“F” is for First to Find
Who? Anyone who is a Geocacher, interested in becoming one, or even a muggle friend or family member
What? Weekly RGV Geocaching Breakfast Meet & Greet *NOTE* purchase of food items is always optional however, fun and fellowship is a given.
Where? Country Omelette, 3420 N. 10th St., McAllen, TX 78501
When? Thursday, December 22, 2022 at 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Why? Share stories, tips & tricks of the game, assist with solving mystery/puzzle caches and share/trade trackables.
This season each event is part of an alpha series of titles highlighting a term used in Geocaching.
Today’s event is brought to you by the elusive and hard to earn First to Find Geocache or as it’s better known as: “FTF”!
Do you remember your FIRST FTF?
FTF – First to Find. An acronym written by geocachers in physical cache logbooks or online when logging cache finds to denote being the first to find a new geocache. In your online log, place the FTF at the beginning of your log and set it off with special brackets such as “FTF”, [FTF] or {FTF} if you want your FTF cache count displayed in programs such as ProjectGC so you have a running total of how many FTFs you have earned.
Many Geocachers enjoy tracking their numbers such as finds, challenges and FTFs. Some Geocachers are over the top about getting those FTFs and some ONLY search for FTFs. These Geocachers are FTF Hounds.
Two tools handy for tracking FTFs are:
GSAK (free download program for PCs)
ProjectGC (free online program, but membership required for some features).
GSAK FTF Macro identifies your cache logs that contain FTF and allow you to mark them in GSAK as a First to Find. Once you identify these caches you can view your log to see if you need to edit with brackets on the FTF so ProjectGC will also count them up for you.
GSAK FTF Macro
Membership in ProjectGC provides another avenue for keeping track of your FTFs, under your profile select FTF list. There’s also an option that displays other geocache finds which you might qualify for a FTF, but didn’t log it with brackets.
GSAK shows that I have 184 FTFs, however, ProjectGC only recognizes 47 of them, so I have a lot of editing to do if I want my numbers to match.
A fun little FTF video for your enjoyment….