Thank you Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton for Geocaching

Whatever you might think of Ronald Reagan fan, we owe him a big thank you for making GPS available for civilian use and thereby enabling Geocaching, one of my favorite GPS activities.

In 1983, Korean Airlines flight 007 (sad coincidence) was shot down by the Soviets when it inadvertently flew over Sakhalin Island airspace. As a result of that incident, President Reagan mandated that GPS be liberated from restrictions limiting it to military use and be made available for civilians. By 1994, this process was complete, although the accuracy for civilian use was limited to about 1000 feet. Bill Clinton fixed this during his last year in office and accuracy was improved to about 65 feet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Precise_monitoring

Within a few days, the geocache had been set up and found.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching

So thank you Ron and Bill!

Geocaching is a contemporary, GPS-based remake of traditions like Letterboxing, which have a long history of adult hide and seek.

Very simply, the idea is to place an object someplace hidden and then post the GPS coordinates to a site such as geocaching.com. There are a variety of different types of caches as well as difficulty ratings.

The most simple caches will leave a small log and pen or pencil for visitors to note their visit. Sometimes, the idea is to take something from the cache and leave something in return. There are other variations such as finding one clue that leads to another location and so forth. Difficulty of finding the cache and difficulty terrain are also rated and there is usually some sort of encrypted clue.

For example, several years ago a couple here in Mountain View placed geocaches at each stop on the Light Rail line terminating in Mountain View. Each cache provided a certain clue and for the person who assembled all the clues, this would tell them where to find the last cache which held a free Light Rail ticket.

I have done geocaching here, England, and Paris and about 6 or 7 years ago bought a handheld Megellan GPS. No longer needed!

Strictly speaking, you don't really need a GPS. Since there is always a question of inaccuracy in either determining the coordinates to begin with or finding them later, often you can do just as well by getting close and then using your best observational skills (or the clue) to do the rest.

It can be very frustrating to have the GPS say you should be standing right on top of the cache and then moments later have it tell you that you are 20 feet away. And then sometimes caches get "muggled" - discovered by people who stumble on them completely by accident.

In addition to the GPS for navigation, there are a number of other GPS apps as well as some made specifically for geocaching and other letterboxing-type activities. The one I know the best is GeoBeagle.

And if you don't have a GPS, you can still look up the coordinates on basic mapping like Google Maps.

I have to admit that I have yet to put out a geocache of my own. I have an idea to create a sort of non-linear story, linking a collection of caches together but so far I am strictly a consumer.