Holy Cow, post: 358453, member: 50 wrote: Norman has been tasked with developing a list of questions for a specific in-house training opportunity/requirement. It carries no more importance than a similar list of questions for another potential in-house training opportunity/requirement unless it has been decided that anyone who can't handle this class should hit the road and not let the door hit them on the way out. I'm assuming he is with a firm that pays well for having superior knowledge and doesn't pick up help off the street.
There is a bigger picture. When one works with a firm that is involved in various projects for a variety of clients with large project costs, you better have a good assessment of you employees.
You have to have handle of everyone's skill set and then facilitate training to improve their knowledge.
This is being pragmatic.
Whether you are surveying a new bridge access ramps, a 10k acre tract, 20 miles of NFS boundary, joint projects involving NGS or the company softball team, it is essential that you have a handle on skills of company personnel.
So Mark's (aka Norman Oklahoma) quizlet is the first step in helping your employees and the company. If an employee is contra to self improvement and just wants to know what day is pay day then there may be a problem.
First multi-million $ survey project that I worked was in the late 1980's.
One had to have their best doing their best. Witnessed the firm lose a top hydro PC because they assigned him to a area outside of his expertise that sparked friction that led to firing.
For a small firm or Mom&Pop small business, a test like this is not needed. But if you want to run with the big dogs then it is something to consider. Do you really want a employee involved in a high price project oblivious to standard skills, knowledge and correct vernacular required for the client?
It appears to be Mark's boss has the foresight to improve and prosper as a business competitor.
I apologize for the boorish comment but amend it. It did appear that you were being juvenile in mocking the OP and not giving any feedback of a productive nature.
[USER=50]@Holy Cow[/USER]
And the answers are ?
DEREK G. GRAHAM OLS OLIP, post: 358546, member: 285 wrote: And the answers are ?
Since you have asked...
1. What is the difference between the Ellipsoidal Height and the Orthometric Elevation of a point called?
Geoid Height, or Geoid Seperation
2. Name the 2 national elevation datums. Which one is most compatible with the use of GPS? Why?
National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 (NGVD29) and North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD88). Of the two NAVD88 is more compatable with GPS use because the Geoid models the NGS supplies are reference to it. The difference between '29 and '88 values in the Portland area is about 3.4 feet.
3. What does the acronym GNSS stand for, and how does it differ from GPS?
Global Navigation Satellite System. It refers to all the various navigation satellite constellations (GPS+GLONASS+Galileo=Baideu, etc) collectively, whereas GPS refers specifically to the American satellites.
4. When working in Washington County, Oregon what zone of the Oregon Coordinate Reference System should you use?
Portland Zone. This is the county the office is located in.
5. What is the advantage of using an OCRS (low distortion) projection over traditional State Plane projections?
OCRS stands for Oregon Coordinate Reference System. A state published series if projection zones covering areas much smaller than the state plane zones, and therefore with scale factors very close to 1 and convergence angles of no more than a few minutes. Grid distances are, for most practical purposes, the same as ground distance to within a couple of hundreths in several hundred feet.
6. True or False. The speed of light is constant under all conditions.
The speed of light of constant only in a vacuum. In the earth's atmosphere it is somewhat slower. How much it varies depends on just how dense the atmosphere is. That affects your EDM results.
7. What is the current adjustment of NAD83 called?
NAD83(2011). For extra bonus points you could mention the 2010 epoch.
8. When your total station has a DIN18723 specification of 3 seconds, what is expected precision of a measured angle that consists of one foresight and one backsight?
6 seconds. The DIN spec refers to pointing error, and an angle has 2 pointings.
9. Your GPS receiver tells you that your PDOP is very low (<3). What steps should you take before proceeding with establishing control or tying boundary monuments?
A PDOP of 3 is good. Nothing needs to be done. Get to work.
10. What is the significant advantage of using a least squares adjustment over compass rule?
This question has multiple right answers IMO. Ability to employ cross ties. Ability to adjust loops with larger loops simultaneously. Ability to combine GPS and Total station data simultaneously. Point error estimates. Detailed reporting. The list goes on.
11. In a projection, what is the angle between grid north and geodetic north known as?
Convergence angle. Mapping angle is also acceptable.
12. How much does ODOT charge users for unrestricted use of its ORGN service? What does the acronym ORGN stand for? What does it do?
Nothing. It's free. ORGN=Oregon Real Time Geodetic Network. It allows the user to get geodetic position in real time using a single receiver.
13. Your least squares adjustment reports a positional error of 0.04' at the 95% confidence level for a certain point. What is the (approximate) standard deviation of the positional error? What would the positional error at the 99% level be?
14. What does stating a positional error at the 95% level represent?
A standard deviation is 1 sigma, 95% confidence is ~2 sigma, and 99% is ~3 sigma. Therefore the standard deviation would be 0.02' and the 99%
would be 0.06'.
15. Discuss Network Accuracy vs. Relative Positional Accuracy.
Network accuracy relates to the larger coordinate system, eg/ relative to NAD83. Relative Positional accuracy is relative to the next nearest control points.
16. In a least squares adjustment what is a "residual"?
The residual is the difference between the raw measurement and the adjusted value.
17. What does the elevation mask setting in your GPS receiver do?
Satellites that are lower in the sky than the elevation mask are not used. Their signal is not recorded. Signals from satellites that are very low in the sky have to cut through a thicker slice of the atmosphere to reach the receiver. That makes those signals noisier.
18. How long do you have to observe for OPUS Static to return a position?
2 hours minimum.
19. In single base RTK what is the typical maximum length of an RTK vector? Discuss the reasons why.
20 km. Because that is the limit at which it can be assumed that atmospheric conditions are the same at the base and the rover. The exact limit value is arbitrary, but pretty universally recognized.
20. What national vertical datum does (your local) County use?
Washington County, Oregon uses NGVD29, 1947 adjustment. Note that the adjacent City of Portland has it's own datum that differs from any National Datum. Vancouver, WA just to the north uses a pre-1947 adjustment of NGVD29. And ODOT - including their ORGN (see question 12) uses NAVD88.
Many of you may recognize that I've glossed over some of the finer details with my answers. These are intended for people with basically no knowledge of the topics, so I don't think it productive to complicate things with mentions of LaPlace corrections and the like. But if I've gone too far with that I welcome your comments.
MathTeacher, post: 358417, member: 7674 wrote: Is their purpose to assess prior knowledge or to provide a preview of the training or to do both? Or are they a springboard for discussion?
Of those choices "preview of training" would be most appropriate. I had hoped for "springboard for discussion", but I've been assessing prior knowledge through one on one discussions. And it's essentially a blank slate.
I'm now working on a list of simpler questions that we can train to. This first batch of questions will have to wait for round 2.
Tom Adams, post: 358463, member: 7285 wrote: I am not into testing someone on how well they know what acronyms stand for or the price of the service. I think if you want to impress on them the value, you should just tell them. The organization I work for has so many abbreviations and acronyms, I get more upset with someone not just telling me the actual words instead of quizzing me what they stand for.
I remember seeing on various tests being asked what GLO meant.
There must have been a lot of incorrect answers like Government Land Office.
Mark Mayer, post: 358572, member: 424 wrote: I'm now working on a list of simpler questions that we can train to. This first batch of questions will have to wait for round 2.
Interesting; I wish that classroom teachers could do more one-on-one assessments. I would imagine that your guys are bringing a wide variety of strengths and weaknesses to the training. That's a given in every class in every school today and it can complicate curriculum design.
Offering formal training in a workplace setting is an excellent concept. Everybody, including management, workers, and clients, stands to benefit.
Mark Mayer, post: 358571, member: 424 wrote: 19. In single base RTK what is the typical maximum length of an RTK vector? Discuss the reasons why.
20 km. Because that is the limit at which it can be assumed that atmospheric conditions are the same at the base and the rover. The exact limit value is arbitrary, but pretty universally recognized.
I think there are people that would debate this one with you. If the accuracy of your GPS is stated as 1cm + 1ppm, the ppm error begins to exceed the ambient noise at 10km. And in South Louisiana your tropospheric conditions can vary hugely in much less than 20km.
Having said that, I have no problem whatsoever with pushing RTK out to 20km for most jobs. But obviously the shorter the vectors the better if you're trying to achieve the best accuracy. I've found that if I can get my antenna up about 20' or so I can get 20km over water and marsh with a radio, and of course we can hit our CORS station at any distance; I tested it at 266 miles and got about a foot.