You guys are a hoot-
Man-oh-Man --
Why in the world do you assume that the guy is a lowballer?
Land Surveyors should be unbiased, and should have the ability to reach a reasonable conclusions after seeing facts. The majority of you guys have already pegged the guy as a lowballer, an unethical surveyor, without even knowing anything about him.
My assumption therefor is concluded that you are merely a button pusher.
Imagine if this same initial statement would have been made in 1990. Everyone would be scratching their head wondering what the problem was. I've know some guys who could chain more accurately between two points than some guys attempting to properly use RTK.
> You guys are a hoot-
>
> Man-oh-Man --
> Why in the world do you assume that the guy is a lowballer?
>
> Land Surveyors should be unbiased, and should have the ability to reach a reasonable conclusions after seeing facts. The majority of you guys have already pegged the guy as a lowballer, an unethical surveyor, without even knowing anything about him.
>
> My assumption therefor is concluded that you are merely a button pusher.
Me too, 6th. My first 'real' competitor, in 1994, was an old fella in his 60s who, along with his poor wife mind you, was getting some sub-contract work from the same START UP engineering company that I was lucky enough to hook up with directly after getting my ticket. He was using an old Gurley and a 100' steel chain. I had a Topcon GTS2 AND a 48 manual data collector. My first thought was not that he might 'lowballing' my fees, but that 'GAWD! I hope I never end up having to do that at that age!' But, I would if need be.
Luckily, my poor wife got a REAL job about eight years ago. How I so hope we can both hang onto what we have now for as long as possible. American's have always wanted 'free markets' and by gawd they have em now, big time.
:good: :good:
This kind of reminds me of a survey that I did a few years ago that ended up in arbitration. Virtually every lawyer involved assumed that my client's neighbor's survey was correct simply because they used GPS and I didn't. Three years of arguing later the GPS survey was declared incorrect.
Tools mean nothing if one doesn't know how to use them properly.
I don't know about you guys but I bid a job for what I think it will take to do it. Most of the time I am under budget but sometimes I am over but do it for the bid amount. If he is still doing it with a Leitz and HP41 he must know what it takes to do the job.
> Don't feel too bad... You coulda lost out to some surveyor using a Texas Instruments calculator ...
I resemble that remark:-@
Though I have had a 41 for over 20 years and a 48 for over 15 years, and still use both.:-P
AMEN, That was an interview question we asked at my old company! No TI's allowed. 🙂
> Yep - It's true
>
> I was out bid & lost out on a small boundary to a guy operating with a Leitz 20" gun, a HP41 and hand drawn plat
If he surveys old school with a HP41 and such then that is fine with me, solid tools, not the most efficient but solid for sure, and legal as the day is long as long as he follows the laws and statutes in his area.
There was a day when the HP41 was the "cock on the block", and still today when weilded properly can be a great ally.
He is keeping his overhead low but screwing himself in efficiency, however if he is not concerned about efficiency as in his dance card is not full anyhow and he is just fiddle fartin around then it may be just dandy for him and you losing a job to him is just good clean capitalism.
redundancy ... sigma over square root of N ... with that knowledge you could do it with a 15 minute builder's transit, or a 1 degree staff compass, or two sticks and a string.
Your whizbang EDM does this internally. It can only really measure to half a foot, but when you press the button, it does that a few thousand times, clickity click, and does least squares on the data set to give you that warm fuzzy least count 0.01' reading.
With knowledge and maybe a little experience, the technology becomes much less relevant.
I'm with you, Jim. It's not the instrument/equipment.
It's how you use it. Everything listed is quite
sufficient to do a good boundary survey.
I bet the poor guy had a beat up pickup truck without a company logo on the door, too!
If all the pins are in, he doesn't even have to be good....;-)
Welcome to the site, Eddie! I think we're the only Yolo County (CA, for those of you who haven't been paying attention) guys here.
> You guys are a hoot-
>
> Man-oh-Man --
> Why in the world do you assume that the guy is a lowballer?
>
> Land Surveyors should be unbiased, and should have the ability to reach a reasonable conclusions after seeing facts. The majority of you guys have already pegged the guy as a lowballer, an unethical surveyor, without even knowing anything about him.
>
> My assumption therefor is concluded that you are merely a button pusher.
6th.....what thread are you reading? Nearly everyone on this dang thread sided with the surveyor with the hp41 or am I missing something?
> If all the pins are in, he doesn't even have to be good....;-)
Yeah, just more of evoking the old, "it depends", mantra. So, whada ya want, a brownie cookie?
Naw!, just kiddin, fella!
Everyone knows if 'all the pins are in' you wouldn't have been there, anyway.
>
> 6th.....what thread are you reading? Nearly everyone on this dang thread sided with the surveyor with the hp41 or am I missing something?
The tone of this thread has changed over the last 3-4 hours
Prior prior to 5 hrs ago, there was a lot of lowballing talk going on.
> Hey...I still use an HP41 everyday!
Same here, and my situation is exactly that of J. Penry when I do small boundary surveys......I've got three 41'a and a pair of 48's.
After all, I don't know wher Bob Port works, but chances are good that the original survey he's trying to retrace was done with even less technology than that.
> Don't feel too bad... You coulda lost out to some surveyor using a Texas Instruments calculator ...
Now THAT'S funny!
> Yep - It's true
>
> I was out bid & lost out on a small boundary to a guy operating with a Leitz 20" gun, a HP41 and hand drawn plat
When you discuss your work with prospective clients it should be really easy to demonstrate why your work has more value than someone else. If not, you need to figure out how to provide more value then charge a higher price for that value. Getting beat on price shouldn't be difficult. In fact, you should make it really easy for the competition to beat your price. The trick is making it tough for them to beat your value.
Larry P
(PS: The client neither knows nor cares what tools you use. They care about themselves and the value they receive from your work.)
"I've know some guys who could chain more accurately between two points than some guys attempting to properly use RTK."
If the distance is less than a chain length, and proper procedures are followed, a chained distance will *always* be more accurate than an inversed RTK distance.
