Who to blame? The cacher? The GPS? Moi?

[Yurt]

With 120 finds I'm no longer a newbie but certainly not experienced. Some days it seems I find caches as soon as I get within 10m of the GZ. On others I can get there and go around and around looking in every crack and crevice until finally I find it or get a DNF. When the cache appears to be 10-20m off the coordinates I don't know whether it's the original cacher who posted flaky coords, it's my GPSr that's off or other conditons influencing it, or it's just me on the day.

I know the GPSr can vary a bit - by checking logs you can see that some finders say a cache is spot on and the next says it's well off. That shows there's a bit of variation. When I get out to about 15m I think I should really trust the GPS and go back to GZ. But then I might find it out at 20m. We're planning a DNF day to go back to all the ones we haven't found lately. I was originally thinking we could go back in without looking at the GPS as we've already scoured the area. But it may be that on the day the satellites and the GPS align and we get a much better lock on GZ.

At least I know better than to boldly claim a cache has been muggled. So far that's only been true once. It's just so frustrating to spend an age on a DNF thinking it must be gone and then a few days later someone logs "an easy find". If a few more get DNFs after you it can feel a bit better but it makes me wonder how something can be so easy for another geocacher. If it's a special type of hide that's understandable as experienced cachers will know most of them. But if it's just a standard hide then it makes me question myself.

The DNF day will sort this out once and for all!

[caughtatwork]

Yes, I blame you for all my DNFs.

[mickpc]

Don't forget the error of owner, it could be off as much as 50ft (as best to my knowledge,) so given your gps error could be the same, you could be within 100ft of it.

Mick C

[Rabbitto]

It's just so frustrating to spend an age on a DNF thinking it must be gone and then a few days later someone logs "an easy find".

Congratulations. You have just reached level 3.

[Rainbow Spirit]

Myself and another cacher spent almost half an hour searching for what eventually became a DNF.
I went back alone some months later and found it in about two minutes!
I think the best way to minimise DNFs is to read the clues and logs carefully before you tackle the hide.
That said, I expect to have about a find/did not find ratio of about 6/1 most days.
No one is the perfect cacher, everyone gets some DNFs, even the most experienced fail sometimes!

[grahamf72]

I think it's a mix of both your GPS error and the hider's GPS error. I've had a similar experience to you. Even on some of my hides I have had situations where I have taken multiple samples over multiple days, and then finders have started saying coords are off. Go back, and I measure the same coords they have.

I have 4 GPSr's (Garmin GPS60, Tomtom, Bluetooth Receiver, Samsung Mobile Phone) and I've found that with all 4 sitting side by side with a clear view of the sky, and each saying they have an accuracy of 4-5m, I can still have variations of up to .02 minutes, or approx 35m. Like you, I have logged quite a few DNF's on caches where someone else soon logs it as an easy find.

Becasue of these potential errors, I think it is important when placing caches to not rely solely on GPS coords. If the cache location isn't fairly obvious once you get in the vicinity, put a hint (perhaps cryptic), so that hunters don't turn over every rock within a 20x20 area. Aside from helping to reduce frustration in cachers, it helps reduce the impact on the surrounding area.

[Big Matt and Shell]

When we first started we used to follow the GPS until we got to zero, now we tend to get to 10 and then have a look around, after a few hundred caches you tend to get a feel for what the main hiding techniques start to look like. (piled up rocks, sticks covering a hole in a tree, magnetic mint tin, etc.) If after a few minutes I go back to the GPS and follow the GPS to zero, paying attention to the accuracy. If I still can't find it then I go the the clue, phone a friend etc.

What kind of GPS are you using and how old is it, I have seen a number of people using the car based units of late and have tended to find them not as accurate as the Oregon? We also replaced our trusty Vista C unit last year after it was constantly out by 10 to 15 m measured against a few different units. After finding 1800 caches, I suppose it was just worn out!

I mentioned accuracy, if you go to the satellite page in your GPS it should tell you the accuracy of the GPS. It will also show you the location of the satellites in the sky. You want a good spread across the entire sky, not all on one side or right down at the horizon.

Finally how accurate were the hiders coordinates? If you find coordinates are out mention it on your log. I have had caches that I thought the coordinates were fine but have had to go back and get better ones. Don't make a big deal about it just say that you found the cache a little bit away from where the GPS decided the GZ was or something like that.

Finally, never be ashamed of your DNF's and make sure you log them, nothing frustrates me more than people who ask for a hint on a cache citing that they have tried three times but can't find it and have not logged a DNF. DNF's give cache owners an idea that people have tried for their cache and it may not be there. We have caches that we will duck out and maintain after 2 DNF's and others we will leave to 5 or more based on the difficulty of the hide.

No one is the perfect cacher, everyone gets some DNFs, even the most experienced fail sometimes!

Amen! We run about a 10% DNF rate (higher when away interstate on "invasions" or in Bathurst, lower in areas where we know the hiding style or at home)

[Yurt]

It's the basic Garmin Etrex H - seems pretty good normally and people seem to say they are as accurate as any.

I always forget to check what the accuracy is at any given time - the only time I check is when I start it up. It goes down to 3 m and in my mind it's always there! I know that's not right of course. It will be interesting to check the difference in GZ when I return to a DNF.

Thanks for the encouragement.

If you set yourself a time limit on caches like 15 minutes then you are going to record more DNFs of course. I've seen logs where people talk about how many times they've tried to find a cache but never logged the DNF which creates a false impression of how hard it is. Then again others aren't ashamed at all. I know one difficult cache in western Sydney where one cacher recorded 5 DNFs before he found it!

[gmj3191]

In my view, the objective with traditional caches is to make them easy for the cacher to find, but very hard for a muggle to find accidentally.
Therefore, if they are not relatively easy for the cacher to find using the obvious signs, then I try to leave a very clear hint.
I do think some cachers make them deliberately hard for cachers and muggles alike, but I don't subscribe to that school.

Similarly, why hide a micro or small, when a cleverly concealed (but easily found) regular will do.
To me, that's where the skill comes in.

I think a DNF reflects a little poorly on the hider as well as on the searcher. After all, our aim is to get enjoyment from getting lots of emails from people who find our caches, rather than DNFs or just nothing because the searcher didn't want to log a DNF.

[Sky Dog]

My philosophy exactly.

People spend a lot of time and effort going out and getting these things.
Why make the thing hard to find?
It's different if it's a puzzle cache. The difficulty should be in solving the puzzle, not actually finding the cache.

Alternatively the difficulty may be in the terrain - getting there. The cache should be fairly straightforward to find. Like you say, leave a good clue if there are lots of potential hiding spots.

IMHO it's about taking people to an interesting or spectacular place, or taking them on a nice walk. Finding the cache should almost be a formality.

Ones like the old film-cannister-in-a pile-of-rocks are just plain nasty.
I give them a miss.

[tronador]

Some days cache blindness prevails. Ce la vie!!!!

There is no shame in a DNF. I enjoy reading the DNF logs just as much as the found logs
If you spent a decent amount of time looking and couldn't find it...... well then you couldn't find it. Simple!!!! Its a DNF, not a note or anything else. Others won't know if you searched or not but you can't lie to yourself.

[Bundyrumandcoke]

With over a thousand finds to my name, I am not immune to the cache blindness that comes along from time to time.

Most times, I walk straight up to the area, and a lot of times, if its an ordinary cache, I spot it, or its location, within seconds. But, sometimes, an ordinary cache eludes me, and sometimes it eludes me many times. Locomotionless, at Caboolture in Qld, is one that springs to mind.

Although I dont ALWAYS log my DNFs, I see no shame in logging them.

Sometimes, it just happens, its all part of the game.

Cheers
Bundy

[ma77hew]

I don't always log DNFs. Often I get anxious and outpsyched by muggles before I can have a good look, and don't bother to log it unless there is a story to tell. If I've made a satisfactory effort to find it and I'm convinced that it's either missing or too hard for me to find, then I admit total defeat and log a DNF.
That said, my longest log to date is a DNF. I bungled when entering the final coordinates for a puzzle cache and went searching some 600m away. By the time I got back to the car and realised my error I was exhausted and called it quits.

[Rainbow Spirit]

I hope I'm not getting too far off topic.
I will always log a DNF if I have got to GZ and made a search of the area and not found the cache.
As a CO I like to get DNFs logged on my caches, as it tells me if I need to check if the cache has been muggled, and to check if the coords are out of whack.
When I set off to find a cache, I will think twice about going if it has had a series of DNFs, as this may mean the cache is no longer there.
If cachers don't log their DNFs, how am I to know how many DNFs there has been recently?

[grahamf72]

My philosophy with DNF's is that if I go there and spend a decent time searching I'll log it as a DNF. If it then has other finds, and I go back and still can't find it, then I won't normally log it as a 2nd DNF.

If for whatever reason I just give it a quick look over (eg too many muggles), then I will either log a note or not log at all.

As a finder, a DNF could mean I'm blind, my GPS is inaccurate, the hider's GPS is inaccurate, or the cache has gone, and I will mention what I think is most likely. Eg "GPS took me to a spot in a field, 30m from anything that could be remotely considered a hide" or "Saw a suspicious looking pile of rocks, and a ziplock bag on the ground but no cache, I think it's gone".

As a hider, a DNF is a hint that I need to check the cache - make sure it's there and re-check the coords. I have one cache in particular that is in a very high muggle location, is not covered at all, but is just very well camo'd. It has only logged 2 DNF's, but the number of finds it has is much less than other nearby caches of a similar age, so I think it quite likely that a number of cachers have looked but not found. Considering it's high muggle location I'd prefer to have DNF's rather than nothing as a prompt to swing by and have a look.