A few days back while enjoying a few adult beverages with some fellow surveyors we were discussing prices on rural boundaries deep in central Missouri. One thing led to another and we got to the topic of modern day equipment and how necessary is it really?
Imagine a nice lady calls you up and needs a boundary survey of 160 acres - been in the family for 125+ years; solid timber with a creek cutting through, a few miles off the county road (no road access) deep in Shannon County, Missouri. No cell phone coverage, no recorded corner documents in any of the surrounding sections...I think I would rather have a shovel, compass and a chain that all that other stuff. Probably wet a hook too. It's beautiful out there.
@37.126564,-91.1982803,3a,75y,79.9h,75.83t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-t4XDdVHIVBk%2FVAEievfcXwI%2FAAAAAAAABlM%2FdrWreUzqa1cHrxUvJtU2xz-lnM5fZbYrgCJkC!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2F-t4XDdVHIVBk%2FVAEievfcXwI%2FAAAAAAAABlM%2FdrWreUzqa1cHrxUvJtU2xz-lnM5fZbYrgCJkC%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya332.55542-ro-0-fo100%2F!7i5632!8i2816!6m1!1e1"> https://www.google.com/maps/ @37.126564,-91.1982803,3a,75y,79.9h,75.83t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-t4XDdVHIVBk%2FVAEievfcXwI%2FAAAAAAAABlM%2FdrWreUzqa1cHrxUvJtU2xz-lnM5fZbYrgCJkC!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2F-t4XDdVHIVBk%2FVAEievfcXwI%2FAAAAAAAABlM%2FdrWreUzqa1cHrxUvJtU2xz-lnM5fZbYrgCJkC%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya332.55542-ro-0-fo100%2F!7i5632!8i2816!6m1!1e1
You think there are still surveyors deep in the woods living the dream....Solar Compass and Chain...the mentality of the hell with Minimum Standards...Theodolite and range pole...? I'm about to find out..Packing the banjo and the fishing pole. I may draft this one by hand...
Mobile LiDAR to deep country surveying - all in the same week. God I love what I do!
:gammon:
It looks really nice. Really, really nice. I'd be tempted to camp on that job for a couple weeks.
But, seriously. Using modern equipment you should easily end up with repeatable coordinates for the monuments, tied to the NSRS, for some distance around. Which will have value for any survey in that section or any adjacent section. You build that up over time and pretty soon you have a database of monument positions which has real, lasting, value. Something that might be valuable to your successors and assigns.
So, have you picked out a nice hill for your gps base?
🙂
