I had the opportunity to attend the OPUS Projects training Monday and Tuesday of this week in Starkville, MS. It was a great class. I learned a lot, and will be using this service in the future. There was also a Mississippi Minimum Standards class and ethics class as well.
It was great to see a few people I had briefly met at the MAPS Conference in February, and make a few new friends. It truly amazes me how quickly us surveyors can just "hit it off" and be friends so quickly. It really was a great group of guys in the class. The fish fry was really good. Mr. King brought out some older surveying instruments from the lab at the fish fry. That was pretty cool. I had seen pictures of some of the instruments, but it was cool to actually put my hands on them.
Thank you to Hub King, Denis Riordan, Joe Byrd, and Dennis Truax for putting on a great event, and to Mississippi State University for hosting the event.
A few tips for anyone taking the class in the near future:
1. Make sure to print out the readme files in the practice data sets that you are given. It will make entering the rod heights and antenna types much easier. At the very minimum, have a smart phone or tablet that you can view the files on.
2. I printed out the entire PDF version of the slideshows and had them in a notebook. You probably could save the time and paper and ink/toner, and view them on the laptop.
I would recommend anyone needing to do any static control work take the class. I learned a lot.
Jimmy
Good stuff. There is a class not too far away in the future. I'll make plans to attend.