Another 360 Degree Badge query

Question

Sorry for yet another question about this new badge, but this is one that has a huge bearing on anyone's ability to achieve this goal.

Having ascertained that the initial radius of the fanned circle is 60 Miles (approx 96Km) when viewed on the Map, and that clicking on a sector shows you which caches you've either found, or could find, and that the sectors can be projected further out than 60 miles but it doesn't show you the caches further out, then my question is this;

Must any finds be within the 60 miles from home perimeter to be counted?

I've had a look at my 242 completed sectors and I couldn't find any that my qualifying cache was outside of the perimeter.

The reason I ask is that I live on a coast, so there are a lot of incomplete sectors than can only be completed if I find caches in other countries. But am I wasting my time even looking if they won't qualify anyway because they are more than 60 miles away from home?

Thank you in advance.

Comments

Hi,
it works for me with 90 miles (145km).
But not more. The maps says "you need to zoom in"

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I just read another recent thread about this tool and I think we need to remember that it could still be in BETA testing.  It's probably not a good idea to plan any expensive trips going after caches that are assumed to fill in radials / arcs.  I certainly won't do that until we get word from the developers that it's actually working properly.

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Oh I'm certainly not planning and new foreign travel just at this point in time, but it's more a point of curiosity as to whether there is a limit related to the radius from your home location for qualifying caches.
It would be nice if PGC could state whether they are imposing such a limit regardless as to whether the tool can currently cope with it or not.

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To me, distance should not matter. That will require true Great Circle calculation to get the true heading over large distances of course.

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I agree, but I'd like to hear it from PGC that this will be the case :)

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To answer your question, I did confirm that a cache as far out as 1944 Km was listed in the qualifying caches to turn a red band to green.  I hope that is good news for you when you finally make that trip.

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Thanks again, but in this instance I would like to hear whether the tool works with great circles as (once this whole Covid-19 situation is over) I am hoping to travel to the other side of the planet :)

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Well, 1944 km (km, not Km) should be far enough to check if true GCN is used. Calculating the starting heading for this and some more another points (not directly north or south) could clarify soon.

Answer 1

I am a Premium member with geocaching.com and I have activated a trial membership with PGC.  I have had experience completing a 360 degree challenge and the biggest difference between this tool and a challenge is that the challenge will limit how far out a cache can qualify within that radial.  The cache owner sets that limit when the challenge is set up.  

With that said, I've been experimenting with this tool and discovered that it doesn't have any limitations regarding distances. When I clicked on a red radial / arc, and zoomed in, the radial continued to map outward listing all the unfound caches.  Continuing this process of zooming in and dragging the map I followed the radial as far out as 1000 miles or 1609 Km and it continued to map unfound caches. This is good news for people who live on a coast line and must map to the next country to find a cache that would satisfy the conditions of that radial.

Comments

Good work. So that shows that potential caches can be identified. Now I'd love to hear from someone who has then found just such a cache to see if that then filled that degree sector.
If so, then we would know for sure that those long distance caches would actually count :)

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I agree that it would be nice to have confirmation that a long distance find would fulfill an arc / radial / degree sector.  LOL, all the words I used is just to help promote understanding.

Unfortunately, it is not in my budget to be able to help with this objective especially with all the craziness going on worldwide.  Hopefully down the road someone will post a response to confirm it works.

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And obviously with current world events I doubt anyone will be able to do this for quite some time to come :(
Stay safe :)

Answer 2

I am not sure how far it counted into badge purposes, but PGC script showing angle directly in cache listing (see below) so I think it works for long distances also. Only tool showing max 145km from home coords

  NW 2942.4 km from your home location (320.9°)

Comments

The question is if true Great Circle navigation is used. One can try with a position that is exactly east or west of yours by some 20 degrees or more. If the tool shows lower than 90° or higher than 270° direction (assuming northern hemisphere) this is correct.