I feel like my Extreme Traversing Talents are wasting away

Nate...

It already has stopped - its over. No more brushing line, no more literally "following in the footsteps", no more of the satisfaction of verifying the sum of the interior angles, no more Rhode's Arc. Just memories of our youth, and the appreciation for the old methods, and the folks tough enough and resourceful enough to have used them.

When will it end? When congress fails to fund GPS satellite replacements for so long that we lose decent coverage, or some rogue country decides to shoot at the birds.

Complaining?

GPS is just another tool in our arsenal in my opinion. I really don't miss wrapping angles and chaining around a section for three days just to get a 1:5000 closure. We can still very much retrace the footsteps of those before us. You still have to view the topography, put your nose to the ground and try to figure out WHAT they did and HOW. The answers are rarely in the math.

Or a big solar flare fries them.

In the advent of the demise of GPS and electronic data collection requiring the return to manual instrument and chain, most of the new guys would need to be demoted to tail chainmen to be trained.

In the last few years several candidates (all 4yr college grad economic degree candidates that were sincere to become a licensed surveyor and had no other surveying experience at all) quit because they were not allowed to be the instrument man within a few weeks on the job and to go back to their cubicle at a bank or other office. Of course they thought they would have their license within 6 months.

😉

We still traverse in some circumstances, like 200' tall Redwood trees.

I also believe every line should be walked at least once even if you don't traverse along the line. We survey lines, not just points.

, or some rogue country decides to shoot at the birds.

"""
if they want to get to us that badly, many people would be more upset to lose satellite TV than gps. besides, a geosynchronous SV has to be tougher to shoot at than a geostationary one.

Moe

I suspect that you are thinking of "semisynchronous" orbits.

🙂
Loyal

Dave K, that is a very well taken point.

What about encroachments?

4-wheelers have made the issue you mention even worser!

N

Moe

semisynchronous is a new one for me, thanks. or are you throwing me a red herring?

Right on Dave

I spent a good number of days last summer WAIKING ALONG quite a number of “Section Lines” out in Western Utah. Found the remains of OLD fence lines (tops of broken off posts), some barbed wire from time to time, physical evidence of the 1856 GLO Survey (vague & scattered remains of mounds), and even a stone 1/16th corner. We shot terrain calls, posts, mounds, EVERYTHING that looked artificial, out of place, unnatural, or even semi-interesting.

THOUSANDS of shots later (dropped over georeferenced aerial photography from both 2006 and 1938 [1955 to follow soon]), we are ready to seriously analyze this township THIS year.

Ya have a pretty hard time finding that you DON'T look for, of course it always helps to look in the RIGHT PLACE too!

Loyal

Complaining?

> GPS is just another tool in our arsenal in my opinion. I really don't miss wrapping angles and chaining around a section for three days just to get a 1:5000 closure. We can still very much retrace the footsteps of those before us. You still have to view the topography, put your nose to the ground and try to figure out WHAT they did and HOW. The answers are rarely in the math.

Amen!

General Observation/Clarification

One thing I should point out here...

It's my experience that this “go to the coordinate via the path of least resistance” (often in the TRUCK), really took hold with the advent of the EDMI and Pocket Calculator. That was some 40 years ago...

I know that there are surveyors that have never walked more than 50 feet of “Section Line” (at a time) in their multi-decade career.

Ya can't drop this tird in the lap of GPS alone.

Loyal

General Observation/Clarification

when EO insurance costs 30 percent of your income--then you'll break out that tape, solve vast areas to buffer your parcels to prove your right and minimize impacts--tdd

Ted

I have retraced some RTK GPS that I would not be caught dead with!
(sloppy work!)

Nate

Natester

So have I....

But you can't blame the equipment for the limitations (and/or ignorance/incompetence) of the operator.

Loyal

> We still traverse in some circumstances, like 200' tall Redwood trees.
>
> I also believe every line should be walked at least once even if you don't traverse along the line. We survey lines, not just points.

Very good point David.:good:

Nate--your not alone, i'll go out on a limb--so unlike me ya know-- and say most GPS surveys are not worth a crap why--poor training--don't know what their doing--send the lowest paid rod monkey out there to gather data--no real supervision--points is points ya know--when i was in Utah, most all work was GPS--akin to running out dropping a needle and calling it good--only one problem--when i went out to tie in good ground survey to it-- i found problems 100 percent of the time--

GPS should never be used for boundary surveys period--thats 43 yrs of experience speAking--i do use GPS for distant control ties to confirm and tie many traverses/plans and tie data together--GPS IS A CHEAP WAY TO FIND AND ISOLATE ERRORS ALSO TO CHECK ONES ADJUSTMENTS, PERFORM CROSS-TIES IN ROUGH AREAS TO STRENGTHEN A FIGURE--

MY HEARTS WITH YA BROTHER, TDD

TeDD yer on a role.

I agree 100%.

If there is one thing that is overused, it is RTK.