Opencaching and Garmin

I have been following the development of the opencaching site that is owned by Garmin.  There are many people that have posted thoughts about the site, and trying to get information about the site.  I was lucky enough a week ago to check the site as everything came online.  Hopefully it was for a test, because the site was a mess.  Most the links would not work, dead ends were everywhere. I played for about an hour and later in the day it was down.

Why?  That is the big question.  I read some of a report on garmin finances and it appears that Garmin is hemorrhaging money.  Mostly in the hand held and auto division?  Their site says that the geocaching site is free, but the purpose behind the site is unknown. They even gave up on their phone, scrapping the plan for more.

My initial thoughts are that the website idea is dumb. 

1st  Where a few years ago the best geocaching option was Garmin.  Now it is not as clear cut.  Magellen and Delorme have developed hand helds with the cacher in mind, and arguably are giving Garmin a run for the money.

2nd Are they turning their back on the group that supported them for years?  Who knows.  This can only create a rift in the organization.

3rd Do we need another site?  Other sites are niche sites.  Each drawing their own crowd.  Navicache, Terracache, opencaching.  I do not fully see the reason for jumping to another site.  Multiple caches in the same area could cause many issues.  How will they deal with publishing caches?  Paid people in other countries?

The idea that it is not commercial is a joke.  The site is owned and developed by Garmin.  Big businesses do not do things for free.  Won't Magellen, Delorme jump more on board and form their own groups or throw more support behind GC.com if Garmin tries their own?

How will things play out?  In some ways I see it as a good thing.  It will push geocaching.com to react a little faster, or react when needed.  It is funny that some decried the corporate Groundspeak against the little boys (open, terra, and nava).  Now we have The giant corporation, head to head against the smaller funded GC.com, and the others.

How will opencachin.us take it?  Seems like a slap in the face.  They are taking advantage of people typing opencaching.com instead of opencaching.us, .uk, etc.  I would be really annoyed.

What are your thoughts?  what position do you take on the growing battle?

Garmin Chirp and Beacon Attribute.

Geocaching had a surprise last week, when in the middle of the week Garmin announced the chirp. 

Chirp is a tiny electronic beacon that would broadcast about 50 characters onto your Oregon, Dakota, or GPSmaps62.

Designed for use with geocaching, Groundspeak found out two days before it was released and was trying to find out more information about the product, and what they were to do with the new product. Friday when Garmin made its announcement we were discussing in the forums how to deal with this obviously commercial product.

We were asked to treat as a commercial product early on, to allow it but it could not be the only way to find the cache.

By the time they got back in the office Monday morning they posted a plan.

1. A new attribute for a "beacon" will be added as early as this week. Any caches that use a Chirp (or any future similar device) should use this attribute.
2. If a cache owner puts a Chirp in a traditional cache and geocachers have an alternative method to find it without using the Chirp, then OK. Remind them to use the attribute.
3. If they insist on not providing an alternative means of finding it, it must be listed as a mystery with the beacon attribute.
4. Cache descriptions may mention the "Chirp" as long as the text doesn't go on and on with "overtones of advertising, marketing, or promotion."
5. We do not plan to add a new cache type just for this.

By the afternoon a new attribute appeared for caches that have a broadcast.

There is still a bit of trying to figure out what to do and how to deal with it but there is a bit of a plan in place and groundspeak is still working to anchor how to deal with the different caches that may appear. It is not every day that a new interesting cache product appears.  Many of us are still surprised that they had not discussed the matter with groundspeak, it seems surprising.

Some argued that it is open source.  Apparently in response Garmin told another it is only to be worked with Garmin units and the chirp.  So there will be no third party apps, at least for the foreseeable future on the product.

We will see what the future holds.

An adventure

Earlier this week I decided that I was going on a drive. I wanted to get away and get up into the mountains. It had been some time since I had gotten out. I had studied maps and decided where I wanted to go, my planned route, and how long it would take.

I took off up the left fork of Hobble Creek with the idea to circle back to Diamond fork, or down through the right fork of Hobble Creek. It was a good plan. I would turn around at any point that I needed to.

So off and up. I found a few caches on the way up. I had not been up here for some time and It was time for me to grab them. The road that I was planning on taking appeared to be closed. No matter up I went. The road at the base was rought but not bad. You could take it if you were careful in a car. Once you have to cross the creek then you could be in trouble.

From there on it got rough. I reached a point just past the scout camp and the road was a shale slide. My tires sank like I was in soft sand and I gunned it. I had images of me digging my way back. I promised myself that I would not return that way. (big mistake).

I worked my way up a road that was narrow, and steep. There were some very pretty views on the way up. It reminded me a lot of home down in Richfield. It seems like most roads up here are crawling with people. Not this one all is quiet.

I did make it to a cache called Lazy and placed a few out. There were not many up here, and I am not sure how many will actually make it up here in the long run.

Past that point I tried to go up a road to make it to the top. That road would let me drop into strawberry if I needed to. Well I got within about .2 miles of the top and it was too steep. I could have made it in 4 wheel drive but I need to fix that. That ended in me backing up down a road with rocks as big as a basketball, for about 1/4 of a mile.

So I decided I would take the longer way out. Driving up that road I began to have problems. The engine died, and I could not get it running quite right. I began to realize as the sun was going down that I was facing the prospect of spending the night on the mountain. I was not too worried. A truck, and I would have built a fire in the road. I had not seen anyone for 6 miles,

It was all down hill so I figured it was time to coast. I actually figured I would get down to some meadows. If I wanted to spend the night I could there. But coasting down there were no rises at all. None. So I coasted for about 2 miles, no power steering and no power brakes. Like the old trucks.

After a while I tried to start the engine and up it went. Apparently it had got hot and vapor locked. So all was well. I placed a few caches on the way down. I wished I had placed them higher where I backed down and where I turned around, but that's life.

The things we do for fun and geocaches.

View Todays trip in a larger map

Geocoins and Scouting

About a year ago I started work with the UNPC on some projects for the 100th anniversary of Scouting.  I spent a number of weeks convincing them to place the original order. We waffled from 100 to 300 coins.  Never really deciding what to do for months.  Quotes went out to six different companies, and weeded down to two.  For the next three months I played with the design, and I worked on trying to get the best prices for the order that by the time we hit December we were at 200-300 coins in size.  We thought of the risk and really had a hard time deciding. 

Each company kept modifiying their bids, wanting another shot.  We tried to stick with a local company that was near the low bidder, and wanted the business, but had no experience in geocoins.  Finally when the numbers came in we made our choice for Coins and Pins for 300 coins.  Th number was chosen because of thats what the looser wanted as a price point. 

So sometime in Febuary I finalized the design, I was really happy with it and could not wait until the time came.  By March the order was placed.  Then one day in May this massivly heavy box was on my doorstep.  Do you have any idea how much 300 coins weigh?  Lots.

I was so exited, and we had what I had hoped for, but never expected.  70 for a contest, 100 copper and 130 brass for sale.  Up for sale they went, and poof they were gone.  So we ordered more of a slightly different color scheme.  300 to be exact.  then recenly I was told they were gone.  So I changed the color scheme again and we ordered 100 more, two orders for 50 each  made us decide to jump the order to 200.  Now another person from back east is asking for another 130 or so.

So what was orginally an order for 300 that I hoped we would sell, has now turned into 800 with a possibily of 1000 coins with 3-4 different color schemes.  All from the original little hope that we would sell them. 

I am in the process now of finalizing the orders, and getting a design ready for 2011.  It was so sucessful, we are rolling with the next batch.  Thanks for everyone that bought some.  Hopefully you enjoy them.  I have seen 3-4 around, and have bought a number myself.

The contest

The contest is still going on.  If you want one. 120 or so were reserved for the UNPC get in the game contest.  This entailed finding a cache and getting your photo taken and emailing your entry. 

1. Log the cache and upload a photo of yourself/group at the cache site.
2. Email the following info to unpcbsa@gmail.com, Name,cacher ID, Address, Phone #, email, and the name and GC # of the found cache.
3. Please include a story of your cache hunt.
4. Missing or incorrect information may invalidate the entry.
5. Each UNPC Scouts cache will count as one entry (multiple finds on the same cache will not count).
6. A monthly drawing will be performed to determine the coin winners.
7. The contest may be ended, and/or rules modified to fit changing situations, and limited number of coins.
8. Limit one coin per household

We have awarded 50 coins out so far.. with 50-80 more to go.  If you are interested, you and/or your scouts. Please feel free to enter

The coins for the contest are the Antique Silver ones. Except for a few gifts, that is the only way to get one.  So enjoy, and we hope to see your entry soon.

Update 9/27/10

Go here /journal/2010/9/27/scouting-geocoins.html

for a picture of the new coins that arrived today.

Utah oldest 100 ... I mean 99

I put together a list of Utah's oldest 100 caches.

Actually there were 99.  I realized after I was done so oh well.

Guess what ... Potters Ponds is still the oldest cache.  Hopefully you have found many of the caches that are on the list.