I was requested by a client to locate some section/property lines for a development project. The problem was that the project is in super fast-track mode. I just was informed about on Tuesday and they need plats by the 31st. So out to the field on Thursday to try and find original stones set in 1882 for 10 sections.
At least I wasn't under the time crunch that the firm I'm working with is. They need to topo all the sites, design roads and utilities for all the sites, and get it into a packet by Tuesday. I think they lost their weekend.
When I finally got there the firm I'm working with had a base station set up for their topo work. I said that rather than setting up my base I would just tag onto theirs. After changing my radio settings, I took off to the south and started corner searches. I quickly went over a large ridge and lost radio, so I changed to PPK mode. After getting back up on the large ridge I got back radio, their frequency and index number, but I couldn't get it to fix. I thought it could be someone else's radio but there was no way to tell so I went back to PPK and continued. After dropping off the large ridge to the north I got back radio and could fix and finished out the day.
That night when the other firm downloaded their days work they found that they tied into a base 330000 feet to the east. They said they were having trouble fixing like I did and thought it was bad satellites. It's hard to describe just how remote this area is except to say the last ranch house is about 10-12 miles up the road from the project. I wasn't thinking there was much chance of interference, and not from some base 60 miles to the east.
I helped them change their radio settings and index numbers and we worked the next day without problems; they did have to retopo two sites but it was about 1 hour of work-so not too bad.
For me the project was fun here are some Pictures of the stones.
This is the SE of Sec.1 a nice marked sandstone, like a number of these with a rebar nearby.
and a 1/4 (W1/4 Sec. 22) with a nice 1/4 that doesn't show very well in the picture. Someone was nice enough to drive a 2" pipe on the north side and then a 5/8" rebar on the west side and a nice x was scribed on the top which is what I located.
and another 1/4 (E1/4 Sec. 16) with an extra monument alongside.
And this is the first one I found leaning east so I stood it back up and reset it-the W1/4 Sec. 25
Jumping onto someone else's base happened to me once, but it was in an urban area where'd you expect that to happen more often. The strange part, though, it that the data collector I was using (TDS Surveypro) didn't give any warning that the base station had changed. There wasn't even a note made of it in the raw data, but when I loaded the vectors into Columbus, I could see the vectors originated from a contruction site about a mile away. You'd think that after you "set" your base, a warning message about a change in it's location would be a DC feature. If I hadn't put the project into Columbus, I probably would have never known it happened.
I was suprised that a radio 60 miles away would even be picked up. But maybe even more suprised that you could fix to it. Once I finally connected and located a corner I looked to see what the base was. But the orther guys didn't know how to do that. I went through some of that on Friday with them so it wouldn't catch them again. As remote as we were it was quite a suprise.
> I was requested by a client to locate some section/property lines for a development project. The problem was that the project is in super fast-track mode. I just was informed about on Tuesday and they need plats by the 31st. So out to the field on Thursday to try and find original stones set in 1882 for 10 sections.
I don't know where you are located. In the SE USA, I don't see how anyone could close out 10 sections of land in 7 days.
You must be in some fairly wide open areas with good records available.
Sounds like the wrong zone to me.
Some areas here it would take forever also, but this is virgin territory. No interior section development, no fences, no roads, nobody disturbing evidence. And I didn't have to breakdown all 10 Sections, only one needed to be split up. The others only needed some of the section lines defined. Started out needing 28 corners and ended up going to 32. And not 7 days; 2 days. It's the big country, average population density maybe 2 people per township.
Ranger, i've had a problem with bases switching when we are working down in the miami area but TDS and Trimble always lets us (pop up) know that a new base has been acquired. the screen pops up for 5 seconds and then dissapears, so it might have been missed......
And i must agree with Mr. Gilbert on the post below. 10 sections? is that correct? I have a really tight crew and it's a section a day, IF all the corners are in (never) and the corners are open to GPS (never). I may be in Florida, but how many crews are you running?
where?
Wyoming...
And many other parts of the American West for that matter.
🙂
Loyal
Loyal is correct-central Wyo. It could be many areas in Wyoming, or Montana, or Nevada... I was quite pleased to see the care the original surveyor took when he monumented the township. Very good job!
Only one crew, consisting of me, my truck, 4-wheeler and equipment.
Like most jobs, if I knew how everything would shake out I may have been able to get it done in one long day. But there were a few corners that needed to have multiple trips and one I ended up not needing that was the most difficult to get (NW of 5 over a large steep ridge).
This is a diagram of the area.
It looks like Sec 6 will be dropped so I ended up only needing the south line of Sec 5 and not the south lines of 5 and 6 and the common line between 5 and 6. I did not know that until the east line of 6 was located, and I could see that the project would be east of the east line of 6 (unlike how the quad sheet shows it)-oh well at least now the company knows where they really are. Of the other sections, 8 needs a partial breakdown (one centerline-and no there are no property lines on the ground along interior lines), 15 needs a full breakdown. I do also need all the corners for 22 and 26. The ranch house is the closest habitation to the area that I know of.
This really is undisturbed country. A few old P&A wells but mostly summer pasture and wildlife heaven. Elk, Eagles, Hawks, Badgers, and no GPS blocking.
This is a winter kill bull (a little 5 point near one of the corners).
If you haven't surveyed in this kind of country you're really missing out on a kind of surveying that is really enjoyable. And it will be good to get these corners into the record.
