in Seattle, more specifically the area I am hiding them in is between the Central District and Capitol Hill. I have tried emailing two reviewers of caches nearby but have not heard back yet.

 

Second, I am using my cell phone and the app radar for all my geocaching finds. I don't really have any desire to go out and buy a handheld gps. I currently am averaging the waypoints I get from my cell phone over a period of days to determine the cache location. Will this be an acceptable way of determining the location of the cache that I can post for others or do I need a more serious GPS unit?

 

Thanks,

 

Erik

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Hi, I wrote this reply then found the post was moved!

 

Hello Erik,

A warm welcome to the UK & Ireland Geocaching forum, seems like you've wandered a little bit off course. Looking at your finds I'd say the Washington area North West USA is the place to ask your questions :- http://www.geocachin...spx?state_id=48

 

For the second question I'm sure you have local to you caching groups, try this search in Google :- "Washington USA local geocaching groups". You may be able to team up (I think Americans call it Buddying) with a cacher near you who has a proper GPS.

 

Regards

Bernard

Norfolk

UK

Edited by BCNorwich
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I'd venture to say that the overwhelming majority of geocaches are placed without specific permission. There's a little philosophy within Geocaching known as the "Frisbee rule", which says that anywhere that you wouldn't have to ask permission to play Frisbee (or any other legal pastime) should be OK for Geocaching as well. Obviously that's not an official rule, but it gives you a way of looking at it.

 

To your second question, I'll say that it is nowadays quite acceptable to obtain coordinates for your hide with a smart phone. When location services first became available on phones, they usually used cell tower triangulation to determinine your location. Those devices were usually quite inaccurate....good enough to get you to Starbucks but not nearly accurate enough for Geocaching. However, most if not all smartphones today have a actual GPS chip installed, and their accuracy rivals that of a handheld GPS. So the old adminiton to never hide a Geocache with a smartphone just doesn't hold true any longer.

 

Accuracy in hide coordinates is more a result of the care and attention taken by the hider and less about the device. You already understand the concept of waypoint averaging and obtaining several readings at different times, so you're already miles ahead of many new hiders. Do a search in your device's App Store for "waypoint averaging" and you'll likely find an app that will do the averaging for you.

 

In Seattle, the only problem you'll probably have is finding a free space to hide one.....Seattle is pretty heavily cache-saturated.

Edited by Chief301
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