5000,5000 with gps

So, why the heck does it throw 5000,5000 in a spot that is who knows where, other than the fact that it's far from us, and there isn't any worries about getting shots less than 5000 in either direction.

I'm trying to learn all I can about this equipment, and how it works, in order to get better data in the field. You've all been very helpful up to this point!

I don't think you fully understand this yet. Check your setup and find out what system your working in (i.e State Plane etc.),then check your project parameters. Now, look and see what the point number is for 5000, 5000, 320.08, I bet you'll find that the base station has nothing to do with any of this. That 5000, 5000 point is just out there. It's a figment of your data collector's imagination. (I can't really say that for sure).

Now, by the tone of this post, it appears like you're just starting out your Surveying Career or you work for some Engineering or Gis outfit that's trying to utilize GPS. It might be a good idea for your firm to invest in some training. It's a good thing to ask questions and you'll probably learn something from the responses.
Hang in there, Don't leave before the miracle

Ralph

HERE

Start every new job with point No. 100 or even 666, thus eliminating the evil "1,5000,5000,328.08" point.

When prompted for location, just hit the "HERE" key. You may have to hit the "options" button in the lower right and change to "WGS84", but once you're there, you are there. Trimble usually defaults to either "grid" or "WGS84", I think. Change your default to WGS84 so you'll always be dialed in and nobody has to beam anybody anywhere.

Oh yea, double check your units...;-)

Next time on a job nearby you think you may want to merge in the future, just hit the "HERE" key again. Then just go GPS all those points in and they'll be perfect.

At least they'll be close enough for what you're doing. Well, at least close enough for the seeming level of expertise of the crew. Let the guys in the office figure it out, or.... the lawyers & judges.

Ok, flippancy button OFF. Seriously, get some training. And I mean serious training. Call your vendor. Call a competitor. This is not stuff somebody can figure out themselves, or on this board.

Again...have fun...good luck... and let us all know how it works out. Better yet, post a map here of the final product. Most of us do this shyte for a living, so it's good to know where we stand.

> I don't think you fully understand this yet. Check your setup and find out what system your working in (i.e State Plane etc.),then check your project parameters. Now, look and see what the point number is for 5000, 5000, 320.08, I bet you'll find that the base station has nothing to do with any of this. That 5000, 5000 point is just out there. It's a figment of your data collector's imagination. (I can't really say that for sure).
>
> Now, by the tone of this post, it appears like you're just starting out your Surveying Career or you work for some Engineering or Gis outfit that's trying to utilize GPS. It might be a good idea for your firm to invest in some training. It's a good thing to ask questions and you'll probably learn something from the responses.
> Hang in there, Don't leave before the miracle
>
I agree with Ralph et al.

In the Xenia area, you should be in Ohio Zone South (3402), your point #1 (5000,5000,328.08) has nothing to do with your real data.

this is 5000, 5000 in Ohio South

this is 5000, 5000 in Ohio North

if one of these match the lat long for your 5000 5000 point that will tell you that you are using Ohio State Plane or probably more correctly The Ohio Coordinate System, NAD 1983, South/North Zone.

If they don't match then I would start getting concerned.
Some training sounds in order.

HERE

Okay,
Based on what I've read so far, I guess that he's doing a site calibration/localization. I would think that 316 miles is a bit far for that.

Ralph

Ahhh, GIS, my comfort zone, come back, come back...

I am a technician for a Soil & Water Conservation District. We're not engineers and we're not surveyors, but we do both while designing conservation practices. Most of the big surveys are for systematic tile systems to drain large areas of 100-200 acres or more. We hardly ever tie into a known point, and we sure as heck don't shoot in property lines. For what we do, we can get by, but we aren't expecting our surveys to be of "legal" grade.

I just found this board today, so I'll be utilizing it for more productive questions in the future! I can't get over how active it is, or at least on this post.

While surveying in the field, our map shows both 5000,5000 and the base station location while shooting shots. It either shows the base being nw of us or east of us depending on which one we are tieing into at the time. That base point never plots, but I've always just assumed that it's because it's not in pnezd format, it doesn't have a point number, only name.

My cousin, which is a PS, has already told me that the 5000,5000 point is just something to roll with, and not think about it too much. That's what I'm going to do starting at the end of this post. 😉

Speaking of GIS, is there a way to convert shots out of the gps and put them into GIS as a .shp file or something similar? That should probably be another post.

Thanks guys for the great breaking in period.

This post reminds me of a call I got several years ago from a dirt mover using GPS machine control. He started off with something like this: "I got your surveys and control points, and they are coming up in Georgia" (The project was in central Florida)

I explained that my coordinates were in SPC, Florida West Zone, NAD83 ...

"(a momment of silence) ... yeah, they are waaaaay off ..."

"Way off from what? I can assure you they are accurate state plane coordinate values".

"Way off from the site ... they are not where I'm at".

Well, after a while, we figured out that engineer's plans were on 5000/5000 coordinates.

Not sure how they resolved that. I tried to help but told him the engineer had my survey in CAD and the best thing to do would be to either have the engineer translate my control points to his drawing, or translate his drawing to my control points ...

A bit off topic, but this post reminded me of that conversation.

So do you have an understanding of state plane coordinate systems or not?

If you are using TDS (or at least this is how my data collector works) it always sets point 1 at 5000 5000 328.08. However when dialing into a CORS base it also stores a point (each CORS station in AL has a magical point) for the station. I will warn you (on the comment of base stations changing when you are between 2) that it pops up a prompt that change of base detected, blah blah, update raw file. (cant remember exactly what it says) It will pop up and pop up, irritateing you, so you change bases point. If you stake out to a control point, mh, etc I have seen errors anywhere from HD .1'-.5' and elev .1'-.3'. When we finally decided to upgrade our GPS units we went with just the rover dialing into the CORS networks, the change of base points on the same job really messed me up on one of my jobs. I learned the hard way. So my advice is if using the GPS on a job site look and see where closest network is and manually punch in the ip address and port so you will not have conflicting base points. Good luck with the new unit.

Those sets of coordinates are both in southern Illinois. It would be expected that very small eastings and northings in any State Plane Coordinate system would fall out of their state, since the false easting and northing are chosen to avoid small or negative values in the zone of intended use.

This has nothing to do with GPS. If you had asked someone familiar with SPC where 5000, 5000 was forty years before GPS was thought of, you would have gotten the same answer.

It should only take reading a chapter of an appropriate surveying book, or equivalent web material, to understand this. Anybody using SPC really should take the time to understand it what they are using and its limitations.

Do you know what it means to be on grid versus ground? That's a fundamental concept that comes with SPC.

I'd love to do some reading on this, if you could shoot me a link to some appropiate material, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Jeremiah

State Plane Coordinate System of 1983

A good place to start:

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/PUBS_LIB/ManualNOSNGS5.pdf

> I'd love to do some reading on this, if you could shoot me a link to some appropiate material, I'd greatly appreciate it.
>
> Jeremiah

I would probably start by reading the manual that comes with your Data Collector. Because it appears to me that you are just pressing buttons and guessing.

You started the thread by saying:

We just started using a Trimble R6 gps receiver. On each job, it assigns a point number one to 5000,5000. This point is always about 300-325 miles to the southwest of our area. It always has an elevation of 328.08'.

By the second reply you had the answer:

5000,5000 is a very typical set of assumed coordinates, and 328.08 is equal to 100 meters.

And no, there is no place on Earth that I know of (in SPC or UTM) which corresponds to 5000,5000.

Several other posts followed with the same types of replies.

SO instead of looking into the basic data collector setting, you reply with this:

Now, we pull into a field and we have Scotty beam us up. We connect to the Ohio CORS system, and then start taking shots. We do put 5000,5000 into the data collector, or at least we did the first time we set up the defaults. It throws that first point 316 miles to the soutwest of us. Makes sense that its sw of us, based on the coordinate system and that we want to be positive in both directions. Our "backsights" in this situation is a base station in either Dayton or WCH and a whole bunch of satellites overhead. If we stop the survey, end survey, then come back the next day to start up again collecting data in the same field, all we do is "beam me up" again and connect CORS and start taking shots. There aren't any field shots we need to take to check our work, but we do anyways. We've never had a problem with the new stuff lining up with the previous stuff. So, the only other mapping points we are counting on is the satellites and the base station.

At least now I know you're doing RTN, the fact that you are misusing terminologies is what made it more confusing and caused some posters to give you some more technical replies to a pretty trivial issue.

Now follow this carefully:

It appears you are using a Trimble receiver with TDS Survey Pro.

1. Turn on your data collector
2. Go to Jobs ==> Edit Points===> Scroll Up to point number one===> Delete it (if it's not a control point)
3. Voila!

The next step is:
When you create a new job

New==> it'll ask you for a name (next)==>then it'll prompt you for azimuth types, distances, units for angles, scale factors etc. (next)==> Enter first Point:

Point name
Northing
Easting
Elevation
Description
(the point above will automatically default to 5000,5000)

I don't use TDS for my GPS, I use Carlson but I use TDS for everything else. So I'm going to go out on the limb here, let point number one.. be for now.
When you collect your first RTN point, call it point one. The Data Collector will prompt you with "Point number 1 already exists" in this case you should choose the option to overwrite and voila! you will have no more points on your screen 316 miles away.

That's where your mythical 5000,5000 point originates.

If I were you, I would spend some time reading the literature that came with the equipment first then supplement that with Surveying literature. Google is a great tool, but nothing beats competent hands on training.

Good Luck,

Ralph

TDS automatically creates this point in every job, it has noting to do with an actual point, i believe it is created to open the database. You can overwrite it by assigning your first point you collect to that number or you can delete it.

Trimble Access assigns 5000,5000 if a coordinate is not keyed in for the point number used.