The wind was blowing hard yesterday out here in Culberson County. Steady at 25 mph gusting up to 40. We were in need of more radio range so we decided to jack up the receiver to about 10 feet. We got a little creative with the bipod and put the candy canes on it so it could support the extra height in the high wind.
First time posting pictures. So here goes.
Everything out here has a thorn and will shred anything less than 10 ply tires on the Mule.
It's a family business!
We got back to the base at the end of the day and it was still standing and level! The height boost helped us out a bit and we got a couple of shots over some hills 5.7 miles from the base. We are going to run a static session on a control point we set over there tomorrow to see how everything checks out.
Nice setup, and what a view you got there!
thanks for sharing,
Chr.
Nice pictures, bleak looking land to this Yankee. Sort of place I'd expect to find bleached bones behind every shrub!
really pretty. it's amazing how different Texas is from extreme West, East, North, South and Central. I always enjoy driving through your big sky country. I've never roamed through it though. I can imagine it's hostile. But at least you can RTK the heck out of it there.
Regarding your base setup. I completely get the "do what you gotta do" thing, but you might be able to do the same thing by using a 3 meter antenna cable and a gender changer to get the antenna up without needing to raise the base with it.
Funny that bleached bones were mentioned. There was a rock mound we found yesterday that someone had stuck a painted bone into.
> Regarding your base setup. I completely get the "do what you gotta do" thing, but you might be able to do the same thing by using a 3 meter antenna cable and a gender changer to get the antenna up without needing to raise the base with it.
I was told by a guy at Geoshack that if I wanted extra antenna height, that I couldn't put a cable extension on it because it had a high possibility of burning up the radio board.
There's a lot of money in that ground out there. I've been working non-stop the last two months around Orla, Mentone and Brogado either trying to stay in front of the drilling rig or to put in supporting infrastructure. The boundary reconstructions have been both challenging and fun.
arctan(x) ~ are you related to that old Indian, "SOHCAHTOA"?
I was born in west Texas (El Paso, Fort Bliss).
Great photos & story, thanks for sharing.
I see you found a nice shady spot in that third pic. 😉
shade is hard to come by out there...
and it can hurt:
the Ocotillo bushes are pretty when they bloom, but down-right unfriendly.
Bah. We're silly with shade...
Why, we got almost 12 hours of it last night alone.
A/T
Sitting here with still 2' of snow .....................
What is the land use of the area you are surveying ?
Cheers,
Derek
We boost our radio antennas for pretty much every survey. Have done it with Trimble, Leica and Altus, never had a problem burning radios.
Derek, the area I am working in is good for grazing, mineral production, nuclear waste storage, and sport hunting. The County Extension Agent recommends no more than two cows per section.
That's two cows per 640 acres.
I helped one of Buster Sartain's crews one time and I was very impressed with the distance we could go when they set up a 30 foot aluminum mast and a yagi antenna at the base station. Takes just a little bit longer to set up but it seemed worth it.
Last time I worked in an area similar to that, the jackrabbits were carrying a half bale of hay and a canteen! 😛 There was never any vegetative matter that was friendly to humans. Great pic's.
Pablo B-)
That is where an external radio and deep cycle battery come in handy.
> There's a lot of money in that ground out there. I've been working non-stop the last two months around Orla, Mentone and Brogado either trying to stay in front of the drilling rig or to put in supporting infrastructure. The boundary reconstructions have been both challenging and fun.
Is there any VRS available in the Orla area?
> We boost our radio antennas for pretty much every survey.
Mechanically, that doesn't look very sound. Even with a small-diameter pole, the potential wind load on the tripod connection looks really iffy. I know people do this all the time, it just looks wrong to me.
Same thing with the GPS antenna extensions you sometimes see installed in a tribrach. Tribrachs weren't made to take that kind of lateral loading.