Geocaching Australia

Hi All,

Have just got back into caching, and finally got the premium membership, and am trying to get my head around pocket queries...

Have also bought the geosphere app (mainly so i can have GCA listings ready to go on the iphone) and have considered making groups by state, and site: ie, GCA-Vic and GC-vic... etc

I just did a trip to SA and tied to get a PQ of the state, but it didn't work, luckily i was never without service where i went, so with the combo of iphone/ipad/gps had no issues. Still I would like to get a grasp of how this works.

Am i right in that the GC site is "filtering" our ability to pull down what we want, by limiting the number of caches/queries and number of times we can run these??

Sorry, just got home from Adelaide and probably should be in bed rather than typing this..

Cheers Gordo

g_ordo wrote:Hi All,

Have just got back into caching, and finally got the premium membership, and am trying to get my head around pocket queries...

Have also bought the geosphere app (mainly so i can have GCA listings ready to go on the iphone) and have considered making groups by state, and site: ie, GCA-Vic and GC-vic... etc

I just did a trip to SA and tied to get a PQ of the state, but it didn't work, luckily i was never without service where i went, so with the combo of iphone/ipad/gps had no issues. Still I would like to get a grasp of how this works.

Am i right in that the GC site is "filtering" our ability to pull down what we want, by limiting the number of caches/queries and number of times we can run these??

Sorry, just got home from Adelaide and probably should be in bed rather than typing this..

Cheers Gordo

I have several queries - both on GC and GCA - for finds, hides, and different areas. GC limits PQ results to 1000 caches so you need to adjust your search radius to keep close to that, and add other similar PQs to overlap if you need larger areas - or such as when travelling you need to search for the new area. I think you can only run queries once a day, and the more often they run the lower their priority in their servers. I tend to run mine a couple of times a week for unfound caches, and maybe weekly (or less) to update found cache lists.

Also, your device may have a limit to how many caches it can handle (Garmins it's typically 2000-5000). I just maxed my Nuvi as it remembers transferred caches even after you delete the transferred file. (One of many reasons they're not ideal for caching IMO, but will do at a pinch if nothing else is available...)

You can run up to 5 PQs per day.
Each one can generate up to 1,000 caches.

Additionally, if you have GSAK, you can refresh up to 6,000 caches per day.

GSAK will automatically download and process your PQs, giving you the ability to download up to 5,000 per day to build up/refresh your database, and
then it will refresh an additional 6,000 per day.

With some planning, it is pretty easy to keep the country up to date within a few days, or even easier to keep a state up to date, within a day or two.

I found once you set up the date ranges to cover each state to get ll the GC caches a weekly query for caches placed in that week keeps you up to date.

When I download those I also grab GCA caches for each state and do it at the same time.

The latest GSAK has a refresh cache option which is great. I unselect found and owned caches and refresh to get new logs, update my finds, and remove archived caches from the active file

g_ordo wrote: Am i right in that the GC site is "filtering" our ability to pull down what we want, by limiting the number of caches/queries and number of times we can run these??

Yes,

There are limits on PQ's, and limits on the live API for downloading caches in bulk, even as a PM (More generous that in previous years but still not enough for some!)

Thanks guys,

I finally got a pq for SA to run, only after I am back home...

It isn't really all that user friendly is it!!

I guess like all things it just takes time, patience trial and error. Makes me think of a saying my grandad used to say all the time "experience is the fools own school". Makes me one of the biggest fools of all time.

Trying to read through older posts about setting up pq's I don't quite understand the set time ranges etc.

Do you not specify a state, but rather just all of aus, and make a query to run a date range to get 1st 1000, then second 1k?? Seems tedious??

Is there a template, or a place where we can share the pq's already run??

All I want is to pre-load geosphere with an area I might find myself in, and run from there. Would it be against rules to make a Dropbox account we could share these?? Geosphere supports download from several online methods.

Cheers gordo

g_ordo wrote: Is there a template, or a place where we can share the pq's already run??

All I want is to pre-load geosphere with an area I might find myself in, and run from there. Would it be against rules to make a Dropbox account we could share these?? Geosphere supports download from several online methods.

Cheers gordo

What you suggest (sharing PQs etc) are against Groundspeak's TOS so I'd recommend not discussing it any further in a public forum.

You are free to do whatever with GCA GPX files however, feel free to discuss sharing them till the cows come home

Roger that craigrat...

I think I have got my head around generating pq's now.

Is it worthwhile downloading all cache types, or do you all narrow down excluding the event caches??

Just for Vic it has taken 9 pq's, with the date range shrinking exponentially!!

For now, if you're careful, you should be able to sneak VIC into 8 queries... Not for much longer though... And that you've said 9, suggests that you haven't found/been shown this link yet:
http://geocaching.com.au/stats/range/

A most excellent tool for exactly what you're trying to achieve. (Thanks again to the GCA code faeries!)

Thank all for you help, especially the link to the query range murf!!

I think i have just work out why my total finds are more than what i can see from either gsak or geoshpere... these queries dont load caches which have been archived...

Is there a pq one can download for now archived caches?? I cant see any option for this..

Cheers Gordo

No worries Gordo.
As for archived caches, they are notoriously hard to get a hold of. A search through these forums should show a few threads with some history of archived caches. There's no (normal) option in Pocket Queries to get at archived caches...

That said, in your particular case, if you're only concerned with your number of finds being correct, then the trick is:
At the bottom of the Pocket Queries page there is an "Add to Queue" button in a section labelled "My Finds". This triggers a special magic PQ that includes all of your finds, Archived caches or not. If you're updating regularly, you'll probably only run this once, then maybe set up a "My Finds" of your own that you can schedule. I've done that as I update NSW/VIC/ACT regularly, but if I find a cache elsewhere while travelling, I want to make sure it gets into my GSAK automatically.

Hope that helps!
Cheers,
Murf

Crew 153, the Saint that he is, has bookmarked lists for all archived caches in Australia by State - that should help you out!