Question about land surveying

[BillG_in_TX]

beenthere,

I am near the park. If you look at this TopoZone map, the panhandle of my property is right where the <font color="red">red + symbol </font>is located - at the dead end of a recently extended county road.

Are you familiar with the cavern? It's pretty "cool" (literally as well as figuratively). It's the 2nd largest river-formed cave in the US.

 

[dmccarty]

jagmandave,

I should have mentioned this in my earlier post but I left it out for some reason... /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

I use a T Post to mark the survey stakes. I paint the top and bottom with a bright orange spray paint. When running the line it helps to see the post. The color helps of course but the real reason is so that if the undergrowth gets to high it will be easier to find the post. The color at ground level is so if I'm in the "jungle" with a brush cutter I have a chance of seeing the post before I find it with the saw blade. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

My neighbor found some T Posts that had red already painted on the top of the post.

Later,
Dan

 

[Highbeam]

I wound up doing more construction staking, cuz I was unlucky enough to be good at it, than topo but, still several thousand topo's with old 1" Topcon total stations.

- Our backup gun was the yellow topcon. It was pretty old and the batteries would die pretty quick but in a jamb it could be used. I forgot if the distance measurements were laser or infared, I do know it is invisible light but so are some lasers.

Does the rodman's data unit allow much communication for left-right / come-go info for stakeout on the robotic system?

-That's a real cool part. If you are a point monkey (construction staking) then you go down the list of points that are preentered into the data unit. The readout on the rod tells you in real time which direction to move and how far to the hundredth. No kidding, it dials you in to the point as you move. Once on the spot you pound a hub, mark up a stake, and move on to the next point. Very efficient with a rodman/hub pounder team. The robotic was capable of 500' shots. Only hard part was walking back to manually check the backsite as the tripod legs expanded in the sun.

I've been thinking of renting one of the robotics to topo my place. Do you happen to know what they rent for? Any experience with the prism-less total stations?

- The robotic TS was more than 50,000$ when we bought it about 4 years ago, I can only imagine that rental is a percentage.

I got out of the private business about 3 years ago and now work for a city. I have free access to a total station, level, and such things but not the robotic anymore. It was pretty cool.

 

[BillG_in_TX]

Bryan,

To get back to your original question, I think you can get pretty close using the method I described. I found all my pins and loaded the coordinates into a freeware program called GPS Utility which has an area calculator (by the way, most Garmin units have this capability built in). The area calculated came out to 42.52 vs. the surveyed 42.82 acres - a difference of less than 1%. Either all of the points were fairly accurate, or the combined errors somehow canceled themselves out.

As I indicated earlier, I walked and marked the line twice, and used the area calculator to triple check my assertion, before I contacted my neighbor with my findings. If I were you, I would be very sure before I started cutting anything.

 

[Panache]

I use GPSU considerably. Something to remember, your GPSr will have better reception if there are no leaves on the trees. Leaves reduce the quality of the signal recieved.

 

[Highbeam]

Yep, GPS ain't worth a dang in the woods.

 

[slowrev]

It is actually the moisture in the leaves that attenuate the GPS signal.
Ben

 

[HomeBrew2]

I can sure see why you left private practice, as did I, when management supports such non-productive attitudes as "point monkey". I'm old enough that I had to calc all my own coordinates in the field and did field engineering on a regular basis, but, management always (20 years) had an undertone to all subordinates (secretaries, draftsmen, CAD operators, etc) of superiority. Not a very inviting atmosphere.

Oh, my friends at Lewis & Lewis rent RTS's for a grand a week ... easy to do a few extra "landscape" topo's to pay the freight. ( I have to concur, 1,000 is a percentage of 50,000)
Cheers!

PS, didn't you sell your crawler?

 

[Highbeam]

Yes, I have taken the "point monkey" role and have had to calculate things in the field. All part of the progression. I was also a hub pounder. All of that beats the role of line cutter, you can keep that machete.

I sold the crawler and we did the move on Friday. It was a sad day but was a necesssary sale to move onto a nice big tractor. Time to update my profile to reflect the loss.