By Michael Malvick (Greatland Reviewer) and Scott Aleckson (SSO_JOAT)
Interested in the quickest and easiest way to build a series of Pocket Queries to gather all of Alaska’s cache information? Well here it is in 8 easy PQ’s…
Note that you can run up to 10 PQ’s per day, so you can get the full set for the state in one day. You can manage this by going to your Pocket Query control panel and checking the day of the week you next want each one to run. Follow these steps to create your full state PQ set:
Start Building a Pocket Query from your geocaching.com Premium account.
Give it a name. I use AK-1, AK-2, AK-3, AK-4, AK-5, AK-6, AK-7, and AK-8 for mine out of pure simplicity. At the very bottom of the page, I also check the “Include PQ Name” box so that name tag is part of the filename, making ID of which is which so much easier.
Unless you want the query to run automatically every week, pick the “Uncheck the day of the week after the query runs” radio button. When you want a PQ set, just go down the list and check the day box for each PQ you want to gather and it will run once and then wait for the next time you call for it. If you want them now, make sure you use the day shown on the “server time” label just above the PQ list.
Change the “Show me… caches of” box to the maximum of 1000 caches.
Scroll down to the “Within” box and select the radio button for “States/Provinces”. Scroll that list down a few entries and select “Alaska”.
Go down to the “Placed During” box (just above the attributes pictures boxes). Select the radio button in front of the “between date range” fields. For each of the 8 separate PQ’s, set the dates to match the following:
AK-1 = May 03, 2000, and December 31, 2008 (983)
AK-2 = January 1, 2009, and June 30, 2011 (975)
AK-3 = July 1, 2022, and July 31, 2013 (996)
AK-4 = August 1, 2023, and May 15, 2015 (974)
AK-5 = May 16, 2015, and September 30, 2017 (999)
AK-6 = October 1, 2017, and August 31, 2020 (970)
AK-7 = September 1, 2020, and May 15, 2023 (978)
AK-8 = May 16, 2023, and December 31, 2025 (738)
The current total of Geocaches in Alaska is 7613!
You need to keep an eye on the size of the last query and as the number of caches generated approaches about 980, you would set the end date and build a new PQ for the next series (AK-9). Leave a larger buffer in the most recent pocket queries to allow for unpublished caches which cachers may still be editing and may show up under an older “hidden date” when they finally do get published.
Do not change any other settings on the page. Except for the above, all the remaining query fields should be blank or inactive.
Go to the bottom of the page and click the “Submit Information” button. Take a look at the results # at the top of the next page. It should be a little under 1000 caches (as of the latest edit, the above ranges generate 999, 999, 999, 1000, 997, 997, 999, and 787 caches). You can now check a day of the week button at the top of the page and then hit the submit button at the bottom to trigger the pocket query to active.
Headed for a bit of Aloha?
Since Greenland Reviewer is also the regional reviewer for Hawaii, and so many Alaskans vacation there, here are the date ranges to get all Hawaiian caches in just three Pocket Queries:
HI-1 = May 1, 2000, and March 31, 2015 (997)
HI-2 = April 1, 2015, and February 28, 2025 (990)
HI-3 = March 1, 2025, and December 31, 2026 (106)