Hi All-
I've read the forum from time to time, never posted.?ÿ ?ÿI'm a CA LS.?ÿ
Got started with EDM's (HP orange box), then on to total stations with HP data collector in the 80's (loved that Supersurveyor software!!) followed by the magical pen plotter and digitizer table (CivilCadd and Calcomp on an AM2000, San Bernardino style) and then got into GPS in 1995 (Trimble 4000 series). Now doing lots of cools stuff with drones, lidar and point clouds.?ÿ But can't take too much more, my brain is exploding!
Gary
Yay! So glad you've decided to join us. 🙂
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I started on a K & E 30" optical transit with a clunky top mounted distomat hooked up to a motorcycle battery we used to carry around in an army surplus canvas bag.?ÿ When we got our first Topcon Guppy we were in heaven.?ÿ Then came the Topcon GTS 2B that would let us do coordinate checks and reduce slope distances.?ÿ Really high tech stuff back in the day.?ÿ LOL!
@chris-bouffard?ÿ Nice.?ÿ and life was simple....
Welcome, I guess that makes me a new-timer. CA LS as well, but I'm in the 9's. Just passed about a year ago.?ÿ
I've been in it for 15 years though, got started with Zeiss total stations and HP collectors in Chicago. My drafting days only go as far back as Land Desktop, but they started with 4H lead and a clipboard. Time and tech do fly though, kids who are 10 years younger than me sure have had a different experience. That's the way it goes.
?ÿ
Are you surveying in San Bernardino Co.? I'm in Riverside Co.
Hi Drew-
No, I'm in Norcal. My reference to San Bernandino was just in relation to an earlier software product I purchased and used in the late 80's / early 90's called CivilCADD aka CivilDesign, developed by Bonadimin, a civil firm in SB.
I'm such an old, old timer that I started as a rope stretcher on a crew laying out pyramid foundations.
100-foot steel tape and chaining pins in support of a stiff-legged tripod with an undersized plumb bob with a coiled cord that never hung completely straight.?ÿ I believe the transit had hit the ground more than once in the previous decades of use.
100-foot steel tape and chaining pins in support of a stiff-legged tripod with an undersized plumb bob with a coiled cord that never hung completely straight.?ÿ I believe the transit had hit the ground more than once in the previous decades of use.
Let's not take this into the gutter eclesiastical bovine....
?ÿ
??? ?????ÿ
I??m so olde - I started off with TTT
transit tables and tapes
And the Olivetti magnetic card reader computer to do area calcs - oh those were the days -and- it reminds me of how old I am?ÿ
@pls?ÿ
Planimeter or divide into triangles and rectangles.
When I took the LS exam there was one problem that required solving an area by DMD.?ÿ The test was on papyrus and we could only use a piece of #2 charcoal.
It was closed book so no one could use their abacus...
Actually, us Old Timers started with steel tape and transit, not even transit and steel tape. Would be interested in any Older Timers that started with a chain.
Paul in PA
I began my career working with my father in '68 - '69 after HS.?ÿ We used "tape and transit".?ÿ But my father had an older surveyor buddy that kept a chain in with his tools.?ÿ This surveyor insisted on using a chain if the original survey or deed indicated distances in chains.
An admirable concept I guess.?ÿ I'm just glad I never worked with him.?ÿ
I turned a yoke mount Red 1a over twice (2000m x 2) one night in the winter in the sand hills of Finney County, KS shooting a triple-triple prism array. 1981.?ÿ We was hot stuff for sure, good buddy.
I began my career working with my father in '68 - '69 after HS.?ÿ We used "tape and transit".?ÿ But my father had an older surveyor buddy that kept a chain in with his tools.?ÿ This surveyor insisted on using a chain if the original survey or deed indicated distances in chains.
An admirable concept I guess.?ÿ I'm just glad I never worked with him.?ÿ
Not an admirable concept.?ÿ The chain had 198 points where friction wear would occur. This wear would cause the chain to lengthen, making measurements with the chain more incorrect the more the chain was used.?ÿ One would assume your buddy's chain is quite old by now (though no older than 1620AD) and worn out.
Edit:?ÿ I surfed the Web and you can buy a *brand new* Gunter's Chain for about $175USD, though it's made in India so its calibration may be questionable ???? .
?ÿ
@isurvey2 Welcome on board. I pretty much paralleled your experience path during my emersion into the survey profession. Bonadiman's software was the standard around SoCal during the 80's - 90's, I never ran it but I knew a lot of engineers who did. Your San Bernardino reference caught my attention also, since I practice in the east end of San Bernardino & Riverside Counties.