Global Positioning System (GPS) when first developed was only available to the US military. Later civilians were allowed access with Selective Availability (SA) but the GPS signal accuracy was greatly reduced.
May 2nd 2000, on the instructions of President Bill Clinton, the US government turned off its Selective Availability. By “flipping the switch” everyone had access to high accuracy GPS signal. Twenty-four satellites around the globe processed their new orders, and instantly the accuracy of GPS technology improved tenfold. Tens of thousands of GPS receivers around the world had an instant upgrade. Even though there was not a blue switch, for some unknown reason, geocachers refer to this day as Blue Switch Day.
With the availability of accurate GPS signal the world changed forever with the introduction of new technologies that today we take for granted. Gone are the days of the road atlas!
May 3rd 2000 saw the first geocache hidden by Dave Ulmer in Oregon and the beginning of the game that we know today.
2017 Souvenir
In celebration of this Blue Switch Day geocaching first introduced a souvenir in 2017. To obtain your Blue Switch Day 2021 souvenir simply find either a geocache, an Adventure Lab or attend an event anytime between May 2nd to December 31st.
If you found yourself dropped into a random location on Earth, would you be able to use clues about the vehicles, vegetation, landscape, buildings, and signs to figure out where in the world you have been placed?
GeoGuessr is an online game that uses Google Street View to provide 5 locations for you to work out where you are, sometimes it’s easy, say being dropped in the centre of a large city with plenty of recognisable landmarks and street names, however being dropped on the Mongolian Altai alpine meadow with no recognisable structures is way more challenging (hint, yurts a good sign that you are in Mongolia). Like Geocaching this game increases your awareness of the ordinary world as you become more conscious of different writing systems on signs around the world, or styles of building, vehicles, dress even road markings sometimes provide a clue and to where you are.
The scoring is different by game but consistently a “perfect” guess is worth 5000 points with descending scores depending on the size of the map and eventually decreasing to 0 for being at the point on Earth’s surface diametrically opposite to the target (antipode). A typical game lasts five rounds, so 25,000 points would constitute a perfect game score.
Start the game
Start Game
Drop off Point
More Information
My Guess
There are various Modes available,
Daily Challenge – only one go at this allowed per day with 5 rounds, each with a 3-minute limit to get as close to the Landing point as possible. There aren’t any formal rules for the Daily Challenge or GeoGuessr, like Geocaching you set your own rules, to us Googling somehow seems to be cheating and we avoid that.
Explorer mode – Pick a country to play from the map or the list and explore. This is single player mode with unlimited time to explore, medals are awarded for high scores, with the goal of a gold medal for each country available.
Country Streak– this can be played either as a single-player or challenge mode where players can compete against each other. The simple objective in this mode is to guess the country you are in rather than guessing the specific location. There are several options for this where you can restrict movement, panning and/or zooming and if that isn’t enough pressure a time limit can be set as well. Players are challenged to attempt at scoring as many correct guesses as possible in one attempt, the game finishes when the player guesses a country wrong.
Battle Royale – compete with others, where one by one player are eliminated until only the winner remains.
There are many other options such as ‘famous places’, ‘urban worlds’ and even a ‘dumb test’ with ultra-easy maps to explore.
Free vs Paid In 2019 Google increased its prices for using Street View and Google Maps forcing GeoGuessr to limit the free play game. Charges are kept at a minimum with the present cost of pro membership being $1.99 per month or $23.88 per year. Pro members get unlimited maps access to Daily challenge, Pro Leagues where you can set up your own league with your friends. Games are scheduled automatically, and notices sent to your fellow explorers. Also making and sharing your own maps is available at this level.
This is an addictive game in both the limited free and pro versions, it’s a substitute for actually being there and exploring and well worth the subscription fees as a replacement for Geocaching whilst we are ‘locked down’
Sunday 18th April 2021 This week saw our first sighting of an Orange Tip butterfly fluttering along the side of the river. They are one of my favourite butterflies as it indicates the warmer, longer days are here and summer is not far off. Our damp boggy fields are an ideal habitat and support a large colony.
They fly from late March to June depending on weather conditions. This butterfly lives in damp meadows, ditches, woodlands and hedgerows as this is where the caterpillars food plants grow, cuckoo-flower, garlic mustard and many other plants in the mustard family.
Male
Orange Tips are a very common butterfly, the male has the distinctive orange tipped wings which the females lack so they are not so easily recognised and can be mistaken for Small Whites.
Female
The under wings of both sexes have dappled dark green patterns with black scaling this gives excellent camouflage when the butterfly is at rest.
Under Wings
The females lay single barrel-shaped, grooved eggs on the underside of leaves and flowers of the food plant.
Newly laid egg
The eggs take around 14 days to hatch and change from yellow/white when first laid to orange and then grey just before they hatch. The caterpillars are blue-green with small black dots and broad white stripe. It takes about 5 weeks for them to become fully grown when they change into a narrow, curved, green or brownish chrysalis attached by a girdle to a plant stem. Here it hibernates over winter emerging as an adult the following spring.
Although official Geocaching Events are not available just yet, Socially distanced gatherings of up to 30 persons will be permitted from the 26th of April under the latest guidance from the Senedd. As we haven’t met up as a group for quite a while, a CITO is the perfect socially distanced event. A suggestion is that we could combine an unofficial CITO and the “Let’s improve the outdoors – Locationless Cache GC8NEAT” which adds both an Icon and Souvineer to your profile. So with all that in mind how about meeting on 2nd May Saturday Afternoon Near Tescos Caernarfon and hitting some of the hot spots in the vicinity. Please let us know if you are interested, the number will of course be limited to 30.
We have relaunched the 9 Usual Suspects website today, with an improved look, easier to use and the Russian hackers locked out! It will still be primarily for Geocaching but will include anything that catches our collective attention, so if you have anything to contribute please let us know. e.g. the favourite cache series that has been started, what’s your favourite and why? Also, there is an improved diary section, if you want an event added give us a shout.
Every year there is much media attention when the Glaslyn Ospreys return to the same nest site, it heralds the start of spring, although this year they have bought some snow with them. You can monitor them in close up on the next via the live stream which is hosted on the Glaslyn Osprey website or here if that link isn’t working
Three Ospreys have returned to the Glaslyn Valley so far this year.
25th March saw Mrs G return for her 18th season.
29th March Aran join Mrs G for his 7th season.
31st March Aeron arrives a chick hatched in 2017 recognised by his Blue Z2 ring.
Mrs G Photo Bywyd Gwyllt Glaslyn Wildlife
Mrs G was first discovered breeding at the Glaslyn nest in 2004. As she is not rung her age and previous history are not known. From her plumage and the time of year she first appeared it is thought that she was about 3 years old making her around 21 years old. To date, she has successfully raised 41 chicks, and has at least 100 grand-chicks and four great grand-chicks. Her first mate was Ochre 11 (1998) and together they raised 26 chicks. He failed to return in 2015, which was when she attracted her current mate, Aran. They have raised 15 chicks together so far.
Aran arrived at Glaslyn end of April 2015 again without a ring his previous history is unknown. From his plumage and his behaviour, it is thought he was 2 or 3 years old. His name comes from the mountain Yr Aran as this was the direction he was first spotted.
Ospreys return from North Africa around the end of March and usually in the second half of April the female lays two or three eggs at 1-3day intervals. The eggs are incubated for 37 days per egg with each egg hatching a few days apart, surprisingly there is little aggression and dominance shown by the older chick. Like most birds of prey, ospreys divide the nesting duties clearly between the pair. The female does most of the incubating, brooding and direct feeding of the young. She guards them throughout the nestling period, but will share the hunting at later stages when the chicks are larger. The male, on the other hand, is the major provider of fish for the female and young. After fledging at c. 53 days, both parents provide food for the young, which stay close to the nest for a further two months. The beginning of September sees them leave North Wales on their long migration journey to North Africa. Many juvenile birds die before they reach maturity at three years old. Those that reach breeding age can expect to live on average about eight years. The oldest known wild osprey was 32 years old.
The site is managed by Bywyd Gwyllt Glaslyn Wildlife a local community interest company who took over the stewardship from the RSPB in 2013. The success of the Glaslyn Ospreys and other wildlife projects are entirely reliant upon the kind donations of their visitors and supporters.
After years of quite breaking fragile phones whilst Geocaching, when it was time to renew my ageing iPhone I took a look at the market place. One other thing that had bugged me over the years is having to charge a phone daily and if GPS is used heavily having to cart a powerpack to top up the battery, I’m operating system agnostic so wasn’t too bothered the Android iOs ‘wars’. There was one phone brand that leapt out at me which was Doogee’ a Chinese phone brand that is focused on rugged designs. Doogee is part of KVD International Group Limited headquartered in Shenzhen, China, since 2013, which is a long time in the small player mobile-phone world. The phone has a military hardware styling and claims to meet military standards for ruggedness which I don’t doubt. The 10000mAh battery lasts about a week between charges and with heavy GPS use about 3 days and as a bonus can reverse wireless charge other phones to share the power. For positioning, it can utilise GPS, GPS-A, GLONASS & BeiDou and lock times are impressive, with surprising accuracy. It’s tough, heavy and reliable, but it’s not all roses, being a Chinese phone there’s little or no support if anything goes wrong so my tip is to buy off Amazon and use a credit card to have even any hope of warranty.
Update: The SIM card holder broke on the third time inserting. Despite repeated attempts to contact Doodee support, I got no reply. Amazon stepped in and refunded my money, it’s a shame that what was a promising phone was let down by non-existent support and a £2 sim holder .
My verdict On paper, the S88 Pro is astounding value. Plenty of CPU power, long battery life and fully-featured GPS, bulletproof construction but it is too big to fit in a normal-sized pocket and very heavy. Not my daily driver but, for long Geocaching adventures, it’s ideal.
The 9 Usual Suspects have been around since 2014, we are a group of Geocaching friends based in North West Wales of diverse ages and abilities. Our primary purpose is to get together, place caches, hold events, leave our environment in a better state than we found it and most importantly have fun. On average we hold about 20 events a year from monthly Nosh ‘n’ Natters, several Cache in Trash Outs (CITOs) and hosting the Geocaching Souvenir moments.
