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#1: robert svanberg (tango) on Jan 5, 2018

Wow, there's some nice houses in Virginia. Maybe we can have a webpbn reunion at your place.

Are you in Tuscarora MD? I am not sure I am reading your coordinates correctly. I used N38 73.8677 and W77 27.5353.

Beltway

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Ah ha - now it is more clear. Thank you very much Joe! That makes complete sense now with the explanation.

Joe is correct. Being neither geocacher nor cartographer, I found it interesting that different address-to-coordinates conversion sites produced different numbers; indeed, sometimes the same site produced different numbers on different days. The first 2 decimal places remained constant, but everything after that seemed to be up for grabs. How does geocaching work, with that much variability?

Robert - Drop by if you are in town! But wait till spring, when the azaleas and dogwoods bloom.

Dan - Outside the ...

Gaynor - each degree of latitude is ~69.5 miles. So the first decimal place is about 7 miles, and the second is 0.7 miles. Those are not likely to change. The third place is about 370 feet - so probably a yard or two away in the suburbs. But the fourth and beyond are likely within the same yard. (4th = 37ft, 5th = 4ft, etc.)

It seems strange that the same site would give different results unless you are picking by clicking on a map. Then the difference in where you're clicking would show up in the smaller decimal places.

Note that the length of degrees longitude are variable depending on the latitude you're at. At the equator they'd be about 69.5 miles like latitude, but they decrease as you go north or south from there(because the circle around the globe is getting smaller, but it's being divided into the same number of sections.) At 1 foot from the north or south poles each degree = less than a quarter inch. At the exact pole they are 0.

For setting a geocache, you either find your place on a large scale accurate map and do some math, or you get a reading from your own GPS when you are there (making sure you have a reading from enough satellites to make it accurate). Or you can be lazy and click on the place in google maps. This doesn't always work, though, as in cities the addresses are so close together that google is more likely to give you the address than the GPS coordinates.

Joe - Thanks for the tutorial!

Gaynor - thank you for the invitation. In the past I've visited people in Louisiana, Missouri and Minnesota; all of whom I met online, and all of whom showed incredible hospitality. Maybe one day ...

I dearly miss the dogwoods. Alabama was lousy with them, but they didn't want to follow me to Michigan or to Louisiana. Azaleas seem to be hardier, as we had some in our yard in each state. :)

I like that the puzzle encourages discussion. Thanks.

Many subjects can be quite confusing. But not this one -- you always know where you are with geography.

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