Looking for input. Being a solo surveyor, I am busy as hell these days. I upgraded to robotic total station last year and love it. Really thinking about RTK gps but its been a while since Ive been around it. I am in Northern New Hampshire and most properties I do are heavily wooded and sometimes mountainous terrain. Many of these projects are between 100 and 300 acres in size. Is the accuracy I would need for a boundary survey (1:10,000) tough to obtain with gps? I know that was the case years ago. I do see some companies using it up this way but I dont want to go spending thousands on something I could only use a fraction of the time.
Javad. Learn it. If you invest the time to learn it, you won't go back.
N
You might want to read Nate's post from a few days ago....
https://surveyorconnect.com/threads/some-thoughts-on-the-new-javad-ls.326332/
Nate, it looks like we posted at the same time......
I am old school when it comes to GPS. Alot of the new technology is great, but if you cannot see the sky, you cannot get reliable gps signals, in my opinion.
I have been using GPS for almost 17 years, and I am always very skeptical about using GPS in the woods. I have seen way to many mistakes being made with it.
If I were looking at equipment, I would check out the GPS offerings of Mark Silver and Igage. Javad is another good one, as is Topcon, Trimble, Sokkia, Spectra Precision, etc.
Customer/technical support has to be a major factor in a purchase of this magnitude.
I think that if you can survive with a robotic total station, I would stay with it. Why go into debt for a something you might use occasionally. GPS is nice but I still have issues with reliability in the heavy canopy (despite what Nate says!). I use both here, but I am really liking the robotic over GPS. Reason is the robotic will shoot as fast as I walk while I have to wait 4 secs per shot on the GPS (sometimes longer). Only downside is constant moving of the robotic and not able to get GPS quality of coordinates easily. Of course it is really looking of the plus and the minus of having the GPS. Good luck whichever way you go.
Another option might be to buy an older GPS receiver for static sessions - far cheaper than an RTK setup. Set it up where there is sky and tie into it with the robot. GPS points near opposite corners of a 300 acre parcel will augment the robot traverse in a least squares adjustment to counter the accumulation of error from the many traverse setups you probably require in wooded terrain.
You could try a Javad Triumph 2 for static work and then upgrade it to RTK later if you wanted. They look like good value.
I work in New Hampshire some, and you may run into issues if you are going to hook up to MTS's Spider network. I think that their northern most base is out of Concord, so that is definitely something to check into before making the commitment
Thomas Smith, post: 367404, member: 980 wrote:
Looking for input. Being a solo surveyor, I am busy as hell these days. I upgraded to robotic total station last year and love it. Really thinking about RTK gps but its been a while since Ive been around it. I am in Northern New Hampshire and most properties I do are heavily wooded and sometimes mountainous terrain. Many of these projects are between 100 and 300 acres in size. Is the accuracy I would need for a boundary survey (1:10,000) tough to obtain with gps? I know that was the case years ago. I do see some companies using it up this way but I dont want to go spending thousands on something I could only use a fraction of the time.
Hang on a minute there. What's that you are holding?
🙂
N
I bet that you will find enough open sky around the 100 to 300 acres of heavily wooded mountainous terrain to make RTK/RTN GPS useful.
Rent or borrow here and there to either prove me right or to prove me wrong.
Also, I paid about $335 per month for two years and now own my particular gps setup outright. It makes me very efficient (money).
Reach out to [USER=1087]@Mark Silver[/USER] at igage.com to see what he might be able to do for you.
Thomas Smith, post: 367404, member: 980 wrote: Looking for input. Being a solo surveyor, I am busy as hell these days. I upgraded to robotic total station last year and love it. Really thinking about RTK gps but its been a while since Ive been around it. I am in Northern New Hampshire and most properties I do are heavily wooded and sometimes mountainous terrain. Many of these projects are between 100 and 300 acres in size. Is the accuracy I would need for a boundary survey (1:10,000) tough to obtain with gps? I know that was the case years ago. I do see some companies using it up this way but I dont want to go spending thousands on something I could only use a fraction of the time.
I'm in similar terrain with a similar workload over here in Central Maine -- If I hadn't gotten GPS (Topcon Hipers) about 12 years ago I would have retired about then. IF you have open skies the precision you can get is pretty close to what a total station gives you. But then open skies in the New England woods are scarce. My results in canopied areas are usually sub-meter. Which is close enough for woodlot work in my area. I rarely do a job with GPS alone but then I rarely do a job on which I don't find some use for GPS. But then all I do is static GPS with very long observations in canopied areas -- I am very skeptical of RTK in such areas -- but there are guys around here doing it routinely -- as I said, I am very skeptical.
I have found that RTK in our neck of the woods is useful in town and for getting wetland flags. Besides that, static is all you need and run the robot off that control. Just had a crew trying to get some recon shots on a big boundary in mature forest with leaves off. Couldn't get a fix. That is my experience, some jobs it may work great on but 98% of work in NNE can't be done with it.
Good advice here from Nate and Brad.
If you are looking for an OPUS receiver with upgrades, then Brad ha the option.
If you want to jump into the deep water, then Nate.
So is the robot named Perry?
Jimmy Cleveland, post: 367411, member: 91 wrote:
Customer/technical support has to be a major factor in a purchase of this magnitude.
This would be my single biggest determinate of what brand I bought.
But, I would buy it.
Totalsurv, post: 367425, member: 8202 wrote: You could try a Javad Triumph 2 for static work and then upgrade it to RTK later if you wanted. They look like good value.
And you can run the Triumph 2 with an Android or I phone too. You can get your feet wet with Static GPS only for $2500 and it can be upgraded to glonass and RTK anytime you want to expand your system.
Being where you are I would go base/rover for sure, it works way better here in TN
You run 300 acre wooded surveys in the mountains with a robot? I would definitely take advantage of GPS. Even setting static baseline control on opposite sides of the job would save tons of time.....
Dan Patterson, post: 367488, member: 1179 wrote: You run 300 acre wooded surveys in the mountains with a robot? I would definitely take advantage of GPS. Even setting static baseline control on opposite sides of the job would save tons of time.....
That's what I was thinking. I ran around 20 wooded acres solo last week with a robotic and about fell over.
Here is what to do. Go rent a base and rover. Go rerun a job you did last month with it. Make sure the job had some wooded areas. Compare the measurements and compare the time in the field.
Shoot me an email if you have any specific questions on any of the Javad gear.