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stolen Trimble R8 – Phoenix, Az
Posted by Joe F on October 26, 2011 at 8:23 pmOne of our survey crews just had a Trimble R8GNSS base receiver, tripod, tribract, radio, antenna and associated cables stolen from a job site in downtown Phoenix. I’ll try and post serial number once we determine which receiver it is. police report filed.
DeletedUser replied 12 years, 6 months ago 10 Members · 20 Replies- 20 Replies
When I surveyed in Washington State, we had trouble with theft. It got so bad we would hire someone to sit with the base. The thieves even started stealing back sites. Fortunately they were not easy to sell, and either another surveyor would get approached to buy them ( getting the word out to others), or we’d locate them on Ebay.
I recommend looking on EBay. Most equipment ends up there. Once in awhile the try to sell them at local Pawn Shops also. Good luck on recovering equipment.thanks for your reply – we have filed a police report, and found out that pawn shops need to report to the City police when they purchase equipment such as this, so we feel pretty good that the pawn shop angle is covered. I’ll keep an eye out for ebay. with the fact that they drove to the base, and took everything but the antenna tripod and 12v battery, seems they knew what they took. very PO’d am I right now.
In the future, you might hire some cheap labor to watch it. We used to get low skill folks. All they have to do is sit in their car and baby sit. Check the battery every couple hours is a plus. In the long run it was cheaper than being without equipment, until insurance paid out. Typically our dealer would give us a set up right away, but still took a few days. We were a small shop without a backup unit.
Do you mind sharing your last name Mr.F ?
Joe Falinski
Ritoch-Powell & Associates
Phoenix, AzJoe, also keep an eye on Craigslist. They may try to pawn it off on there. Hope it gets found and returned ASAP!! I hate crooks!! :-@
Admins WifeNOT to reduce your anger, or sorrow, but:
What about adding an anchor to your tripods, with a big screw gun, and a cable, into the ground?
I mean, we recently got a portable carport, for camping, and they have little mobile home type anchors,
that you anchor it with. If a fitting were added, so a nice big screw gun could anchor it, then it seems that it would or could foil would be thieves.Here they go, try to snatch it, and the durned thing is tied down!
(add a cable, or rod, from the bell housing, to the tripod, so that they cannot unscrew it either, without a key)
You would not have to use it all the time, but some places BEG for it, IMHO.
Just seems practical for some applications.
Nate
PS, here is another link, to a similar anchor unit. http://mobilehomepartsstore.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=410900&Category_Code=ANC
Somehow, in my mind, I think it would also serve to solve the wind problem. Add the anchor, and fasten it down, so that it is more windproof.
N
Not to minimize your loss, it really sucks-I lost a receiver once, never got it back. Plus had to redo a day’s worth of work (it wasn’t RTK-it was a base for a static survey). But, aren’t there enough CORS, VRS, etc around Phoenix that you wouldn’t need to run a base?
That would save a tripod, but everything else can be easily taken. It would slow the thieves down a bit. Having a baby sitter is best defense, also they can check batteries as day goes along.
IF there were a device, to lock the inst to the tripod, (ie bell housing, which is the thingy you turn, to screw the inst to the top of the tripod) Maybe a horizontal hole through it, with a bolt through it, sort of like “the club” which was used on automobile steering wheels, to keep you from rotating them, prevented auto theft.
This would complete the security system, and render the unit difficult to move. This would effectively make the thief take some 10 mins to figure it out… he’d move on, I think.
(Not to minimize your loss, as others said above….)
N
A guy could make a nice profit developing a anti-theft system. Seems this is becoming more of a problem every year.
I appreciate the responses – but anchoring the base only keeps the tripod in place. A couple seconds and the tribract is off and there goes your base receiver. As to using known CORS or HARN locations, we haven’t gotten comfortable enough with the elevations for tight RTK topo for roadway projects – seems we get better results setting up our own base on a known point close to our work. with enough control to check into, our vertical checks are about 0.06 – 0.08, which is about as good as RTK gets it seems. sometimes better, but reliability of vertical positions seems to still be an issue with RTK.
In the past we would localize our control. After establishing all the coordinates, we’d go back through the benchmarks, using the published elevations. It seemed to tighten our elevations by a couple hundredths. Often on checks we’d be 0.05′ or better.
Hopefully it hasn’t made its way across our (very secure) southern border yet. I’ve been told folks across the line will “acquire” one here, take it back to Mexico, use it until it needs servicing and then just discard it and go steal another one.
We’ll keep an eye out down here in S.E. AZ for you.
> I appreciate the responses – but anchoring the base only keeps the tripod in place.
A determined thief, armed with the right tools and the right knowledge, will always be able to steal your gear, but there are some reasonable measures that can be taken to deter opportunistic theft. The photo below shows my “secure GPS” setup:
I modified a Knaack jobsite box by installing an exhaust fan (the top of the fan box is barely visible near the right front of the receiver) and a row of intake holes along the handle overhang, so that even in 100° weather the receiver stays cool enough to operate without trouble. I rigged a Y-cable so that the receiver and fan draw from the same 18ah battery (in the Pelican case visible under the receiver). I put a couple of U-bolts (secured inside with wing nuts) to prevent the box handles from being usable, though I currently use one handle as a cable attachment to lock the box down.
The receiver and battery are sitting on 150 pounds of sandbags. Add in 80 pounds for the box itself, another 10 or so for the battery, and you’ve got about 240 pounds of very awkward load for someone to carry off, *if* they manage to cut the security cable.
I also added a bracket to the center pole of the fixed-height tripod that locks it down, too. The antenna is the only item still vulnerable to casual theft, but I’m working on some ideas to fix that.
The solution is only suitable for drive-up locations, but those are the ones that really need it. Using it adds about 10 minutes to setup and teardown time, but the labor cost savings paid for it on the second day of use.
Nice set up Jim but unfortunately it wouldn’t work with the newer units that have an integrated receiver and antenna.
Good idea Jim, a bit more portable than my trailer!
This shows my old Leica 500, but any non integrated unit would work.
Theft exposure is the tripod, tribrach, adapter and antenna. I cable the tripod to the trailer frame to slow the grab and dash guys too. Some sort of a locking ring on the tripod (like the child proof door knob spinners) to keep from unscrewing the tribrach and a tripod “leg spreader” would be good inventions to further slow a thief. Receiver, data, RTK radio / phone, etc. are all inside the trailer. I have solar power on the roof to power everything basically for an unlimited amount of time.
You do have to have setups that you can get the trailer within 50 feet, but it is usually those high visibility locations where you get equipment stolen anyway.
I have had two setups stolen in the past, one while the baby sitter was about 50 feet away, he heard a noise and turned around just to see the thief jump in his car and race away.
You can only do so much, a determined thief will steal anything, but the box setup or my trailer setup will slow them down enough to maybe not make it worth it.
SHG
Here is a recent shot of the trailer setup near a control point.
Trailer was left at this location for three days or so, receiver programed to start and stop via timer each day. I did check on it once or twice, but there were no issues.
SHG
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