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All Maryland ADC Geochecker

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deepdish23
MGS Director
Posts: 323
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 1:26 pm
13

All Maryland ADC Geochecker

Post by deepdish23 »

As some of you have heard, I have been working on publishing a All Maryland ADC Quest - GC7GRHF. Since ADC Challenges are no longer allowed under the new rules of Challenge Caches, the cache I am trying to publish is not considered a Challenge so you may sign the log and log the find without qualifying for the 'quest'.
A couple of years ago, Alzarius, the mortards, and myself started mapping out the entire state of Maryland in terms of ADC squares. It takes about 930 ADC squares to cover the state of Maryland. Some of those squares are in the middle of the Chesapeake bay, and some only have a tiny sliver of Maryland in the square so that there are no geocaches within the square. Once we mapped out the entire state, we gave that information to Vogelbird, one of the Geochecker creators, and she was able to create a Maryland ADC Challenge Checker that gives you a map of the entire state, and if you have found a cache in an ADC square, it comes up green, and if you haven't found a cache in that square, it comes up red. Even though this is technically not a Challenge, I did some testing of the Challenge Checker and had the pass threshold for the Challenge Checker to be set at 500 ADC Squares. There are approximately 12 or so geocachers that have found at caches in at least 500 ADC Squares. I then spent the next year or so to work my way up to finding caches in 500 ADC squares and finished last month.
I have a location for the All Maryland ADC geocache, got approval for the location and was ready to publish it, and learned to find out that not only Groundspeak has rules for Challenge caches, they also had a set of rules for non-Challenge challenge caches of which i was breaking some of the rules. One of the rules is that non-Challenge caches are not allowed to have a Challenge Checker on the cache page. So, I have decided to put the link on the MGS Forums, so everyone can have a chance to use it, and see how they are doing in terms of ADC Squares. The whole point of placing the All-Maryland ADC Quest is to encourage cachers to geocache in locations in Maryland that they have never cached in before. I am hoping to have the geocache publish within the next day or so and when it does, I will include the link here.
Twice a year, with the help of GSAK, I create a database of every active geocache in Maryland and the corresponding ADC square it is located in. I last did this in November, so if you are interested in a spreadsheet of certain counties, just contact me and I will send you a spreadsheet.
Here is the link:
https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC7GRHF/20282
Lostsole68
MGS Member
Posts: 146
Joined: Thu Nov 07, 2013 10:20 pm
10

Re: All Maryland ADC Geochecker

Post by Lostsole68 »

I am getting the following message when I go to the link:

Error This checker script is disabled

If you found this link on a cache page you could inform the cache owner of the issue if it persists for more than 24 hours.
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"We are often so caught up in our destination that we forget to appreciate the journey."
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deepdish23
MGS Director
Posts: 323
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 1:26 pm
13

Re: All Maryland ADC Geochecker

Post by deepdish23 »

I am checking to see what is going on.
deepdish23
MGS Director
Posts: 323
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 1:26 pm
13

Re: All Maryland ADC Geochecker

Post by deepdish23 »

The link is back up and working. I don't know what the problem was. Hopefully it is not going to be disabled often. Thanks for letting me know about it.

It turns out that the Challenge Checker needs to be completely severed from the cache page listing since the cache is not a Challenge Cache, and that was not completely done. That has been done now and hopefully the Challenge Checker will not be disabled again.
Lostsole68
MGS Member
Posts: 146
Joined: Thu Nov 07, 2013 10:20 pm
10

Re: All Maryland ADC Geochecker

Post by Lostsole68 »

I am more than half way there. It looks like I need to plane a road trip :D
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"We are often so caught up in our destination that we forget to appreciate the journey."
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fuzzydave
MGS Officer
Posts: 99
Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2014 10:51 pm
9
Location: Bowie, md

Re: All Maryland ADC Geochecker

Post by fuzzydave »

deepdish23 wrote:As some of you have heard, I have been working on publishing a All Maryland ADC Quest - GC7GRHF. Since ADC Challenges are no longer allowed under the new rules of Challenge Caches, the cache I am trying to publish is not considered a Challenge so you may sign the log and log the find without qualifying for the 'quest'.
A couple of years ago, Alzarius, the mortards, and myself started mapping out the entire state of Maryland in terms of ADC squares. It takes about 930 ADC squares to cover the state of Maryland. Some of those squares are in the middle of the Chesapeake bay, and some only have a tiny sliver of Maryland in the square so that there are no geocaches within the square. Once we mapped out the entire state, we gave that information to Vogelbird, one of the Geochecker creators, and she was able to create a Maryland ADC Challenge Checker that gives you a map of the entire state, and if you have found a cache in an ADC square, it comes up green, and if you haven't found a cache in that square, it comes up red. Even though this is technically not a Challenge, I did some testing of the Challenge Checker and had the pass threshold for the Challenge Checker to be set at 500 ADC Squares. There are approximately 12 or so geocachers that have found at caches in at least 500 ADC Squares. I then spent the next year or so to work my way up to finding caches in 500 ADC squares and finished last month.
I have a location for the All Maryland ADC geocache, got approval for the location and was ready to publish it, and learned to find out that not only Groundspeak has rules for Challenge caches, they also had a set of rules for non-Challenge challenge caches of which i was breaking some of the rules. One of the rules is that non-Challenge caches are not allowed to have a Challenge Checker on the cache page. So, I have decided to put the link on the MGS Forums, so everyone can have a chance to use it, and see how they are doing in terms of ADC Squares. The whole point of placing the All-Maryland ADC Quest is to encourage cachers to geocache in locations in Maryland that they have never cached in before. I am hoping to have the geocache publish within the next day or so and when it does, I will include the link here.
Twice a year, with the help of GSAK, I create a database of every active geocache in Maryland and the corresponding ADC square it is located in. I last did this in November, so if you are interested in a spreadsheet of certain counties, just contact me and I will send you a spreadsheet.
Here is the link:
https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC7GRHF/20282
Thanks for giving me something to work on during Cam! I'm at 399 and about to start tackling frederick and Carroll adc challenges.

Sent from my SM-T800 using Tapatalk
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zekester
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Posts: 361
Joined: Thu Nov 09, 2006 1:00 am
17

Re: All Maryland ADC Geochecker

Post by zekester »

First, let me say that I, for one recognize that this must have been a huge amount of work, and i very much appreciate your going after it. Truly a gift to all Maryland geocachers!

So I get that red squares are ones in which I've not found a cache, and green squares are ones in which I have found a cache. Is there a way to tell if the red squares actually contain a cache to be found? How would I correlate between your spreadsheet and the graphic output of the geochecker?

And yes, I am going where you think I am going...

This reflects finds only as well, correct? You get no credit for caches you own, or put another way, owning a cache in a particular ADC square does not turn the square from red to green. Pretty sure this is the case, as The PA border near Linesboro fits that case for me.

Also, is the 500 number arbitrary, or is the number of squares where there are actually caches hidden? What is the total number of squares where it is possible to hide a cache (i.e not all water) vs. the toal number of squares where caches are hidden? What percentage of ADC squares have we hidden caches in?
deepdish23
MGS Director
Posts: 323
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2010 1:26 pm
13

Re: All Maryland ADC Geochecker

Post by deepdish23 »

Some good questions. Let me try and answer some of them.
The geochecker only can keep track of finds per each square and not caches placed. It was determined early on in the process of getting a geochecker that it was very difficult or almost impossible to get the geochecker to give a green square if you only have a cache placed in that square and not a cache find. That being said, for this 'challenge' I would have no problem accepting squares as being green and including them in your official count. There are several squares especially in the mountainous region or eastern shore of Maryland where there is only one cacher that has placed caches in the square. If those that create the geochecker can get the checker to work to include caches placed, we will make the fix. But what we have learned in the last couple of years, is adjusting a geochecker to fit another criteria sometimes breaks the entire geochecker, we have learned that on the Historical County challenges.
The number 500 was determined based on running the geochecker for various geocachers. I wanted to pick a number that is difficult but reachable. As I stated, there are about 13 cachers that I have found that are currently over 500, interestingly many do not live in Maryland. There are numerous cachers that are in the 400-500 range, which makes the 500 square number an impressive achievement, but doable for many cachers. On a side note, I think I have found only one cacher who has reached the 600 plateau.
I can probably figure out how many squares currently have at least one geocache on them, and I am interested in what that number is, but it take some time to figure it out. It is intersting to note that besides squares that are completely water, and squares that only have a sliver of it being in the state of Maryland, there are squares, especially on the eastern shore, that are 100% filled with land from the state of Maryland, that do not have a geocache on it. Of course, that doesn't mean that it did not have a cache placed there in the past, and so a geocacher may have that square marked as green even though there is no cache there today. If I do have time and get a count of Maryland ADC Squares which contain a geocache, I will post it here or on the web page.
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