[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 5 August 2009:

There are 885 TBs and GCs in 631 of the 3521 South African caches. This means that on average 1 in 5.8 caches contains at least one TB or GC, and those that do, have on average 1.4 TBs.

The top two (active) caches are:
GC1B7N5 - Pretoria Hitch Hiker Hotel: 13 TBs and GCs
GC1QECR - Vaal TB Hotel: 13 TBs and GCs

(No other cache contains more than 10 trackables.)

I did a comparison with 3 June 2009 (the earliest date for which I have data):
Of the 880 TBs and GCs:
426 (48%) have moved since then
454 (52%) are still in the same cache
161 (18%) have moved out of the country
166 (19%) are new in the country.

[Carbon Hunter]

Nice stats - will be interesting to see how this number moves up and down. And 160 odd bugs moving in and out the country is a sizable number.

[Danie Viljoen]

Carbon Hunter, on Aug 6 2009, 02:25 PM, said:

Nice stats - will be interesting to see how this number moves up and down. And 160 odd bugs moving in and out the country is a sizable number.

I am surprised to see how high the international movement is - more than a third (38%) of bugs that are grabbed are taken out of the country.

[cincol]

Keep it up Danie - great to see these numbers.

[besem]

I am returning to South Africa in the second week of September. Expect a rise in the number of TBs in the country! (;

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 13 August 2009:

There has been a huge jump in the total number of TBs and GCs this week. There are now 909 TBs and GCs in 655 of the 3527 South African caches. This means that on average 1 in 5.4 caches contains at least one TB or GC, and those that do, have on average 1.4 TBs.

The top two (active) caches are:
GC1QECR - Vaal TB Hotel: 14 TBs and GCs
GC1B7N5 - Pretoria Hitch Hiker Hotel: 11 TBs and GCs

(No other cache contains more than 10 trackables.)

The breakdown for the provinces is as follows:
Western Cape: 250 TBs in 194 of the 835 caches
Gauteng: 235 TBs in 158 of the 784 caches
Natal: 141 TBs in 104 of the 551 caches
Mpumalanga: 83 TBs in 51 of the 387 caches
Eastern Cape: 68 TBs in 56 of the 426 caches
Free State: 43 TBs in 27 of the 150 caches
Limpopo: 39 TBs in 26 of the 210 caches
North West: 31 TBs in 26 of the 131 caches
Northern Cape: 19 TBs in 13 of the 53 caches

Currently the Western Cape has the highest percentage of caches with TBs: 23%, and Limpopo the lowest: 12%.

[cincol]

OK Danie - here is a question [challenge] for you. Is it possible to see how many TB's and GC's are in a particular cacher's possession? In other words, would it be possible to see who "sits" on travellers and does not place them? Just wondering if it would be possible.

[Danie Viljoen]

cincol, on Aug 14 2009, 07:26 PM, said:

OK Danie - here is a question [challenge] for you. Is it possible to see how many TB's and GC's are in a particular cacher's possession? In other words, would it be possible to see who "sits" on travellers and does not place them? Just wondering if it would be possible.

I started to keep snapshots of the South African TB database since the beginning of June. Although I can not think of an easy way to automatically determine who has what, I should be able to trace any specific TB, unless it moves more than once between my snapshots (which are on average spaced at 10 day intervals).

[Marijn_f2@hotmail.co]

Is there a way to download a dataset somewhere of all logs wordwide of positions of the TB's?

[DamhuisClan]

Hi Marijn

By downloading the KML file for a TB / coin, and then parsing it with an XML Parser, you can calculate, the distance travelled, as well as the last cache the TB/coin was in.

But you need to know what the GUID of the TB is before you can download it.

If you need more info, I can help.

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 28 August 2009:

There are now 871 TBs and GCs in 624 of the 3541 South African caches.

The top two (active) caches are:
GC114RH - Cape Town TB Hotel: 17 TBs and GCs
GC1B7N5 - Pretoria Hitch Hiker Hotel: 11 TBs and GCs

(No other cache contains more than 10 trackables.)

[Carbon Hunter]

Wow a good few TB have emigrated this month

Come on ghuys - let's promote SA as a
TB tourist destination.

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 8 September 2009:

The downward trend continues: There are now 847 TBs and GCs in 589 of the 3627 South African caches. (This is 62 TBs less than the peak 4 weeks ago.)

The top three (active) caches are:
GC1RN78 - Ki-Deo - TB's Place To Call Home!: 13 TBs and GCs
GC1B7N5 - Pretoria Hitch Hiker Hotel: 11 TBs and GCs
GC1GZ0K - Little Netherlands TB Hotel: 11 TBs and GCs

(No other cache contains more than 10 trackables.)

[Carbon Hunter]

Danie Viljoen, on Sep 9 2009, 03:16 PM, said:

TB & GC statistics for 8 September 2009:

The downward trend continues: There are now 847 TBs and GCs in 589 of the 3627 South African caches. (This is 62 TBs less than the peak 4 weeks ago.)

The top three (active) caches are:
GC1RN78 - Ki-Deo - TB's Place To Call Home!: 13 TBs and GCs
GC1B7N5 - Pretoria Hitch Hiker Hotel: 11 TBs and GCs
GC1GZ0K - Little Netherlands TB Hotel: 11 TBs and GCs

(No other cache contains more than 10 trackables.)

This may not mean an exodus of TB's? It could also mean that more cachers have the TB's in their possession too?

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 20 September 2009:
I do not know what is going on - we have "lost" another 115 TBs and GCs during the last 2 weeks. If some of them do not find their way back to a cache, they will soon be regarded as rarities! There are now 732 TBs and GCs in 525 of the 3626 South African caches.

The active caches with more than 10 trackables are:
GC1QECR - Vaal TB Hotel: 17 TBs and GCs
GC114RH - Cape Town TB Hotel: 10 TBs and GCs

[Carbon Hunter]

Wow - a huge fall.

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 6 October 2009:
There are 719 TBs and GCs in 520 of the 3654 South African caches.

The only active cache with more than 10 trackables is:
GC1QECR - Vaal TB Hotel: 16 TBs and GCs

The following graph shows the total number of trackables in South African caches over the last 7 months (blue line). The red line is the number of caches containing trackables.

[Carbon Hunter]

I hope this picks up again in the summer months?

[cincol]

Does this sharp decline mean that the TB's and coins have left the country or does this also include the TB's and coins that are in some cacher's possession? In other words they have been retrieved but not yet placed again.

[besem]

cincol, on Oct 6 2009, 02:34 AM, said:

Does this sharp decline mean that the TB's and coins have left the country or does this also include the TB's and coins that are in some cacher's possession? In other words they have been retrieved but not yet placed again.

I'm guessing (hoping!) that the stats only counts placed TBs. It would be interesting to know how many TBs and coins are in South Africa, including those in the hands of cachers. I'm guessing that at any given time, a large proportion of trackables are in the hands of cachers. From my 19 active trackables, only 10 are in caches, 9 being in the hands of cachers, and 4 of the 10 are coins I have just recently released into the wild. From past experience, it's rare that more than half my trackables are in caches.

I'm guessing that caching activity has just picked up over the last few weeks, hence the large number of trackables "leaving". Can this hypothesis be tested by a similar graph to the above one counting "Found It" logs over the past 7 months?

[besem]

Danie Viljoen, on Oct 6 2009, 12:46 AM, said:

The only active cache with more than 10 trackables is:
GC1QECR - Vaal TB Hotel: 16 TBs and GCs

Something's not right here - at last count, Little Netherlands TB Hotel contained 23 trackables. I've quickly had a look at the cache page, and 12 of those 23 are TB's I've put in the cache myself a few weeks ago, and I can count at least 15 that were definitely in the cache when I last visited (and are still listed on the cache page)

[Danie Viljoen]

besem, on Oct 6 2009, 12:57 PM, said:

Something's not right here - at last count, Little Netherlands TB Hotel contained 23 trackables.

Besem, you are right - it should be 23. I suspect something went wrong in the way I parsed the trackables. I shall check and update the numbers later.

[Danie Viljoen]

besem, on Oct 6 2009, 12:52 PM, said:

I'm guessing (hoping!) that the stats only counts placed TBs. It would be interesting to know how many TBs and coins are in South Africa, including those in the hands of cachers. I'm guessing that at any given time, a large proportion of trackables are in the hands of cachers. From my 19 active trackables, only 10 are in caches, 9 being in the hands of cachers, and 4 of the 10 are coins I have just recently released into the wild. From past experience, it's rare that more than half my trackables are in caches.

I'm guessing that caching activity has just picked up over the last few weeks, hence the large number of trackables "leaving". Can this hypothesis be tested by a similar graph to the above one counting "Found It" logs over the past 7 months?

I only have access to the number of trackables reported as being in caches. I am gradually building up a history of where trackables are over time, but it will take some time to make a reliable estimate of how many TBs are in cacher's hands, how many enter and leave the country, and how many are lost.

I don't think your hypothesis is correct - the "Found It" frequency has been remarkably constant over the same period.

[Carbon Hunter]

I also assume that there will be a similar number of TB's in cachers hands a few months back too.

So all things being (fairly) equal - the graphs should be representative of the trends.

So my guess is that these are a real outflow of TBs from SA.

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 8 October 2009:

I am relieved (and embarrassed) to report that the "missing" TBs have been found - I missed counting them because one of the PQs I used to update my database had been the "My found caches" pocket query. I never realized that this particular PQ does not include the TB information. All my statistics from 14 August to 6 October were affected by this.

There are now 895 TBs and GCs in 611 of the 3663 active South African caches.

The caches containing more than 10 trackables are:
GC1GZ0K - Little Netherlands TB Hotel: 23 TBs and GCs
GC1QECR - Vaal TB Hotel: 16 TBs and GCs
GC1B7N5 - Pretoria Hitch Hiker Hotel: 13 TBs and GCs

[Carbon Hunter]

Whew - that's a relief.

Please redo the graph - it looks really good to get a visual rep.

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 27 October 2009:

There are now 924 TBs and GCs in 634 of the 3690 active South African caches.

The caches containing more than 10 trackables are:
GC1GZ0K - Little Netherlands TB Hotel: 20 TBs and GCs
GC1B7N5 - Pretoria Hitch Hiker Hotel: 13 TBs and GCs
GC143XC - The Palm Tree TB Rest Stop: 10 TBs and GCs

[cincol]

Looks good. Keep the stats rolling in.

[Carbon Hunter]

Well an upward trend in total, And that's good

[the pooks]

Danie Viljoen, on Oct 10 2009, 09:09 PM, said:

TB & GC statistics for 8 October 2009:

I am relieved (and embarrassed) to report that the "missing" TBs have been found - I missed counting them because one of the PQs I used to update my database had been the "My found caches" pocket query. I never realized that this particular PQ does not include the TB information. All my statistics from 14 August to 6 October were affected by this. <snip>

There are now 895 TBs and GCs in 611 of the 3663 active South African caches.

This is not good for the left brain (I'm saying this as Mrs Pooks has just pointed out that MS Windows is for left brained people and Apple Mac is for right brained/intuitive people after a recent episode with the scanner on my computer). The fact that a "My found caches" has other filtering besides the obvious is reason for a revolt or at the very least a complaint - it is not logical! This requires further investigation.

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 5 November 2009:

We are well on our way to 1000 trackables in South Africa. (As has been noted before - there are probably a lot more in cachers' hands, but these I can't count yet.) There are now 957 TBs and GCs in 655 of the 3700 active South African caches.

The caches containing more than 10 trackables are:
GC1GZ0K - Little Netherlands TB Hotel: 20 TBs and GCs
GC1B7N5 - Pretoria Hitch Hiker Hotel: 14 TBs and GCs
GC143XC - The Palm Tree TB Rest Stop: 10 TBs and GCs

[trevorh7000]

the pooks, on Oct 27 2009, 07:49 PM, said:

This is not good for the left brain (I'm saying this as Mrs Pooks has just pointed out that MS Windows is for left brained people and Apple Mac is for right brained/intuitive people after a recent episode with the scanner on my computer).

So where does that leave us Linux users?

Trev

[DamhuisClan]

In the cold? ( )

B.T.W getting the new version of Ubuntu today. Looking forward to installing it on a Virtual PC, and see how it drives.
Someone here at work also installed OS X, on a netbook. Nice inerface.

Update @ 13H00:
Installed Ubuntu in VP, with no problems. Got Gimp, FireFox, Sound, DVD Writer, Open Office.Org, and a few other items installed automaticaly.
Only problem is highest resolution at this stage is 800x600.

This post has been edited by DamhuisClan: 06 November 2009 - 03:01 AM

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 16 November 2009:

10 more trackables this round. There are now 967 TBs and GCs in 667 of the 3739 active South African caches.

The caches containing more than 10 trackables are:
GC20AEP - A Picnic in the Gardens: 18 TBs and GCs
GC1QECR - Vaal TB Hotel: 14 TBs and GCs
GC1GZ0K - Little Netherlands TB Hotel: 11 TBs and GCs
GC143XC - The Palm Tree TB Rest Stop: 10 TBs and GCs

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 26 November 2009:

There was a huge decrease of 67 trackables (almost 7% of the total) during the last 10 days. There are now 900 TBs and GCs in 644 of the 3743 active South African caches.

The caches containing 10 or more trackables are:
GC206BT - KZN Sandpit Christmas Event: 13 TBs and GCs
GC1GZ0K - Little Netherlands TB Hotel: 10 TBs and GCs

[DamhuisClan]

We did a cache last weekend, which reported 3 bugs in it. When we got there, there were nada, zip, none (None been for 3 months).
So maybe there are a lot more caches in the same state.

I think, we should all report these cache to FE, to clean up if there is proof in the logs that the TBs are missing for more then 2 months.

[Jors]

DamhuisClan, on Nov 27 2009, 07:25 AM, said:

We did a cache last weekend, which reported 3 bugs in it. When we got there, there were nada, zip, none (None been for 3 months).
So maybe there are a lot more caches in the same state.

I think, we should all report these cache to FE, to clean up if there is proof in the logs that the TBs are missing for more then 2 months.

But not before reporting it to the cache owner and TB owner first. FE is doing a great job, but shouldn't add too much hay...

[Danie Viljoen]

Jors, on Nov 27 2009, 09:15 AM, said:

But not before reporting it to the cache owner and TB owner first. FE is doing a great job, but shouldn't add too much hay...

I agree - ideally the TB owner should mark the TB as lost.

I don't like it, but it is a statistical fact that many cachers take surprisingly long to log cache finds. (See the statistics thread.) I am sure the same thing happens with trackables as well.

[Rhino and Hedgehog]

Interesting reading - but one question when a TB/GC is picked up does it "leave the country" till it is placed again?

[DamhuisClan]

Danie Viljoen, on Nov 27 2009, 10:24 AM, said:

Jors, on Nov 27 2009, 09:15 AM, said:

But not before reporting it to the cache owner and TB owner first. FE is doing a great job, but shouldn't add too much hay...

I agree - ideally the TB owner should mark the TB as lost.

I don't like it, but it is a statistical fact that many cachers take surprisingly long to log cache finds. (See the statistics thread.) I am sure the same thing happens with trackables as well.

Nope I bypass the owner.
The owner gets see when someone logs a find/note/ whatever. Surely they read the logs. if the log states "could not see TB" or "no TBs and coins in the cache", they can remove it themselves with out an email from us? However I agree dont report it to FE within a week or so ... 3 months is more then enough time for some traveller to be inserted into a cache again.

[Danie Viljoen]

Rhino and Hedgehog, on Nov 27 2009, 06:44 PM, said:

Interesting reading - but one question when a TB/GC is picked up does it "leave the country" till it is placed again?

I am not sure I understand your question. As far as the statistics in this thread is concerned, a TB that is taken from a cache does "disappear" until it is placed in the next cache. I am working towards a point where I should be able to calculate the total number of trackables in caches as well as in hands, but this will take time to do.

[Rhino and Hedgehog]

Danie Viljoen, on Nov 29 2009, 09:42 PM, said:

I am working towards a point where I should be able to calculate the total number of trackables in caches as well as in hands, but this will take time to do.

Question answered - that will be an interesting result!

[Danie Viljoen]

I compared my earliest TB data (3 June 2009) with my latest (26 November 2009). This is over a period of just less than 6 months.
Of the original 902 trackables:
247 (27%) remained static,
212 (24%) moved to another South African cache,
443 (49%) "disappeared"

This last 49% group is the sum of the following:
- TBs that left the country
- TBs in hands
- TBs lost

[Danie Viljoen]

A very preliminary analysis indicates that the percentage of trackables in hands is 42%, which is much higher than I expected. This means that the total number of TBs and GCs in South Africa must be about 1560.

Trackables move once every 75 days, on average. This means that the probability of a TB being retrieved when found is slightly less than 50%. (The average time between cache finds is currently about 35 days.)

The average period between retrieving a TB and logging it into another cache is a staggering 31 days. So much for the 2 week rule!

I also found that a significant number of TBs that have actually been muggled is still reported as being in circulation. It could be as high as 20%, but my sample is still too small to be sure.

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 16 December 2009:

There are now 877 TBs and GCs in 641 of the 3787 active South African caches.

At the moment no cache contains 10 or more trackables.

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 25 December 2009:

There are now 846 TBs and GCs in 638 of the 3801 active South African caches.

The only cache with 10 or more trackables is GC1GZ0K - Little Netherlands with 10.

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 3 January 2010:

There are now 856 TBs and GCs in 658 of the 3832 active South African caches.

The only cache with 10 or more trackables is GC1GZ0K - Little Netherlands with 12.

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 12 January 2010:

There are now 848 TBs and GCs in 619 of the 3859 active South African caches.

The only cache with 10 or more trackables is GC1GZ0K - Little Netherlands with 10.

[Carbon Hunter]

another decline

Will try and replenish a few when I come down. But they are sparse here too.

[Danie Viljoen]

TB & GC statistics for 20 January 2010:

There are now 883 TBs and GCs in 641 of the 3897 active South African caches.

The only cache with 10 or more trackables is GC1GZ0K - Little Netherlands with 10.