Do you guys double your angles when doing a control traverse? If you have an active tracking prism (I use a trimble mt1000) do you use it actively or passively while traversing?
If traversing to mt1000 set it to semi active if in an area where reflective things are or passive if not. Always turn rounds for me. Unless I am going around a small lot and know my instrument is in adjustment. But these days when I do go out I am usually using a piece of equipment that I have not worked with so I will add a direct reverse or face 1 face 2 to my BS and Ck to third point so I have an idea of what the instrument is doing.
As for turning rounds - if using a robot it's automated and crazy easy to turn rounds (presuming that you have a pair of targets to set up) so why wouldn't you do it? Granted, with a modern robot in good order there isn't a lot to be gained in terms of precision, but there is no better way to prove that things were in good order at the time measurements were taken than to double things up.
If you are not using a modern robot it's harder to do but there will be more to be gained. So it become all the more important.
After you run an adjustment and you're satisfied with the results, do you change your control point coordinates to what starnet came up with and fix them so they can't be adjusted if you decide to add more points to the project later? I ran an adjustment. I'm satisfied with the results. Now I have to send these coords to another surveyor.
do you change your control point coordinates to what starnet came up with and fix them so they can't be adjusted if you decide to add more points to the project later
While I can't say that there's never a scenario in which this is advisable, I will note that you're kidding yourself if you do it. All measurements have errors that can only be estimated, so characterizing positions as immutable is a fiction. A practical fiction in some circumstances, perhaps, but a fiction nonetheless. A more honest approach would be to deliver the coordinates along with their associated error estimates and let the downstream user decide if those meet his needs.
do you change your control point coordinates to what starnet came up with and fix them so they can't be adjusted if you decide to add more points to the project later?
We don't know nearly enough about your "control points" to be able to answer your question. How did they come into your hands, how were they established, how have they been used by others, how will they be used in the future? At some point in your system there has to be something held.
Perhaps you established some points using GPS in one fashion or another and are calling them "control points" for your traverse, allowing those "controls" a standard error in the adjustment. This is a common circumstance. In such a case I would report the adjusted results for those "control points". But understanding that such "control points" aren't the true control of your survey - the coordinates of the GPS base station, in whatever form that might take, are.
I set 4 pairs (8 points) of gps points in a linear fashion over a 4 mile stretch. I scaled 7 points to horizontal ground around the central most point. I ran a traverse from one end to the other and located some geodetic survey monuments to check into.
Then in starnet I held my central point as fixed and gave starnet a bearing from one end to the other and gave the end points an error factor of 0.001 0.001 0.001 and let it adjust the remaining points to fit the adjustment. everything looks good. I need to send the final adjusted points to another surveyor that were partnering with on this project. They are doing the SUE.
I'm just calling them control points because I ran the traverse and adjusted it and these points will be used as site control for the remainder of the project. I don't want the coordinates to change.
I'm still new to using starnet. If I go out and run a spur off of this main traverse do i adjust it in this same project? or a new one?
I've ran 3 or 4 adjustments with starnet on different projects for my control networks. I haven't then come back with more location and traverse data and done another adjustment so I don't even know what to expect.
If I go out and run a spur off of this main traverse do i adjust it in this same project? or a new one?
I can't see any reason not to incorporate the newer work into the same project. As long as you're using realistic error estimates (which implies using equipment and procedures that support those estimates), you're not going to degrade the original adjustment. The new work might produce changes in the old positions, but those changes will be consistent with the quality of the measurements. If the changes are unpleasantly surprising, it's time to re-evaulate the network design and execution.
I set 4 pairs (8 points) of gps points in a linear fashion over a 4 mile stretch. I scaled 7 points to horizontal ground around the central most point......
In such a case its perfectly all right to give all the gps points a standard error and report the adjusted coordinates. Maybe hold that one central point that you scaled around fixed. I'd probably go higher than 0.001 0.001 0.001 with that error. I'd go with whatever yielded an error factor on the coordinates of very near 1.00, and I'd expect to end up with something on the order of 0.02 0.02 0.04.
These eight points you gps'd are not control points. They are points you measured in redundant ways.
If I go out and run a spur off of this main traverse do i adjust it in this same project?
If the question was purely a technical one I'd recommend doing it in the same project. But I'm thinking that there are project management reasons to stick with the coordinates you share with other team members. If so, start a new project.