I've done a few searches here and there and haven't come up with a similar discussion on the GGA Forums, so here goes...

I hope that this discussion will be beneficial two ways:
1. Other newbs will learn something new.
2. This newb will learn something new, too.

It's been more than a year that I became a Premium Member at Geocaching.com and started taking advantage of the Pocket Queries functionality. I download these Pocket Queries in .GPX form and throw them around in GSAK and Google Earth to plot out caches in a particular area I wish to hunt. These queries have gone un-changed for the better part of that year, and I'm curious as to if someone has incorporated a better method to do what I am proposing.

I currently have 16 individual Pocket Queries used to get weekly updates of caches in North Georgia. For the purposes of this discussion, I define North Georgia as the entire state from I-20 West @ Alabama, across Atlanta and North of I-85 into South Carolina. These 16 queries are split up to run 4 a day, Monday through Thursday.

The criteria for each Pocket Query is:
[X] Run this query every week on the days checked
Show me [500] Caches
[X] Any cype
[X] Any container
That [X] I haven't found
[X] States: Georgia
[X] Postal Code [12345] (see below)
With radius of [30] [X]mi

I run these queries for 16 postal codes:
Blairsville 30512
Blue Ridge 30513
Calhoun 30701
Cartersville 30120
Chatsworth 30705
Clayton 30525
Cleveland 30528
Dawsonville 30534
Mountain Park 30075
Powder Springs 30127
Rome 30161
Talking Rock 30175
Toccoa 30577
Trenton 30752
Trion 30753
Tunnel Hill 30755

The Pocket Queries end up looking like this.
The areas covered look like this.
And the queries look like this in Google Earth.

All this results in Geocaching.com providing me with approximately ~1800 caches in the North Georgia area.

Now, if you're a newb like me -- I hope you might have learned how to get the most out of your Pocket Queries.

If you're a stubborn, Type-A perfectionist newb, like myself, this will only do for so long. Sooner or later, you'll want to find a better way to do something that's already "better".

There are some limitations to the way my query is setup:
1. A 30mi radius was initially chosen to make it easer on myself. Obviously, some areas are more heavily populated with caches than others. Some areas have < 100 caches while others have > 500 caches in the same 30mi radius. A Pocket Query can only return a maximum of 500 caches. I haven't taken the time to adjust the radius areas to maximize the search capabilities... yet.
2. There are some obvious gaps in this area, where I won't receive cache updates (if there are caches in those remote areas).
3. There are areas of overlap, which provide several duplicates which are ignored (thank God) by GSAK.

Here is where I hope a couple veterans will set me straight. Before I take the time to adjust my Pocket Queries to improve them -- has anyone come up with something better to download a more complete list of caches in these areas? If so, what is it that you're doing? How do you download your .GPX data?

Now that they've run once, you can select 'updated in the last 7 days' which will help spread your range. I live in Acworth and work in Buckhead, so I only have 2 queries. one centered around 'Up One Side and Down the Other' and 'The Buckhead Dragon' since both are within a half mile of my house. Other than that, I'm not sure. Still kind of new at PQs myself.

Warning, 'updated in the last 7 days' PQ's do not return geocaches which were archived in the last 7 days. So if you are expecting to keep the GSAK updated with 'updated in the last 7 days' PQ's you will wind up with your GSAK showing some geocaches active while gc.com shows them archived.

I add "is active" to PQ. After loading in GSAK, I will filter for cache "last update GPX" and set the date for a week prior. That way, I only have active caches in the database. I also have notifications set up for activated, deactivated and archived caches.

I took the time this morning to do a little testing.

I created a couple test queries that I used to download waypoints that I didn't already have. I was able to determine that you will still download waypoints that have been deactivated/archived so long as they have been done so within the last 7 days.

So, I've changed my queries (for the meantime):
[X] I haven't found <-- I already download this once a week using the "My Finds" function.
[X] Updated in the last 7 days

IF I add "Is Active" to the list of qualifications, then waypoints that are no longer active will not be downloaded and appear as such in GSAK.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Actually, they will still show up in GSAK, but they will not be updated.

The "updated in the last seven days" will only get you those caches that are new or have had changes in the last seven days.

Fine by me. I already have a 'basemap' of all the caches in these areas anyway. Thanks for the tip!

I was bored one rainy weekend and I used my map s/w to help build a set of queries that covers a some of north Georgia. The are no (to my knowledge) gaps so you do not miss any cahces in between the areas.

I was able to get it down to 3 queries that are centered on Lat/Long coords. The queries are:

1) N34 04.529, W084 18.616
Radius = 15 miles

2) N34 30.000
W084 49.000
Radius = 30 miles

3) N34 40.000
W084 31.000
Radius = 30 miles

Plot these out and you can see my coverage......

My two cents.. but I cover the entire state.

I run a total of 8 queries, not counting the "My Finds" that can be run once weekly.

Five of them are for all notfound caches (500 maximum, active and disabled), by date, and each runs once a week; three on Sunday and two on Monday. Currently (for me), the first one covers from 01/01/00 to 08/18/04. The second one goes from 8/19/04 to 9/15/05.. and so forth. I periodically go back and refine the date ranges every 6-8 weeks as I find more caches, thus expanding the returns of each query to as close to 500 as possible without going over.

I don't use the "udpated within the past 7 days" option on any of those queries. Sure, I may miss the odd cache here and there that was placed and archived within the same week, but otherwise it's pretty comprehensive.

The other three are a once-weekly run of my owned caches, and the other two are "daily" queries.

The "daily" queries I have set up thusly: unfound active caches within 60 miles and 500 maximum from my house coordinates. Set to run on on alternating days (Mon/Wed/Fri and Tue/Thu/Sat). Each currently maxes out at 53 miles.

This method gives me a pretty comprehensive idea of the caches in the entire state, with an added emphasis on the caches that are close to me. I use GSAK, so I can then narrow down the areas as I like, using different center points as necessary/needed.

When I first started the "once daily by date" routine, I originally had 8 queries dedicated to the task, then got it down to 3 as I found more and more caches within the state. It's back up to 5 again because of the plethora of caches that have been placed this year. Here's the counts of each one as of 8/22/06:

01/01/00 - 08/18/04: 479 caches
08/19/04 - 09/18/05: 481 caches
09/19/05 - 03/11/06: 487 caches
03/12/06 - 06/23/06: 467 caches
06/24/06 - current: 317 caches

Anyways.. that's how I do it. If you're running 14 a week already, you could probably cut it down to 8 or 10 by date, and get the entire state.. Just a guess.