K&E Paragon Transit when I worked for the Georgia State Highway Department in 1973 staking out Interstate Highway 95 from Midway to the South Carolina line. We have come a long way, haven't we?
Dale Yawn
Savannah, Ga.
Lietz/Sokkisha TS20A & steel tape for stakeout under 200'
Lietz/Sokkisha SDM3F06 for control, topo & "long distance" stakeout.
http://mohaveinstrument.com/NewFiles/TS20A.html
http://www.mohaveinstrument.com/NewFiles/SDM3F06.html
A David White transit & cloth tape in high school surveying class. We staked the FFA barn and a greenhouse on the school campus, ran levels with a Sears & Roebuck builders level w/13' Philly rod, calculated grades, and wrote cut/fills for finish grade on stakes the wood shop made for us. They are both there, 43 years later.
WIld T2 with a Topcon EDM for me 30 years ago. I was promoted from glaciologist grunt to surveyor on an expedition because I as big enough to carry the damn thing in my back pack along with all the gear I would need. Humped the damn thing around all summer measuring ice movement on the Juneau ice fields. That's the summer I decided to study surveying when I got back to university. I'm just glad it was the T2 and not the T2000 I used at my first paying gig.
The first instrument I had the pleasure of using regularly was a Sokkisha SET4. Mid '80s total station technology. It had bad problems with working in the rain, and we always work when it rains here in the PNW.
Nikon NT-2D - Theodolite with a Stinger II EDM mounted on top, BUT only for measurements more than 200 feet. Anything less than 200 feet was with a steel tape.
That was a great instrument, I have been looking for one to place on a shelf in my office without breaking the bank to purchase.
Started with various transits (Lietz, Gurley, Dietzgen) and Dumpy type levels.
Used an EDM on the job for the first time in 1985, and maybe once or twice in school prior to that.
Used a number of different non-electronic theodolites.
The first electronic total station I used on the job was a Topcon GTS-2B. That was 1986 with the BLM. I had used some variation of an early Wild TS at school prior to that, but don't recall the model - maybe a T-1000.
Used a variety of top mount EDMs and a couple of monster HPs that mounted straight to the tribrach (3800 series).
I was still using a T-16 with a Red-2 top mount as my everyday setup in 1992.
In 1987, I had Control Surveying with Prof. Burch at Ferris. In that class, he had us use essentially everything that was in the Ferris equipment room. A lot of that equipment was very antiquated - Plane table & Alidade, Tachyometer, as well as running traverse with transit or theodolite & chain (tape), triangulation with a T-2, and trav & topo with the latest Wild TS and Wild DC. At the time, I was initially ticked that he had us spend so much time with antiquated equipment and methods. By the end of the class, I understood that he did that to give us an appreciation for the differences in ease of use and precision of results between old equipment and new. It was probably 15 years before I truly appreciated having some experience with those old methods and instruments. The perspective from that experience can really help when following surveys performed with similar methods & equipment.
I used GPS for recreational navigation before I had an opportunity to use it for work. At first, it was so expensive that the companies I work for couldn't justify the cost. Then when working for a company big enough to afford GPS equipment, they bought one set and assigned it to a Golden Boy crew in the central office. Us grunts in satellite offices might get lucky enough to see the equipment if the boss in our office could talk the boss in the main office to send it up for a day or two for a specific project. It came with the Golden Boy crew, so we had no opportunity to actually use it ourselves.
I did do some work on a Doppler crew in 1987. That was sort of like GPS in that a box of electronic parts did all the measuring, but different in that it used the Doppler effect of the radio waves from satellites rather than a more direct triangulation that GPS does. This work almost doesn't count because all I did was ride around in a helicopter from mountain top to mountain top switching out the 60 lb batteries and changing cassette tapes. Planning and data reduction was all done by someone else.
The first time I used GPS for surveying, where I was on the crew actually using the equipment was in a class at Oregon Tech in 1993 or 1994.
I've used GPS several times since, but other than on a few multi-day projects here and there, not on a daily basis. Most of my field measurement work since the mid-90s has been with a TS.
I have not as yet had the opportunity to use a scanner or a drone. A drone might be fun, but it doesn't look like I'd be missing much if I never get to use a scanner. I'm sure I'd be able to produce some amazing 3-d mapping and models, but as far as the field work goes, it looks utterly mind numbing to me.
Up until we started using tools where we upload geoid models, various project templates, alignments, and surface models, and have to properly set all of them up before ever making a measurement, I was utterly confident that I could be handed any type or brand of survey equipment and be using it as competently as if I had been using it for years in a couple of hours, and that being if I had to figure it out on my own.
Now I find that with the GPS equipment my employer now uses, if I am provided with all of the correct versions of the necessary template files, I might get lucky and have it all figured out in a half hour. But if I am missing a file or one of the setup files is the wrong version, I could be stuck and frustrated for the better part of a day. I don't get out in the field often enough to ever get fully comfortable with the equipment. For the day per year (or less) that I get into the field, I find I have to relearn how to use the equipment each time. By which I mean 1) how to set up a project to enable the equipment to be used to make measurements, and 2) which buttons to push to make the measurements I want to make.
There have been times when I've said "Screw it! Let's do it with a total station and at least get something done." only to find that no one loaded up the TS or charged the batteries. Grrrrrrrr....
The folks around here who are more proficient with the equipment usually look at me sideways with a measure of curiosity when they see me writing or drawing in a field book. Most of them seem to think that "FIP" or FD STD CTY MON" is a fully adequate description for a found monument and that any kind of sketch, swing ties to nearby objects, and more wordy description is total overkill.
Sometimes I wish everything with a battery would magically cease working and we had to go back to using a tape and transit or theodolite. I own GPS, a TS with a whole bunch of on-board functions, a fairly modern DC, a T-2, a T-16, and a couple of transits. The T-16 is and always has been my favorite.
[insert caveman graphic here]
Our old leitz, sn 9888.
Nate, (holding baby)
eapls2708, post: 450474, member: 589 wrote: [insert caveman graphic here]
Nate The Surveyor, post: 450312, member: 291 wrote: What instrument did you get proficient with, first?
My first was a 1923 Adolph Leitz.
My dad had me write down a compass brg with every shot. Angles were doubled. We usually used deflection angles, in lieu of ang. Rt, as is now the common standard.
It has a 20 minute verneer.
Next was a Topcon GTS 3-C.
It is a great gun.
I met surveyors that only used the compass, in this type of inst. They would set it up every other station.
I'm wanting to go backward, and get several compasses, and play with:
Polaris observations,
Declination variations, (morning to night) and monthly, and quarterly.
America was built with magnetic devices... And as I age, I feel a return to old tools, could shed light on surveying bearings.
I'm wanting a better connection to the tools, and equipment, from the past.
I'm thinking that some modern surveyors may NEVER have used a tape, and Abbey level. When retracing, it's good to know the characteristics, and procedures associated with the equipment, used to perform the survey you are retracing.
It's really change the "virtual pincushion", ie rejecting monuments, a few tenths from the gps position.
What's your first survey inst?
Nate
Mine was an old K & E 30" optical transit you could interpolate to 15". Angle right, read left, angle left, read right.
Topo by stadia and reading the vertical circle.
Triple sets of angles both direct and flopped.
I'd say it was my Pentax GT6B Transit but then one of the mechanisms got broken and I sold it. I now have a Leica TS11 (My picture), DeWalt Transit, fiberglass and aluminum tripods, GNSS and reflector poles among others
To represent a "less experienced" demographic: my first proficiency was/is an S8, R8-2, and TSC2.
Used transit and tape, etc., in school.
eapls2708, post: 450474, member: 589 wrote: It was probably 15 years before I truly appreciated having some experience with those old methods and instruments. The perspective from that experience can really help when following surveys performed with similar methods & equipment
Boy, thats the truth.
So very important.
Thank you.
Nate
I spent more time behind a new-style T1 with a top-mount Beetle 500 than anything else in my early days. But I also had many days running an HP-3820A, and a few with a T2. Then it was a Topcon GTS-3B until I went out on my own with a GTS-302, followed by Geodimeter 600 robot, a Leica TCRA-1102plus, and now a GeoMax Zoom80.
My first 6 years were military. M1 or M2 external scale (magnetic) transits. Everything in mils and most distances by stadia. We did a control network west of Cairo with an EDM in 1980.
As a civilian it was T2 and highway chain then T2 with a Red2L. In 86 I took a job with a paving company and the instrument was a Gurley transit in a burlap bag. I built a box and took it to the guys at Sieler in St. Louis. After that it was total stations then GPS then scanners. Next up is a drone this winter.
Its a cool time for us. We just need to stop investing in these tools to reduce our rates and undercut each other..
A 'newbie' here. Started with Sokkia set 3110, where you got to plunge the telescope when you power up if not somehow the vertical angles will be off. Then moved to Set3X and then the SX and now the iX
Jim,
I used an HP EDM to survey the Oregon Women's Prison in 1990. I can not remember the model number. All of the other top mount EDMs were being used by the standard crews so the relief crew, the only ones that could pass the background check, got the leftovers. Nothing like getting cat calls and being flashed by female axe murders. Something to write home about. My crew chief at the time, was more impressed with the lunch service at the big house next door. All you could eat at the guard's lounge for a buck and change.
I started with a Nikon digital theodolite with the separate distance meter that screwed on top. we had lug it around in its case and attach it on every setup. recorded all readings by hand. Boss insisted on taping anything less than 100'. Now use topcon total station with a data collector.
Wild T2 with frosty and 100' steel chain. No EDM
Machete, plumb bob, hammer...