In my time as a surveyor

Great reflection of your experiences with the genesis of surveying technology.

And watching a metamorphosis of micro-chips blossoming from compass needles has been fascinating.

Beautiful ! 

Dad loved independence. I entered this world in 1965. Born in a 1 room cabin, in northern Madera Co. California. Nearest town was Coarsegold. We had an outhouse, and a greenish Tecumseh generator, that could run an electric drill, or saw. Refrigerator was run by propane. Goats, chickens, and a 1957 Ford Panel truck were my childhood companions. City folks would get stuck in our driveway. Because they had "road tires".

I learned to place a nail. Through the tail end of a 200' tape when I was 5 yrs old. And, hold on tight. Thus began my career. In 1976, we got up early one day, and took an EDM shot before the sun shimmer could block the EDM'S rays, reducing range.

We used a 1923 Adolph Lietz Transit until 1986, when we got a used k&e autoranger. Mounted on a TM-20C theodolite. That was our first move away from manual measuring.

It would be about 1988 before we got a total station. GTS-3c Topcon. New. Dad nearly returned it, the next day. He could not stand debt. We had to promise to pay for it, as he'd druther keep working with the 2-pc autoranger, theodolite combo, than to owe anything.

Time marches on. Laden's story brought it to mind.

I still remember holding that tape on jobs in and around Coarsegold, and cutting firewood with a handsaw, or bow saw. We never heated with anything other than a wood stove. Still do. Wood stoves heat your bones. If you ever work around the Coarsegold area, and find a brass tag RCE 515, that would be dad, working under Joe McKee. RCE was "Registered Civil Engineer".

It's been a while. 

Still heat with wood. I'm getting older now. Gotta go start the wood stove.

N

My career started in 1975, August 11th. My dad wasn't a surveyor, he was a janitor; but he was proud that his son was working in an admirable profession. I remember how happy I was to have landed such a great job. I still wake up every morning, excited to go to work!

If you draw a time line, starting with the Egyptians building the Pyramids; through George Washington, mapping the new world and marking the boundaries; to August 11, 1975, it stays pretty flat, not much had changed. But at that point in time, the line takes a big curve up, starting to climb. Fast forward to March 24th 2023 and the line is well on it's way through the roof! What will the future bring  

We are only limited by our imagination. 

The unmanifest will become the manifest; no matter how hard the Zealots try to stop it

These are the types of stories that drew me to Surveying in the beginning. They are what I missed when i was doing other geomatics stuff and wanted to so badly get back to boundary surveys. I was very lucky as I took my first survey courses my first mentors took what i was learning and taught me how to apply it the older way before doing it the newer way. So for me doing stadia topo stell tape and chaining pins around a rural boundary. Then we would run the traverse again with total station and such. Yall old timers need to keep telling the stories. Be like coon hunters and fishermen. They always tell the stories and you will attract the next generation. Then mentor them and keep the profession thriving.  I see hope for sure. More and more are coming in now its up to those to meep them and seperate the wheat from the chaffe 

First job on my own involved a 99-foot steel tape (end had broken off), a digging bar, a shovel. flags for chaining pins and a standard recreational metal detector borrowed from a neighbor.  No instrument needed.  Employed my high school-age nephew for the day.  Rained most of the day.  Dug up two stones that day.

@holy-cow Do they even still make the steel tape repair kits. I messed one up once was in a back lots of a subdivision and we had pulled the distance. 3 man crew. I was in the middle ish. And darn if I didn’t stab the brush axe and cut that sucker. To a section of an d one and patched it back but had it off a foot when riveted it back together.  Add tape so only foot marks and end had tenths and hundredths. We almost never had that house to close until we figured out i had messed up.

First job on my own. I didn't have a driver's licence. I was 14. I got into that 1957 Ford Panel truck, with that 1923 Adolf Leitz transit, 200' tape, plumb bobs in a 1 gallon can, ditchbank blade, and some flagging. Drove 2 miles down the road, and picked up Darrel Bliss. He was older than me, married, with kids my age. Dad had me have him drive to the job.

Job was in Langley AR. We ran a closed loop traverse, from the c-1/4 north 1/4 MI, to a fence corner, tied it, ran west to the paved road from Langley to Albert Pike Rec. Area. Then south. To where we started. Reduced the angles to bearings. And then dad computed it into latitudes and departures, on a TI-55. 

It's been a while.

Nate

Dad always told it that I found my first corner when I was five. I was tagging along on the recon part of a small survey. I was trying to balance on this metal thing sticking out of the ground. Dad was a few feet away digging. I asked what he was looking for. He mumbled something about a pipe. "Dad, it might be right here"... "No, son. The dip needle says here." So I watched him dig. After a short time he glanced over as I balanced perfectly on that metal thing. "SON! Why did you let me keep digging?". I was born in 1968 when my Dad was 52. I learned the old school ways. Man, don't ever forget to yell "chain" when the end of the tape gets there and you grab it. The front chainman didn't like his arm getting yanked. He'd remind you the next time he came to an electric fence! I remember being woken up before daylight on Saturdays to go survey... I remember Dad waiting in the truck when I got off the school bus, ready to go survey! Oh how I hated all that. When I graduated from HS, I was done. I wasn't going to survey anymore. I worked for two years in a local industry before realizing it wasn't for me. Dad was busy and asked if I would come work on the crew with him. I said only if we could get a distance meter. I think he already had it ordered. I felt so at home on the crew. I had actually missed surveying. Thus it began. My love for the profession. I started working towards licensure. Dad passed the day I got the letter with my number. It was the last thing I ever told him. I tell my stories and the stories my Dad told me, to my younger son. He's 26 with six years under his belt. And he's one of our crew chiefs. I have a picture of my son digging up a corner his grandfather set 30 years prior. In my surveying life I've seen it go from transit and tape to Robots, GPS and Lidar! From Vellum to CAD to digital recording. Not discounting drone technology, I'm just not utilizing that yet.

Great stories!

I remember my first day on the crew, aged 16, summer of '61. The first thing I was told was, "Set the tripod up before you take the transit out of the box."

First day on another crew, summer of '63, I was told, "In surveying, you can get in a lot more trouble making mistakes than you can by being slow."

"In surveying, you can get in a lot more trouble making mistakes than you can by being slow."

I was told: "Speed will come with time, do the job right, and you will eventually do it fast".

That's pretty good. "Don't skip steps, it'll always affect something".

Nate

@nate-the-surveyor 

I can recall starting the measurement of a half mile of line by pulling a 25-foot offset as it would be impossible to measure a line fully occupied by mature hedge trees.  Then, this offset line was measured with a 100-foot steel tape and chaining pins through waist-high grass, always attempting to maintain what we viewed as the 25-foot offset from the true line.  When we reached a distance close to the apparent corner, we would then do a 3-4-5 triangle with the tape to move back onto the boundary line.  Last, was to measure the additional distance to the corner.  Precisely, 2635.8 feet or something similar.

How do you think it was done by those who went before us?

When boundary surveying the only time I think about being fast is walking and cutting line. When I’m doing recon my only consideration is being thorough.  If it’s there I want to find it.  My emphasis hasn’t changed in the last five decades.  As the signing surveyor the main emphasis should be on research and recon.

When I started it was 3 and 4-man crews.  Lot's of fun, horsing around all day long, usually driving the party chief crazy.  Hung over and tired most days.

The old party chief I typically worked with would use an EDM to traverse, but not for setting property corners.  It wasn't "natural" or something like that. He would always use a Wild T1 (typically with inverted scope) and a steel tape.  It wasn't unusual to bring out the 300 foot tape too.  Measure the vertical angle, figure out the slope distance to pull, steady with the plumb bob as the instrument operator is also giving you line.  "PULL!" he would always scream to me, I can still hear him.  And he was a big guy too who could give line and hold the tape rock steady at the instrument at the same time.  

Surveying was something to keep me busy until I figured out what I was going to do with my life. Then one day it struck me: I should stick with surveying.  It was so crazy that it.....might......just.......work.

The tools at one's disposal have made the operation of "reading the tape or the Vernier" easier, like using a microscope instead of the naked eye. Drafting is almost automatic now.

What hasn't changed is measuring the correct points. That is done by evaluating the evidence and knowing the history.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same."

I've worked in a 2 man crew since starting in 1973 and went solo in 2001.  Technology is great because it keeps crew size small and you have fewer obstacles in the way when cutting line making it safer.

Those of us who started in the 1960's (apart from chains, remember Tellurometers?) have one great advantage over those who have learnt in the electronic age. We instinctively understand how those early (earlier) maps were made and can work out why they might be wrong.

Trying to explain to a modern graduate that somebody counted the "teeth" on a chain tag from the wrong end and recorded 60 instead of 40 is hard work. Especially when the next five revisions of the map didn't pick up the original error but simply added new detail onto the old incorrect lines.

@chris-mills 

Therein lies everything I enjoy about surveying at my age.  I have over a half-century of experience from which I draw.  And relating that experience to others can be difficult. Like attempting to verbally describing the shape of an old Coca-Cola bottle without using your hands....God only knows what they're picturing in their mind.

Everything I do correctly is only possible because I have done it incorrectly or watched it done that way in the past.   Good experience is expensive.  I can relate these things to younger surveyors but most are also doomed as I was to painfully endure the fruits of their mistakes first hand. 

I had plenty of good advice from older surveyors, but nothing drives home a point better than actually touching a proverbial "hot stove".  But I've grown forgiving in my old age.  If I impart advice I'm well aware it may not be heeded.  The victory comes when the younger surveyor thinks to himself, "This is what that old guy warned me about..". 

Only then does the "Coca-Cola bottle" reveal itself and the event become their "experience".  😉