I traded in my last set of GR3s last week. Friday when the salesman delivered the new GR5s I was prepared to take him out and show him that the radios in the old units I was trading in were good for at least two miles. It was late in the afternoon and he declined the field trip. He said he would take my word for it. We signed some papers and I gave him some money and took delivery of the new receivers. He left with the old ones.
Last night about supper-thirty the phone rings and it's a worried equipment salesman. He says he can't get more than 2500' with the old base-rover pair. (I didn't know what to tell him (?!) except they worked good when I had them). He said he was going to be in town today and he would stop by and we could check them out together.
I had one of my guys meet him off the highway this afternoon and they trotted out to a fairly rural area just two miles off the highway to see what the deal was....And I guess really was lying when I told him they were good for two miles.
They stopped checking at three and a half miles!
I don't know what he was doing when he couldn't get them to gin, but he headed home a happy camper. B-)
Just like anything else, you need to kick the tires and take things for a spin BEFORE swapping paper...
Then the salesman remembered that he couldn't get more than 2500' out of the NEW pair of GR5s.:-O
Licensed Land Surveyor
Finger Lakes Region, Upstate New York
What benefits do you obtain by upgrading to the 5's?
> What benefits do you obtain by upgrading to the 5's?
The salesman tried to explain it to me..but my eyes glazed over...;-)
They are both basically the same platform. If the Chinese, Japanese or Indian SV constellations ever get up and running, these are suppose to be right there on top of it. There is actually a little better antenna design on the 5s, also.
So to answer your question, hardly any benefits except getting new equipment. The GR3s I traded in were almost 10 years old and had some maintenance issues. My decision to replace them was purely to keep serviceable equipment in the hands of the crews.
The Chinese constellation is up and running to the degree that Topcon is willing to sell you an OAF upgrade to enable the receivers to track the signal.
GR5=
The new antenna design in the GR-5 help make for much faster acquisition times for a fix.
Also the second gen GR-5's are currently the only receivers Topcon has an OAF available to enable the use of Beidou (chinese) for a cost of $1000 per receiver.
:-S
It's big and heavy, and you could beat someone to death with it.
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