I never leave a GPS or any surveying equipment alone anywhere.
There are places where I would not, to be sure. Nevertheless I often do. Most of the thefts of bases and TSs I have heard of occured from right beside the road. If you set your base back off the road it is generally going to be safe.
I do remember having to sit and watch receivers in the not-so-nice parts of town when working down south. I would have called myself a babysitter, considering that I did absolutely no survey work during that time. I did get a lot of studying and reading done, in between watching drug deals go down across the street. Sometimes conditions really do require someone to watch the instruments.
I miss working in remote AK, where we rarely had to worry about randos messing with the gear - just bears gnawing on the fixed-height foam and ripping up the Tyvek photo panels.
The first GPS receivers I used cost $50 ea. 1989.
leaving one unattended was unthinkable. And that was L1 static, and 5-6 hr work window.?ÿ
I kinda figured, we priced some out in 1985 if I remember correctly, way over $100k for the pair. Took another 10 years to get it down to something possible, I haven't been without one since.
in ‘88 or ‘89, we bought Trimble: 2 for $100. Not 4 months later the salesman contacted us and offered another 1 for $15. Shortly after that the pricing went to 3 for $100. I think the salesman tossed us a favor because we bought right before the price break of $33 ea.
It seemed like 3/$100 was the going price for over 10 yrs. they got better, faster, (L1/L2, ram, software (24 hr coverage too)), and seemed to stay around that price.
I still like and use the Z12.
I have a bunch of mid-90s $20k (or so) receivers sitting around. Although I didn't pay anywhere near that much for any of them, it still amazes me that the yellow transit case they come in is now worth more than the receiver.
I have 3 geodetic antennae yhat came with the receivers. At the time I think they were $5K replacement cost to buy 1.
@jim-frame speaking of old surveying gear, you think 80s/90s gear will start getting antique prices yet?
I have a whole garage of old survey gear that I have recently cleaned, oiled & placed in plastic wrap.
the yellow transit case they come in is now worth more than the receiver.
Prices on ebay for the cables add up to as much as the receivers, which usually are offered with no accessories.
First receivers I used (mid 80's) were $250K. Each. And the ephemeris cost $3000 a month to download. Over a 300 baud modem.
Then another brand came out for $125K each, we bought three but they didn't really work, only got us a few decimeters of accuracy. Pretty much bankrupted the company because of that. That manufacturer never made it past a couple of months.?ÿ
When Trimble came out with their first receiver for $50K we thought that was great, but we could probably only use them for lower order surveys.?ÿHow times change.?ÿ
I often leave a receiver unattended, but you need to be creative. Now with VRS not as necessary anymore to have that base running, although for highway projects we run a local base even though there is a VRS in the area (better accuracy).
I only had one receiver disappear that I never saw again, in Tennessee around 2005 or so. Had another one stolen in 2008, got it back the same day. A R10 was stolen in 2016, got that one back about 5 months later. Had another R8 blow over into the river, never got that back although we did drag the river a few days later. Probably could have hired a diver, but I figured by then it would be non functioning anyway.?ÿ?ÿ
Not economically feasible to have someone babysit a receiver. especially since many jobs are 100's or 1000's of miles away. When I was a solo operator for a year or so around 2006 I did pay someone a couple of times to babysit, soon figured out it wasn't worth it.?ÿ
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I will truck mount an antenna for security, still have antenna/receiver setups-GPS only. I don't do it often since we have other ways of protecting the base, sometimes by location, sometimes setting up at the office. Each case is unique, but I'm not leaving a base along a popular highway turnout all day long. I would slowly go under leaving a guy sitting all day looking at it. Cheaper to let one get taken.