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To reach description
In a world where everybody has GPS and google maps on their phone, and where the point is beside a public road, does a “to reach” description – say from the nearest post office - for a geodetic control point have any value?
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11 Replies
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Are they still writing these? I think they add to the history of the point.
But
No; not for 99% of the people that use them. There are still a few that would need this information, but they are retiring or dying…
I was at an LSAW BOT meeting and someone said something about not knowing anyone that still drafted by hand; and one gentleman raised his hand and said: I still do.
It’s like a vicinity map on your survey. Does anyone still need a paper map to get to where they are going?
Dougie
I hope everyone has a great day; I know I will! -
Today, most drawings contain the postal address of the property that was not an option when original surveys were being made.
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General direction and distance from a town, a to-reach from the nearest intersection of named roads, and some local ties are important, but detailed directions with turns from the post office in Podunk is not particularly useful now that we have better maps.
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Postal Address? We don’t need those here. Tax maps was and GIS now is the only way to find an address in the VI.
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I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
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I totally agree. If doing a day or days of recon I have always put the paper datasheets in a binder to take into the field. If your phone or other electronic device dies, you can still get your work done “old school.”
Several years ago I sent a crew out to set photo panels for aerial mapping. Back in my day, we went out with a quad(s) in hand that had the flight plan and target locations drawn on it by the photogrammetrist. This crew was only versed it taking the provided target coordinates into the field via a data collector, setting up an RTK base, then navigating to the target location and getting a position after the target had been set. Quite efficient, but…. They did have Google Earth screen captures showing the target locations, but never understood why. The job was 2 hours from the office. I was quite surprised when they returned to the office shortly after lunch on the first day.
They told me they couldn’t set the panels. I asked why, thinking it was an access issue. They said they lost connection with the base while navigating to the first target location. They went to the base to investigate and found that a cow had eaten through a cable, so they packed up and came home. They learned that day why they had those images with them. We had to delay the flight a couple of days as a result.
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We do mileage and turn descriptions for some of our O&G clients. “Go north on U.S. Highway 285 for 15.2 miles and turn right on lease road continuing 3 miles to pad site”. Not many addresses assigned in the middle of the oil field. Description in conjunction with lease signs gets the crew to the site regardless of their level of tech sophistication.
Vicinity maps for most boundary surveys. Even if I’m not using it to get to the property, it helps visualize where a tract is.
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NO, except as an interesting historical note.
NGS now says at https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/marks/descriptors.shtml#notes
Avoid the traditional turn-by-turn to-reach paragraphs, if a dashboard GPS will direct users to the vicinity.
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Yep, still write them, lots of them, and draw maps showing routes. Those go along with the descriptions. As said above for O&G clients, sometimes it’s actually required by regulators, but O&G aren’t the only ones, fencing crews, farming, I’m guessing combiners still use them, I know I did when I drove a combine. GPS is nice but when roads are new and crossing a 100,000 acre ranch the descriptions and signs help more than the GPS.
I’ve been stopped many times by truck drivers confused about where they are and where they need to go.
It’s a big world out there sometimes, land doesn’t always come with an address and roads are often not found on maps or have any kind of official name.
I doubt to reach descriptions are going away any time soon.
As far as for NGS control points, I hardly ever used them, the site description is what I focused on.
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I’ve been wondering this for a while now myself. I know WSDOT still requires a ‘to reach’ description for new monuments in their database, and I still find it somewhat useful especially with the oddball ones that are rather remote. But with the 21st century location tools we now have, such descriptions are perhaps not nearly as useful as they once were; however, IMO they are not totally useless… yet…
The only superior evidence is that which you haven’t yet found. -
I am not a boss, but if I were I would be hard pressed to accept “my phone died” as a valid reason for aborting a control campaign. As such I would try to enable my people to succeed even without a working telephonic device.
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