I'm trying to sell my company on RTK (and have been for years now). Can you guys give me some examples of how it has changed the way you work, and how it makes you more money?
> I'm trying to sell my company on RTK (and have been for years now). Can you guys give me some examples of how it has changed the way you work, and how it makes you more money?
What sort of GPS is your company using right now and why not?
I do Opus stuff with a Leica 530, and we do rough roving with a l1 510.
Speed and Production. I have a network rover, works quite well for me. I can use it alone. works very well for topo, and I also set control with it. On large boundary surveys, I use it to look for pins. Even in not ideal conditions, I can get within "Schondstedt Range" of most corners.
In my neck of the woods, I find myself subdividing 1 ac tracts from the 200 ac family farm. Property lines that are 1000's of feet long are easy to locate when you don't have to traverse out and get one pin, then back to close...
Not every job will be able to take advantage of GPS capabilities, but it certainly pays off when it does.
and by the way, staking...I stake footers, light poles, waterlines, and rough grade, etc... with it. Its not perfect, but when .04' doesn't matter, you can really get some production out of it.
The first thing you need to know, is there work to pay for it. If not, then it's not something to buy. The list of some of the work where its useful: topo, oil and gas (a must have), mining (another must have), mapping, large boundaries, large highway, water rights, utility surveys, pipelines, and more. If those aren't what you do then maybe it isn't for you.
I would get very frustrated if a RTK unit just sat in the box week after week and once in a while it came out to help on a lot survey.
There are times when its useful in conjuction with other tools. I just finished laying out blue tops for a parking lot. I would never do that entirely with RTK, but, with all the junk in the way it would have taken 4 set-ups to do it with a robot. So out came the RTK to get the blue tops close-then a level to the final set. That is a great time saver with RTK.
> we do rough roving with an L1 510.
Well, why are L1 solutions "rough"? Are you thinking that somehow RTK will work in places where L1 doesn't or is there some other consideration at work?
The other element is what the terrain is like in which you expect to use RTK, i.e. whether wide open rural or forested with occasional clearings.
In the hands of an experienced and motivated surveyor (me) in generally open land (here) with good field-to-finish software (my own) RTK is the best gold mine you could imagine. It is a money making machine.
Well Nikola, I have a few questions for you:
1. How large is the firm? (# Crews)
2. How far away are your jobs?
3. Is there a network available?
4. Do you get cell reception at every job?
5. How's the vegetation? Lots of trees or wide open fields?
6. Does your company charge the client for equipment?
My firm is small (7 employees) with 1-1/2 crews. We have a total station, robot and GPS. Our jobs are primarily in one Town, though we do travel. There are network solutions available, but the cell reception is spotty in some areas. Our vegetation ranges from wooded areas to beach. The typical property is a developed lot with varying vegetation. We do charge the GPS as another person.
In 2005 we purchased a Topcon HiperXT with all of the bells and whistles. It paid for itself inside of two years. It has become a necessity in the office. We are scheduled to send it in for some minor repairs and I keep delaying it as we use it between 1 and 7 times a week.
I use RTK on every project. Most of the work is highway with an open/link traverse. I set two control points on either end of the job and then run a traverse through the RTK control points. I am now ready to topo.
I also use RTK to locate control from others to stake ROW, and occasionally, I'll do a complete topo, such as a landfill, to determine grade.
RTK is something I keep in my surveyor's toolbox, along with my total station, digital level, and data collector.
> I use RTK on every project. Most of the work is highway with an open/link traverse. I set two control points on either end of the job and then run a traverse through the RTK control points. I am now ready to topo.
Well, the first question that comes to mind would be why the original poster couldn't do that by PPK GPS techniques using the equipment he already has. Highway corridors (at least in Texas) tend to be GPS friendly, meaning long stretches can be surveyed as continuous kinematic segments.
When the PPK vectors are adjusted in combination with the conventional traverse between them in a least squares adjustment, magic happens. It's a great technique that I've used for about 15 years with excellent results.
> > I use RTK on every project. Most of the work is highway with an open/link traverse. I set two control points on either end of the job and then run a traverse through the RTK control points. I am now ready to topo.
>
> Well, the first question that comes to mind would be why the original poster couldn't do that by PPK GPS techniques using the equipment he already has. Highway corridors (at least in Texas) tend to be GPS friendly, meaning long stretches can be surveyed as continuous kinematic segments.
>
> When the PPK vectors are adjusted in combination with the conventional traverse between them in a least squares adjustment, magic happens. It's a great technique that I've used for about 15 years with excellent results.
We have moved away from post processing, not because you can't get good results, but it is not possible to know what your results are in real time. The only advantage of RTK is that you know if you are fixed or not right then. But, we work in very challenging GPS conditions, typically.
Having said that, RTK is not a necessary tool, but I don't leave the office without it. For construction staking it is a real money maker. For lot surveys, I have found it useful at times, but I rarely use it. (This is a function of the LARGE trees and overgrown lots that are common here.)
There are a LOT of inexpensive options out there. I wouldn't limit myself to looking at the big guys only. When you look into it, a lot of the "off-brand" products use the same chipsets as the big boys...
> I'm trying to sell my company on RTK (and have been for years now). Can you guys give me some examples of how it has changed the way you work, and how it makes you more money?
BTW, if you havent used RTK, training matters...
Is the hard part getting people to trust the tech, or the $$$?
Well, I can tell you what I'd do. I'd do my research, and buy one. Have it arrive on Friday, and play with it on the weekend. Then, I'd show up Monday, with it, and go kick tail on a job Monday. Then, after finishing the job, and the boss gets paid, I'd ask the boss for a different pay scale when I used my own equipment. This way, he has no risk, and you have the cash for the payments. As I figure it, $ 500 month in payments aught to cover it. You get what you want, and the boss gets what he needs. IF the boss man does not like it, well, there are other bosses!
Nate
