I had a TDS200 give out on me approximately a month ago. I purchased on ebay a Ranger 500 with Survey Pro/GPS, pretty much what I already had except I don't need the cable, this unit has blue tooth. Now that I have been using it for a while, I have the issue of getting a message that the base has been moved and the program wants to set a new point for the base. If I hit escape a few times it will go back to the main menu and I can go to data collection where I can set the remote base and use my original point. The thing that bothers me is that it happens often when I am near or out of range even for a short period, sometimes even when I lean the GPS on the fence while digging. My previous data collector would show 0% radio when I was out of range but would not make me reset the base to continue working when back in radio range. On some jobs I need to set the GPS on the back seat while I drive to locate points and control that are in radio range but since radio is lost laying on the back seat, I have to reset the base every time. I was wondering if there was a setting that I may be missing to eliminate this issue.
Are you using a network? or your own base station?
Joe the Surveyor, post: 345408, member: 118 wrote: Are you using a network? or your own base station?
Using my own base, Hiper Lite+, range is about 1 to 2 miles depending on the terrain.
billvhill, post: 345394, member: 8398 wrote: I had a TDS200 give out on me approximately a month ago. I purchased on ebay a Ranger 500 with Survey Pro/GPS, pretty much what I already had except I don't need the cable, this unit has blue tooth. Now that I have been using it for a while, I have the issue of getting a message that the base has been moved and the program wants to set a new point for the base. If I hit escape a few times it will go back to the main menu and I can go to data collection where I can set the remote base and use my original point. The thing that bothers me is that it happens often when I am near or out of range even for a short period, sometimes even when I lean the GPS on the fence while digging. My previous data collector would show 0% radio when I was out of range but would not make me reset the base to continue working when back in radio range. On some jobs I need to set the GPS on the back seat while I drive to locate points and control that are in radio range but since radio is lost laying on the back seat, I have to reset the base every time. I was wondering if there was a setting that I may be missing to eliminate this issue.
I have the same issue with my Ranger 300 running TDS, and my Topcon Hiper Lites+. I just hit enter, and let the data collector do what it wants. It will find the base on the same control point, and you can continue measuring. I never had any problems with the measurements. Just a PITA.
I guess I'll try that, my old data collector would just continue to give positions, float or even autonomous when it had 0% radio, but as soon as I came back into range it would fix the position and continue. Resetting the base is a pain specially when I'm just trying to pickup topo features.
Let me check my setting tomorrow, maybe I can spot something.
D you have the rover set to 'rover' in the SC settings? kinda of a crazy question, but i thought there was a setting that allowed you to toggle back and forth.
Mine doesn't do that, if I pull it out of the truck it might say something and kick me out of a data collection screen but I can just get back into data collection or stake out without resetting the base.
I have found if you key in coordinates and say call it point 1, it will want to create another point called "BASE 1". I think what it is doing is creating a point with a lat and long based on the coordinates you keyed in.
I know this is off the subject but, I'm really missing my old ranger 200 now, you can't beat the keyboard with the soft touch. I assume that it was a intentional design to make the keys easier for gloves but I preferred the soft touch with a cut finger on my glove. I find myself retyping or editing descriptions constantly, Also it seems that there is a slight hesitation when I type the first letter while the collector scrolls the description list. At first I thought it was me but then I noticed it always skipped the second letter which I had typed while it was still scrolling through the descriptor list. Once I slowed down I didn't have the problem anymore but it is hard to constantly remember to do wait that extra fraction of a second after the first key.
I was thinking that survey pro has some kind of time out for when radio contact is lost between the rover and base, but I have not been able to find any place where I can change it in any of the settings.
I experience he same thing with my Ranger 500X and my Ranger 300X, both running TDS Survey Pro. I have never had an issue with measurements. I am always a little nervous, though.
We had a similar problem, be very careful with shots after it does the resetting base thing. We ended up with a lot of bad shots on a topo, to the point we had to re do about 5 acres. It is a problem with the software and the gps, they DO NOT work together right. We ended up switching to magnet to fix the problems