Geocaching 101 with Your Phone

Place: South Jordan Library Meeting Room

Time: Saturday, June 24, 10:30 - 12:30

With the advent of the phone app many people can discover geocaching on their own without having an experienced cacher show them what to do. Many experienced cachers who have always cached with a GPSr unit have no idea how to cache with a phone.Today is the day for both groups to learn a little something.

Here's a topic list for the day.

• The Basics
• Cache Visibility - Basic vs. Premium Membership
• Filtering
• Entering Next Stage/Corrected Coordinates
• Personal Cache Notes
• Sending virtual and earthcache answers
• Logging Caches
• Logging trackables
• Lists
• GeoTours
• Caching without cell service
• Hiding a Cache
• GPS chip accuracy Phone vs Garmin, DeLorme, & Magellan - an experiment

For that last one, everyone will be given a flag for every device they have with them. One color will be for phones, another for GPSrs. Using the additional waypoint on this cache page you will stick your flag in the ground when you "zero out" at that waypoint.

Be sure to post a "Will Attend" log if you plan to attend. You will then be able to get the announcement when I add the link for the handouts. In the interest of keeping the overhead low, it would be great if everyone could print their own handout.

What You Need to Bring:

• a writing stick (don't geocachers have one all the time anyway?)
• a copy of the handout
• your fully charged phone with app installed
• as many GPSrs as you have for the experiment
  • don't forget the batteries
• Water only if you want something to drink during the event. No other food or drinks please. It is a library.

Although Geocaching is a family activity, sitting in a class learning about geocaching may not be ideal for little cachers. On the other hand they probably operate your phone better than you. The library has a great kids area if your little cacher would like to read while you learn.

Even though I will have a planned program, one of the most valuable learning tools will be chatting with other cachers. There will definitely be time for that before, after, and during the experiement. This event will be advertised publically through the library system. I challenge all the experienced cachers reading this cache page to grab that neighbor or co-worker who keeps saying they want to learn about geocaching and bring them today.