One of the main items for any self-respecting cacher is a pair of walking boots, especially if you are regularly walking across moorland or boggy areas. At this time of year, in the UK anyway, the ground tends to become firmer under-foot. Walking boots provide a lot more support for your foot - but I’ve got to admit that when it’s warm out - I will sometimes wear rugged-type trainers if I’m going on a shorter walk..

I spotted these on sportsshoes.com - perfect for any ladies out there - and they are quite a bargain! £24.99 for waterproof air max with gore-tex.

For later in the year - or for times when it’s going to be wet-under-foot (well - this is England!!) - I prefer something a little more solid… Something like this:

It’s amazingly simple, and because it’s not a bottle in your pocket etc - it keeps the drink fairly cool too!

They are around about £20 on Amazon etc.
Click here to view on Amazon.co.uk

Definately worth a look if you go on 3+ mile hikes for those caches on the moors!

Personally - I’ve found the best thing to do is buy two different coats - one for when it’s absolutely freezing cold, and one for the summer months - to stop the rain from soaking me through - but still to keep me cool.

There are loads of different brands - but in my opinion you can’t really go wrong with Berghaus - they’ve been around for ages and the stuff they produce is always top-notch quality.

My wintery coat is similar to the image to the side - and it keeps me really warm when walking over windswept moorland.

One thing that I never want from a coat is to look like some sort of fashion-freak - so I would never buy anything in bright-yellow or orange! (I suppose they would be good if you needed mountain rescue though!!). Anyway - the dark Berghaus more than suits my needs, especially in the current freezing-cold easter we’re experiencing - they have them at Cotswold Outdoor for 170 pounds which is a good price to pay to keep yourself warm!

Be prepared

One of the first things about geo-caching is you should always go-prepared for a range of eventualities. It’s probably a good idea to have a first-aid kit in your backpack at all times, but you should also check you have other every-day accessories too: eg. make sure your mobile phone is fully charged.

A torch, or probably two, is obviously necessary… But the key-question is really what type of torch is best. I’ve tried numerous types - high power/cheap/LED and I have one answer for you: LED. LED’s use so little power - and you can buy such a range these days that you really can’t go wrong. They don’t use many batteries - and just keep going on-and-on!

The downside to LED’s is they often have a more-narrow beam, but for geocaching I find them perfect.

This LED Torch at Amazon is similar to the one I bought - and it works really well.

A good place to get LED torches is ebay - but make sure you pay the extra for something really decent:

The main thing to remember is be careful - don’t take unnecessary risks - especially when a long distance from help!

GPS Reception can be a bit of a black-art - some people have the knack - some don’t… However there are a few steps you can take to improve your reception:

Improve your physical position: Seems obvious - but moving to somewhere with better sight of the sky usually helps. Most reception problems are caused by large objects (trees or buildings) blocking the GPS’ sight of the sky. Moving to somewhere where there is sight of the sky will allow the GPS to lock-on and sometimes you can go back to the position you were in and still have a lock - albeit weaker.

Buy a better GPS: Again - pretty obvious - but can be costly. GPS devices use different chipsets and antenna - generally the more expensive GPS’s contain better chipsets and better antena. Be careful to check with other cachers when you are thinking of a new GPS as one that has a bad reception under tree cover is almost useless!! GPS devices with the SirfStar III chipset are the best on the market at the moment.

Hold it correctly: Different GPS devices have different positions for antenna. GPSMAP devices are generally designed for completely vertical orientation, similar for etrex. Others are designed for hand-held or flat usage.

External antenna: A bit sad - but you can buy external antenna - these are generally good for fitting to cars - rather than use hand-held though!

Classic Peter-Kay stylee: Hold the GPS vertically into the air as high as you can - seems a bit silly - but often seems to help with GPS locks!!

Turn it on+off: On the odd occasion you can be in a situation where the GPS has the clearest view of the sky it could ever possibly have - but still you don’t get a lock…. It’s a strange one - and probably due to errors in the chipset firmware. A simple turn on/off often does the trick and you quickly get a lock

The weather: I’ve often found that the weather significantly affects my ability to get a lock. There don’t seem to be any specific conditions where I’ll think “Oh - my GPS will be iffy today”… This is presumably due to the same type of interference seen by radio hams etc.

Other things to watch out for:

Movement: When you first buy a GPS - it has often travelled a long distance (via post for example), especially if it’s second-hand. When moved - a GPS needs to ‘re-learn’ it’s position - and figure out which satellites it can ’see’. Therefore you will often need to leave a GPS for quite a few minutes to lock-on correctly.

Battery Life: One thing that will completely affect your ability to get a GPS lock is if your batteries are dead!! (Best to have some replacements to hand!).

This is a bit of a problem, although batteries are cheap and can be picked up anywhere it seems a shame to be so wasteful… So I started to look for alternatives - and here is what I’ve found:

Here is a list of rechargable battery devices that you might be interested in:

1) Standard recharger AND 4x 2300mah AA batteries from 7dayshop.com:

Our thoughts: Sturdy unit, and even includes the batteries - can’t really go wrong for this price!

Cost: £7.99+postage = £11.94.

Rating: 4* for environment. 5* for reliability. 4.5* overall.

Purchase…

2) Solar charger from maplin.com: (Excellent if you have a sunny garden… Can even recharge whilst out caching!! - Not so great for the british weather though!).

Our thoughts: Good value - as long as you are going to use it where there is sunlight! Be careful leaving this outside if it rains. Excellent for the environment!

COSTS: £6.99.

Rating: 5* for environment. 3*for charging reliability. 4* overall.

Purchase… (need to search for Solar Charger)

Actually there are various names for the system – WAAS is the American version, EGNOS is the European version. The idea behind WAAS is that base-stations at known locations can derive the current inaccuracy in the system – and therefore this information can then be used by others to adjust their readings.

Ie. A simplistic example would be that base-station A is known to be at N53 53.123 W01 07.888, but the GPS is reporting N53 53.125 W01 07.888. Therefore we can see that the Northings reading is off by .002. So this is then transmitted via the GPS network to all the WAAS receivers – and they then know to adjust by .002 any readings they have.

Simple eh? (Well not quite – WAAS costs $50 million (£25 million) to provide yearly!).

WAAS should improve the accuracy of your GPS so you are accurate to 1 – 2 metres.

I’ve been using WAAS for sometime on a Garmin GPSMAP 76 – and it works very well – but it only seems to work now-and-then.

Note: Some devices still need you to manually activate WAAS - keep this in mind!!