New GeoCachers

[Team Thomson_8]

Hi everyone,
Firstly to introduce ourselves. We are a family very new to all this fun and excitement and just about 1hr ago found our very first cache!!

After borrowing a GPS (have been told its a Garmin) MLR SP24, one of my young sons and I set off on a local find this morning. Cut a long story short, we walked over 3 unnecessary km's as it seems the GPS is out by about 1.5km??
After my husband got home we entered the co-ordinates for the cache into Google Earth and found the cache immediately, only being 1.4km from our house however when the GPS was turned on it said we were 2.9kms away.
First question, does anyone have any suggestions for that?

Would also like to know, on GCA we are registered as Team Thomson however when I went to register on GC the username was already taken and we had to settle on a similar one. The cache we found this afternoon was registered on GC where I have entered it as our first find. As its under a different user name, will it automatically update on GCA or is there something else we need to do to have the find recognised here?

Sorry for all the questions but hey...you don't ask...you don't learn.
Cheers
Team Thomson

[caughtatwork]

Would also like to know, on GCA we are registered as Team Thomson however when I went to register on GC the username was already taken and we had to settle on a similar one. The cache we found this afternoon was registered on GC where I have entered it as our first find. As its under a different user name, will it automatically update on GCA or is there something else we need to do to have the find recognised here?

What is your caching name at Geocaching.com?
Go to this link, enter your GC caching name (case sensitive).
http://geocaching.com.au/my/cachername/
This will tie your caching name to your forum name.
If you would like to change your forum name too, let me know and I'll fix that in the background.

[Team Thomson_8]

Thanks for that.
We are Team Thomson_8 at GC.
I never chose a different caching name...we are Team Thomson here and Team Thomson_8 there.

[caughtatwork]

If you go to the link I mentioned and enter Team Thomson_8 what it will do is tie all of the logs for Team Thomson_8 (at GC) to your forum name of Team Thomson.

However if your would like everything to be neat and tidy, I can change your forum name to Team Thomson_8 so your forum name and GC name will be aligned.

If you want me to do that, just yell (or type).

[Team Thomson_8]

OK if you can change the name here to Team Thomson_8 so we are the same here and there that would be great.

[caughtatwork]

After borrowing a GPS (have been told its a Garmin) MLR SP24, one of my young sons and I set off on a local find this morning. Cut a long story short, we walked over 3 unnecessary km's as it seems the GPS is out by about 1.5km??
After my husband got home we entered the co-ordinates for the cache into Google Earth and found the cache immediately, only being 1.4km from our house however when the GPS was turned on it said we were 2.9kms away.
First question, does anyone have any suggestions for that?

I'm not sure what would cause a 1.5km difference, however all geocaching co-ordinates are provided in a datum called WGS84. Go into the setup on your GPS and set the datum to WGS84.

If you do this you MUST reenter the co-ordinates. If you don't reenter the co-ordinates, all that will happen is that your GSP will recalculate them in the new datum and you will still find you are out.

[caughtatwork]

OK, next time you want to post a message, log out and log back in as Team Thomson_8. Your password will remain the same. I'll send you an email to confirm as well.

[Team Thomson_8]

Beautiful...thanks for that.

Datum is set correctly although this one is WGS 1984. Would that be a problem?

[zactyl]

... it seems the GPS is out by about 1.5km??

Check the entered coordinates, as that distance is about a mile, which suggests a typo.
And WGS 1984 would be WGS84, so that's all good!

[Team Thomson_8]

Thanks...we will be off again tomorrow locally so will make sure I type the right co-ordinates in.

[Dippedidooda]

Hi
I was with friends some time ago and they had bought a new GPS. We headed off out, and I think for all of that day their GPS was one or two hundred metres out, which made it useless in trying to find a cache. We were all ready to complain etc but then the next day it was fine - and has been ever since. It was like it took a good few hours to warm up and get used to doing what GPSrs do. (That's my high-tech way of explaining it anyway!). Whichever, hope you have success tomorrow!!!!!

[zactyl]

Wow, caches have sprung up around Campbelltown in the last few years! Be sure to visit Riverview when you get the opportunity to head out Kentlyn way!

[Team Thomson_8]

Riverview is on our list but want to wait until the GPS is working properly.
Don't want to get lost in the bush...LOL

[Dik:]

Does your GPSr have road maps on it?

My first attempt at caching involved looking around an electricity transformer and brush fence in the corner of a park because the GPSr was set to lock onto roads. So it took me to the nearest road junction to the cache, not the cache itself 100m away in the middle of the park.

One I turned off the lock onto roads feature all was revealed!

[Team Thomson_8]

Dippie...funny you say that as the GPR worked fine today.
Found our 2nd cache no probs at all.
Weren't so lucky with our 3rd or 4th though.
So I think we must be getting the hang of it all.