My Guess Is 2° Was The Tolerance
Of course with SPC ortho photos you have to account for the convergence, but that is under 2° anywhere in PA, VA should be similar.
Another thought, ortho photos should give you lat/lon and SPC to nearby cell towers or even high tension towers which can easily be observed conventially. A 3 point resection requires only angles. I believe it was a Dave Lindell problem a few years ago, somewhere around here I have a simple solution setup I sent him.
I have just started a project using ortho photos which includes a cell tower within the 90+ acres that I have observed from 3 previous projects. I will combine and compare my previous solutions. I don't really have to because I have GPSed 2 of the 3 so far and will GPS the third farm later this year when I lay out an access easement to it.
Paul in PA
My Guess Is 2° Was The Tolerance
> Another thought, ortho photos should give you lat/lon and SPC to nearby cell towers or even high tension towers which can easily be observed conventially. A 3 point resection requires only angles. I believe it was a Dave Lindell problem a few years ago, somewhere around here I have a simple solution setup I sent him.
I don't believe any cell towers are within sight of this project. I know generally where it is, but that's about it.
Alligning Solar Panels
Back when I worked for a living, doing surveys, we did one of these about once a month. It was always in conjunction with a survey though. That made it real easy becasue we did a solar observation on every job. We had it down to a mad sicience. It took less than 2 minutes to take 8 pointings direct and 8 pointings inverted with a T-2, projecting on a card. We used the hour angle methoid and the Elgin Knowles Senne Astro Roim in an HP 41 CX calculator. I wrote a custome program for the 41 that would calibrate the clock. After I ran it for a month, my clock would stay within 0.1 seconds of the time cube. We usually did the calculations on the hood of the truck, and ran true bearings on the job.
Didn't the engineer address the exact orientation of the house?
> Didn't the engineer address the exact orientation of the house?
I have no idea. This was all per a quick phone conversation.
Carl
Alligning Solar Panels
The EKS company web site says they all retired and the software is no longer available from them. The forms of their software included PC programs useful through 2030. Did it just disappear or is it out there somewhere in the wilds of the web?
Perry
Thanks for the info.
I have this inverter and a pair of OPTIMA® BlueTop® D34 batteries with 1500 CCA total.
Should be fine, always nice to see what others are using.
SHG
I would observe the direction of the shadow of a plumb bob string at solar noon.
A little offensive maybe, but any licensed surveyor that cannot do a simple solar should have questions about their ability to practice which borders on incompetence or at best severe whining.
It is not that fricking complicated. I can find a bearing "by shadow" probably within 10 minutes.
What has the profession come to?
And you have GPS for god's sake!?
- jlw
Good post Jerry! Here in my state we are overrun with REGISTRANTS who can turn a GPS box on and off but have little if any knowledge of even the basic concepts of surveying. It is an absolute disgrace that our Board has allowed these folks to obtain a license to damage the pubic.
> A little offensive maybe, but any licensed surveyor that cannot do a simple solar should have questions about their ability to practice which borders on incompetence or at best severe whining.
Truthfully, I find that VERY offensive. I do not have a solar filter for my robotic instrument, and do not feel that burning up the innards of my gun is worth the few hundred dollars this project would garner me.
> It is not that fricking complicated. I can find a bearing "by shadow" probably within 10 minutes.
Good for you. Would you like a cookie? It's NOT something that I do in my everyday normal practice... or once a year. It's simply something that I done do even once a decade. I'd be more worried that I'd screw it up, that do it right.
> What has the profession come to?
I'm not going to deny that it's become more specialized, but that's no reason for you question my professionalism or style of practice. I don't know how to "break down a section by the rules of 1899"... Is that going to make you cry in your Wheaties?
>
> And you have GPS for god's sake!?
I DO NOT own any type of GPS setup, and tried to send him to someone that does.
You sir are a friggin' bully. I tried to ask a simple question, and all you can do crap all over me. Have a great day stepping on LSIT's necks on your way to your all-knowing survey throne.
>
> - jlw
I asked a question, and admitted I wasn't fully versed in something... And now I feel like that I shouldn't have even opened my mouth...
ALL HAIL JERRY WAHL!!! HE CERTAINLY KNOWS IT ALL!!!
Carl:
Perhaps there are anger management classes available in your area?
I wouldn't know. I don't need them.
Carl...one word...Polaris
it's really simple to observe Polaris.
The calculations are simpler than the sun too.
And it's more accurate.
It's fairly easy to find after sunset but while there is still a lot of ambient light.
I've never done a solar in my life. I think I wrote a spreadsheet for computing an hour angle solar but I would have to find it.
It's fairly uncommon in most urban work these days especially now that GPS is around.
I sort of taught myself to observe Polaris which is fairly simple. You don't need any filters and time is not highly critical. I use my alarm clock which automatically gets the time from satellites every day. Some surveyors more skilled than me can find it during the day but the best I've been able to do is about sunset.
I wrote a spreadsheet which does the calculations. It isn't software, you have to enter the ephemeris data manually. Given a UTC date and time it can tell you the azimuth and altitude angle to Polaris (useful for finding it before it can be seen with the naked eye). I marked a point on my patio and north on the fence using the transit compass. Then I turn right or left to Polaris and put in the vertical angle. Focus out to infinity and it should be close. It helps to know where infinity is on the focus ring.
I played with it and it seems that even the closest minute in time will get you within a few seconds of azimuth. Conceivably you could use your cellphone time. Also you need to know you latitude and longitude but again a few minutes either way doesn't make much difference. Longitude matters more than latitude.
