I've worked several times at night.
The first time I was working on what became a very complicated boundary, and the client had a fence company coming the next morning. I worked on that job from around 8:00 A.M. that morning to around 11:30 P.M. that night. It ended up being a pretty cool experience. The robot doesn't know if it is daylight or dark. It actually tracked much better at night.
I have worked until about an hour after dark several times in the past few months or so. Sometimes you do whatever it takes to get the job done, especially when working that extra hour saves a trip the next day for about an hour's work.
Try it at night, but in waist deep snow (when off of the snowshoes), up in the Canadian boonies in midwinter.
Important job, had to get done. So we did it.
Our project is currently running 24/6. I volunteer for any and all night ops, usually 2 or three nights a month, and sometimes more when we are doing a major traffic switch. Although it is not needed right now, when we do need a fulltime night crew, I will be the first one raising my hand like Arnold Horshack to get it.
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I have our crew scheduled for about 3 months of night work starting the first Monday in January. They work 3 night each week then finish up their 40 running levels and chaining and stuff during the day. The old T-3 gets a workout at night.
> I have our crew scheduled for about 3 months of night work starting the first Monday in January. They work 3 night each week then finish up their 40 running levels and chaining and stuff during the day. The old T-3 gets a workout at night.
Just a piece of advice, It takes a full two days to get your body acclimated to working night shift, and it takes about that long coming back to days. It will definately be demanding on your guys trying to switch back and forth every three days. I would try to find a fourth night for them to make out their week and let someoone else do the day work if you have multiple crews. If not, the best way IMO would be to do the day work the day of the first night, a doubleshift per se.
We are just finishing up a 24 hour dewatering survey (1200' X 110' navigation lock), one of about 4 we do each year. They were supposed to start the pumping on Monday night during the third shift, and I was standing by ready to go. But, they didn't actually start until 6:30 AM yesterday, so I started then and went until about 6 PM yesterday. Then, my tech (Todd) took over and he ran through the night and is now (hopefully) finishing up. We have to monitor the two 1200 foot long lock walls (28 points on each wall) until they expose the lower gate sill, which means pumping out about 12-15 feet of water (around 12 to 14 million gallons). They always try to put enough pumps in to do it in 24 hours.
Anyway, I have done the night shift, it gets very eerie out there on the river around 2-3 AM, especially if it is foggy. And, you are working alone. Sometimes there is barge traffic through the adjacent lock chamber, but often you won't see anyone for hours. Last night it got down to 26°, so it was probably a little uncomfortable and damp.
Also, while at Trimble Dimensions I was reminiscing with a friend who also started doing GPS in the mid 80's like I did. Back then we worked night hours in the winter, as there were only about 6 hours a day with sufficient satellites, and it moved 4 minutes a day. We were talking about how easy GPS is now, with 24 hour constellation, HARN/CORS, etc. Lots of stories about run-ins with cops, getting shot at, etc.
The first GPS project I did was a First Order control survey back in 1991. We had 4-1 man crews doing the observations and with the SV's available at the time, our window was from midnight till about 6:30am and the second was from 2pm to about 8:30pm. We were doing the entire county with 66 new monuments and did it all in 9 days.
One night I had some dude drive up behind me without his lights on and this was out in farm country so there were no street lights. All of a sudden he flipped the lights on right behind my truck and pulled past. He had driven about a 1/2 mile with out the lights before he got to my truck.
Besides scaring the tar out of me, he didn't know we had the police 2-way radios along and they pulled him over about a mile away for a question and answer period. He said he had seen the surveyors out working in the area and just wanted to screw with them.
After that and for the rest of the night work, I kept my .45 Colt on the front seat.
Ahhh...the good old days.
I try to explain to people what we used to do for GPS in the early days, hard to imagine. First of all, the control at that time was all non-GPS (i.e. triangulation/trilateration/traverse), so it had to be searched for. In western PA, the trig stations were usually on wooded hilltops, so we did a lot of eccentrics. The listings were on paper only, then later on floppies, then CD's, and now on the internet. If we got 10 ppm between control we were happy, often much worse. No geoid models either.
My first GPS experiences were with Macrometer V1000 units-big units with BIG antennas (3 feet square). You needed a generator running during the session, that always attracted attention at 3 AM. The units had to be synchronized before and after using a GOES receiver. No cell phones, no handheld GPS, no mapping software with routing, just paper maps. (sounds like: no phones, no lights, no motor cars...not a single luxury).
For a while in 1987 our 4 man GPS crew was me, Rick Sauve, Ken Mooyman (Canada), and Rod Eckels (Australia). Those three all wound up sooner or later at Leica. Very little direction was needed, everyone knew what to do.
So the song doesn't quite apply since you were fortunate to not have Gilligan on the crew.
I like night GPS. Some nice clean data, less solar radiation.
N
Well,
I like it early in the morning, when it's still dark (have not been surveying at night yet)
perfect for reflecorless with the laserspot,
but our TSC2 should have illuminated keys, it's hard to code in the dark.
What dc do you use ... or you place a lamp on the head?
chr.
Night Moves
> Well,
> I like it early in the morning
I like in the early morning too, right after I get a fresh load of wood.
But, the night works for me 2.....
Started humming a song from 1962.......
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The old geodometer EDM's used white lights, so we did some night work because they worked better at night. Cross hairs and scales needed the lighting devices mounted on the T-2. That 6-A almost required a wheel barrow to move it very far.
jud
Christ
the visible laser works great in a Redwood forest during the day at this time of year. I put the red spot on the blaze and shoot reflectorless.
I was watching a show on PBS this evening out of one eye while reading a book with the other eye
It was docu called Presidential Photographer.
In one scene a motorcade was taking the President to deliver the state of the union address. You could see a TS set up along the street with safety cones. If I worked in the city, I think it would advantageous to work in the busy downtown areas at night for a variety of reasons besides parking.
