I am running Topcon Hiper GA (base and rover)with a Carlson Surveyor + to collect data. Once we get "fixed"..and start collecting data..we keep an eye on the data screen which shows X, Y, Z and the HRMS and VRMS of the current rover location. Depending on what we are doing and what we have RMS tolerances set to....we take shots when the RMS's are within tolerence.
That being said...we recently had an issue where a shot (RTK at rover) that was within RMS tolerence (per our setting) when taken... was later found to be 0.30' higher (elev) than the true value which was established by level loop from nearby control point. The raw data file revealed that the PDOP at the time of that shot was 2.8 +-. The other shots taken during that visit all had a PDOP of 1.5 or lower....only the 1 shot was like that.
My issue is that when taking shots....the PDOP doesn't show on the collection screen...only X,Y,Z and RMS levels show up. I would like to be able to view the PDOP (VDOP, HDOP, etc) as I am taking shots without having to jump into another menu such as Monitor Skyplot to view the DOP's for a particular time and location. Otherwise I will have no warning that I may have a problem at that shot.
Keep in mind that I am fairly new to the world of RTK and consider myself to be "self taught"....so any suggestions, advice, criticism will be welcome. My humility has no bounds..lol. (That last part is most likely not true!)
Jason
I don't know much about Carlson's field software. We use Trimble equipment and software. It shows the rms on the screen as well but when the pdop exceeds tolerance the aggravating woman's voice from the data collector says "poor pdop".
I use the GA's almost all the time but run it with a FC2500. I have found that no matter what the pdop, the elevations can vary as much as 3-4 cms (canada units). I guess your talking about a bust of 30cms.
We also have to go to another screen to view the pdop.