Someone above said they would pay money to do such a retracement. I have a degree in surveying but I started out with a 20" K&E and a 100' steel chain. A few years back they used to put on a Compass and Chain ( 10 vara link chain ) in Jefferson, Texas, the first one of these was quite a education even to me who had a lot of woodland retracement experience. Have you ever wondered why the GLO used a 2 pole (33') chain instead of the standard 66' Gunters chain? I can tell you 1 reason and I am sure there are many more, but I challenge any 2 surveyors on here to try and plumb a 33' cast iron link chain much less a 66' one. Yes field experience is critical and should be a requirement for taking the LSIT. I was more educated by the unlicensed party chiefs I worked under than any professor I ever had in college as to how to do a proper retracement survey and this is the critical education that is lacking in our 4 year degree graduates that I encounter today.
Greg Rodger, post: 385517, member: 11989 wrote: I like a good challenge as long as firearms stay out of my face. Lol
i'd almost rather see it, after having been shot at through some brush by a guy who thought i was dinner.
Modern equipment is always changing and even if you studied something in school, it might not be the latest version or CAD or instruments and software may have changed since you left school. Learning the legal principles and practices is the professional end of it and that is what school should mainly teach. But use of different instruments is also of value. You need to know the strengths and weakness of old equipment, and also what is and isn't of value with new equipment. rtk vs static and that sort of thing. I like being able to still calculate with my calculator as well as using a big fast computer.
This is off topic but I would love to know people's opinions on traditional vs digital field notes. I fall in the traditional camp for sure.
flyin solo, post: 385493, member: 8089 wrote: i would posit that some component of the preponderance of wacky street layout is coincidental to the rise of "planning" as a dedicated profession, and the need of everyone to justify their own existence. seems like while a good bit of it is done out of the necessity of considering topography and/or natural impediments to "traditional" grid layout, a significant chunk if it seemingly makes no sense other than to satisfy the artsy fartsy tendencies and predilictions of people who are an inch deep and mile wide with their "holistic" bag of tricks.
(can you tell i've been dealing with comments from a city planner all day?)
the most salient way that i can personally relate to this is through my main hobby/stress reliever- running. everyone has a favorite running shoe, if you do the kind of mileage that keeps most of us who do from otherwise being a rotten alcoholic or scofflaw of whatever variety. every couple years- at most- the shoe company will go change up a shoe design for no other reason than they have designers on staff and they aren't gonna pay them just to pat themselves on the back for making a winner. so instead of selling somebody like me another 8 or 10 pairs of the same running shoe over the course of a couple years, they lose some part of their sales and have to pay the designers to yet redesign the shoes again to try and recover their old faithful clients. there's some old saying about leaving well enough alone...
Spaghetti subdivisions. Streets curving every which way to slow traffic down for safety, while making blind curves and blind driveways, real safe. It drives surveyors mad, engineers mad, snow plows mad, and makes it very easy to screw up street lines. I wish grid design would make a comeback.
probably makes the guys who sell manholes and pipe joints pretty happy, though.
The town I live in has a strange layout on one street with jogs in the street line every two lots, instead of a curve. When it was paved it was laid out as a curve. Made some interesting things happen.
Greg Rodger, post: 385503, member: 11989 wrote: Ouch, that would be harsh. I would simply give a professional opinion based on established professional standards in my jurisdiction. As long as you adjust for magnetic north of the reference year it's pretty easy to use modern instruments. I've done it and come in within millimeters. No need of a survey compass.
I once set through a class on a court case that involved someone who did just what you stated, but the adjoiner did not accept the survey line as correct, so he hired a surveyor to retrace the line. He used a transit with a compass adjusted for the correct declination and a top mount EDM, by following the called for Magnetic bearing he recovered 7 of the 8 ajoining property corners on the common line of which the 1st surveyor found none. Why? They were in a area known as Iron Mountain, who do you think the Court accepted/
Bushwhacker, post: 385534, member: 10727 wrote: I once set through a class on a court case that involved someone who did just what you stated, but the adjoiner did not accept the survey line as correct, so he hired a surveyor to retrace the line. He used a transit with a compass adjusted for the correct declination and a top mount EDM, by following the called for Magnetic bearing he recovered 7 of the 8 ajoining property corners on the common line of which the 1st surveyor found none. Why? They were in a area known as Iron Mountain, who do you think the Court accepted/
Did the first surveyor talk with the land owners? If the neighbor didnt agree he should have asked where he thought the line was, maybe he could have found a few of those missed corners. You recall the case name? Sounds like an interesting read.
Some of what is the most critical information in surveying comes from mistakes made. Those you make and those your predecessors made that you discover in your investigations. A 66-foot or 33-foot or 16.5-foot error is far more common than a 21.3-foot error for reasons most of us understand, especially in PLSSia. Another common error is moving the wrong direction off an existing alignment by the amount that needed to be moved........the other way. Some old time plats have built in errors, for example, labeling tenths of a foot as inches or vice versa. Assuming the GLO contractors working in PLSSia in the early days actually did what they wrote down every day will get your butt in trouble time and again in certain parts of this country. Most of these, and similar lessons, don't really take hold in your mind until you have encountered them directly in the field several times. No amount of class time can address such things in a way that will really take hold.
There are places where you HAVE to have a good compass, to perform GLO retracement. "Magnet Cove" down by Malvern is one of them. There are magnetic analomies all over the USA. Principals and use of a compass, are fundamental to retracement. And should be taught. And, up and coming surveyors should have FIELD knowledge of their use. Experiencial field knowledge.
Nate The Surveyor, post: 385541, member: 291 wrote: There are places where you HAVE to have a good compass, to perform GLO retracement. "Magnet Cove" down by Malvern is one of them. There are magnetic analomies all over the USA. Principals and use of a compass, are fundamental to retracement. And should be taught. And, up and coming surveyors should have FIELD knowledge of their use. Experiencial field knowledge.
I've only encountered the odd magnetic bearing. Most around here are astronomic or based on a plan's bearing which is ad nauseum based on another plan etc etc back to an astro bearing. Compass bearings are generally fickle due to changing metallic properties in rock, surveyors gear, and change over time. Mining nickel out of the ground will change the magnetic properties, building power lines etc etc. I usually adjust the bearing to today's north magnetic pole then correct to grid. Unless the survey line is miles long it's usually close enough (couple hundredths in some cases) to find bars/ other evidence. I've never had to resort to digging out an old compass yet and hope I never do.
There was a case, in the PLSS that a surveyor ran a EW line, an old Section line. He set it straight, between the Section corners, via modern surveying equipment. The neighbor sued. Was not happy. Hired his own surveyor, who used a total station, AND a compass. He traversed the whole mile, with EDM, and total station. (It's been a while ago, I think maybe it was a T-2, with EDM, or such) In applying the magnetism, it turned out to be a CURVED line, around 30' offset in the middle. Guess who won in court?
And, I think there was evidence of the old line, maybe an old line tree, to boot.
Stuff like this is where a compass, and it's use can be important.
Nate
Greg Rodger, post: 385536, member: 11989 wrote: Did the first surveyor talk with the land owners? If the neighbor didnt agree he should have asked where he thought the line was, maybe he could have found a few of those missed corners. You recall the case name? Sounds like an interesting read.
I can't remember the names but I think Walt Robilard was who was presenting the class
Nate The Surveyor, post: 385551, member: 291 wrote: There was a case, in the PLSS that a surveyor ran a EW line, an old Section line. He set it straight, between the Section corners, via modern surveying equipment. The neighbor sued. Was not happy. Hired his own surveyor, who used a total station, AND a compass. He traversed the whole mile, with EDM, and total station. (It's been a while ago, I think maybe it was a T-2, with EDM, or such) In applying the magnetism, it turned out to be a CURVED line, around 30' offset in the middle. Guess who won in court?
And, I think there was evidence of the old line, maybe an old line tree, to boot.
Stuff like this is where a compass, and it's use can be important.
Nate
If the compass helped find the old evidence great, I would still never use measurements taken from 100 year old magnetic bearing as best evidence unless I failed to find anything else. I would wonder why surveyor 1 didn't notice the treeline as it was only 30' offset in the middle?
