Ring, Ring

An engineer was doing a topo and design for a road/pad.

I have been helping him out with his Trimble files and OPUS submissions, he has also been using RTX-PP which so far has been giving out better results than OPUS, at least for elevations, I just don't have any clue how, which is a bit concerning.

Usually he is in remote areas, has to be an average of 80-100 miles to the nearest CORS.

So he calls in a big panic, says he is at a site and checked into a CORS and it was really off..............

Scratching my head; "you CHECKED-INTO a CORS?"

First I'm wondering where he his, there are some stand-alone Cors stations in the area out by themselves in the middle of open fields, maybe he is near one of them. But, how exactly do you check into one of them?

So I ask the name of the station and he gives it to me, doesn't sound familiar, I look it up and it's a Triangulation Station-1st order and all, he's about .6' from the published new NAD83 number.

Pretty expected, I had the darndest time explaining that everything is just fine, that it is expected to be "off" somewhat, that the "official" number is a rough conversion, that it's not a CORS, that a HARN point would check better,,

He just couldn't get why they would publish something to thousands of a foot if it's only accurate to the nearest foot......
Tried to explain why, not sure it made any sense to him.....