My name is Carolyn and I am a science teacher at Halldale. My son gave me the GPS for my birthday and I tried it out for the first time yesterday. to no avail I guess the acronym is dnf?

Hi there, Carolyn.

That's great that you have a new GPSr and want to get out and try some geocaching -- it's really quite fun.

Where did you first run in to problems? Were you able to pick out a geocache to try to find? Were you able to get the co-ordinates into your GPSr (GPS Receiver)?

There's a great group of people here. I'm sure we can help you out!

-RanMan22

I found a cache locally, I used paper because I couldn't upload and then I got to the cache but couldn''t find it.

My name is Carolyn and I am a science teacher at Halldale. My son gave me the GPS for my birthday and I tried it out for the first time yesterday. to no avail I guess the acronym is dnf?

What GPSr do you have? At a minimum, you should be able to print the cache page from geocaching.com, then manually enter the coordinates for the cache into the GPSr. Without the cache coordinates in the GPSr, you can find caches but it's a LOT harder! :D :D

Hey Caro,glad that you came here for some instruction. We have a lot of very informed people here who can help you out with most anything. Have you considered maybe contacting someone who is already a veteran cacher so to speak and getting together with them? That is what I did and we became good friends. That is how we feel about most everyone here who is a member, we are just one big happy family. I would suggest that when you look for caches that are in your area there is a good chance that you could email that person who hid the cache and I'm sure they would be more than willing to help you get started.

Can you give us an idea of the cache that you couldn't find and maybe we can help you out right from here? Maybe giving you a contact person who would be willing to meet with you and get you on the right track. Just a thought. We try to help anyone if we can. Happy Caching Haffy

That is how we feel about most everyone here who is a member, we are just one big happy family.

And Haffy is the biggest KID in the family! LOL! (Just look at his avatar... :p :p )

I remember the first cache I tried to find. I wrote down the coordinates and was watching the coordinates on my GArmin trying to get them lined up. Didn't find it that day. LOL I figured out how to put the coordinates INTO my garmin, hit "goto" and look at me now.

I hope you have as much fun as the rest of us.

LOL Terry I did that too, because I had just ran out of the store with my new GPSr and didn't want to take the time to learn how to use it. I found ground zero, but not the cache! Carolyn, hang in there. You'll soon be as addicted as the rest of us!

I remember the first cache I tried to find. I wrote down the coordinates and was watching the coordinates on my GArmin trying to get them lined up. Didn't find it that day. LOL I figured out how to put the coordinates INTO my garmin, hit "goto" and look at me now.

I hope you have as much fun as the rest of us.

Glad that I'm not the only one who started out doing this . . . for a long time I looked as though I was some crazy guy trying to line dance out in the woods as I would take a few steps forward and then a few steps to the right followed by a few more steps backwards and so on and so forth.

DNF would be Did Not Find . . . you are correct.

First the bad news -- it's never fun to get a DNF but it is part of the game. Now the good news -- folks here are more than happy to help you out, offer advice and even see if they can't find a local veteran geocacher who might be able to help you out. On behalf of geocachingmaine.org . . . welcome to the site . . . hopefully you will find this site and the folks here useful.

We've all started out where you are right now with lots of questions . . . if you have a question fire away. Chances are we had the same question when we started or there are other folks who might be wondering the same thing. Personally I would rather have folks ask lots of questions . . . that's how we learn, right?

In order to help you find your next cache it might be useful to know what cache you were looking for (some caches can be much more difficult than others). Also, if you were able to tell us your make and model of GPS we could probably give you a step-by-step tutorial of how to enter the coords and we can give you some tips for finding the hidden caches in the woods (i.e. if you see a pile of sticks all stacked up neatly there's a pretty good chance a cache container might be under it!)

So in summary . . . if you have questions, we probably have answers.

Don't forget to look at the difficulty and terrain ratings on the cache pages! The difficulty rating is generally a measure of how well the cache is hidden: 1 you can almost find blindfolded, 5 you can be staring right at it and not see it (been there, done that!). On a similar rank, the terrain rating can range from 1 which is handicap-accessable, to 5 which may require special climbing or diving eqipment (been there, done that, too!). Here is a page (http://www.clayjar.com/gcrs/?) that a lot of hiders use to determine their ratings. Happy hunting! :)

thank you for all your words of encouragement.

The cache I tried to find was the Curtis Homestead cache. The question I have I haven't seen anyone else ask. so I am a little trepidacious that I might be being blasphemous. I am a Mac girl and Garmin etrex vista needs a beta program which I downloaded, to be read by the Mac. But it doesn't seem to recognize the waypoints I downloaded from Geocaching.com. Anybody know where I AM GOING WRONG?

CAROLYN

Hi Caro,

Don't stress about the Mac thing, I don't think there are too many of us in here :)
I have been using GPSConnect0.2 to get my pocket queries into my etrex vista. Is that the program you are using? You do need to be a paying member of GC.com to get pocket queries, but it's really worth the 3 bucks a month. If you are using GPSConnect and have trouble, pm me and I'll try to walk you through it.

I own a lot of the caches in the Augusta area. I'm a Phys. Ed. teacher at Windsor school. Who knows. We may have met! I'm busy studying for the next couple of weeks and would love a break to go out with you and your son to do a couple of caches. Just a warning... I'm not into the bells and whistles! Okay, I confess... I have a handheld unit coming in the mail.

thank you for all your words of encouragement.

The cache I tried to find was the Curtis Homestead cache. The question I have I haven't seen anyone else ask. so I am a little trepidacious that I might be being blasphemous. I am a Mac girl and Garmin etrex vista needs a beta program which I downloaded, to be read by the Mac. But it doesn't seem to recognize the waypoints I downloaded from Geocaching.com. Anybody know where I AM GOING WRONG?

CAROLYN

Now, now. My 6th grade teacher Mr. Breau always said the only dumb question is the question not asked! ;) :D Of course I then asked a math question which in retrospect could only be considered dumb . . . but then again I was never very good at math. ;)

Curtis Homestead . . . pretty area. VERY buggy as I recall. I had a problem getting a GPSr lock the time I was there until I swung by a second time.

I know it was mentioned but an alternative to using software to download waypoints is to do it the old-fashioned way (like me) and manually input the waypoints into the GPSr.

We'll get you through this together and before long you'll be caching like a pro!

Curtis homestead is not an easy one. I'm still new, so I had a hard time finding it. I remember it was getting dark and I even had a little flutter because I couldn't find my way back to the trail for a couple of minutes. I recommend Mile 83 rest stop as a good starter because you're not as likely to lose your signal.

Curtis homestead was a very hard cache to find because of the tree cover interfering with the gps. I would recommend trying an easier one. If you looking for some help I live right up the road from you in Litchfield and maybe we could get together one weekend.

Oh yeah, that was a bit hard, but the walk was really nice. We got a pjpreb sig item there I think....hmmm, yeah, try an easier one and I bet you'll have no problems! Sorry, I couldn't help more, but the whole computer thing is pretty much over my head! It is amazing I find any geocaches based on my knowledge of computers/gpsr. Hang in there :-)

after spending around 3 hours I finally managed to type in the co-ordinates. and then i went and found the cache!! Yea me!! Oh so that's what a cache looks like. If the cache smells like candy should I find the smelly thing and remove it? I TNLN SL.

after spending around 3 hours I finally managed to type in the co-ordinates. and then i went and found the cache!! Yea me!! Oh so that's what a cache looks like. If the cache smells like candy should I find the smelly thing and remove it? I TNLN SL.

HURRAY!!! Congrats on your FCF (First Cache Find . . . OK, so I made up that anacronym! :D ) I'm thinking it shouldn't take three hours to type in coords normally so I can only guess that you were checking out the instruction manual or figuring it out on a trial-and-error approach.

Candy, huh? What type of candy? Must get focused -- in general smelly things (including good smelling things such as scented candles, candy, food, candy, cigars, candy, incense, candy, Hiram after his Saturday night bath ;) , candy, etc.) should not be left inside a cache container as there is a concern that foraging animals may break into the cache in an attempt to locate the smelly object.