Three base stations....

> Is this SOP for field guys to not know how to change a frequency? I guess the office guy (or dealer) sets up the system, and whatever it is, it is. I know a lot of people don't collect QC1 and QC3 (or QC2) data when they are doing RTK. Why? because no one ever told them to or explained what it was.

Competency is an ongoing problem. What you describe is depressingly common. I confess that I was working with Trimble for some years before learned the QC1/QC3 deal. (In my defense I might add that we often went months between using RTK at all - and among the reasons for that was the lack of adjustable vectors in the data RTK was yeilding.)

> I asked the project surveyor if he was on grid or ground, he didn't know that either. And he had been at the project for 17 years.

Now, that is just sad.

"Is this SOP for field guys to not know how to change a frequency?

I asked the project surveyor if he was on grid or ground, he didn't know that either. And he had been at the project for 17 years."

This doesn't surprise me - I find very few who understand what they are doing. Several years ago I spent about 6 weeks going round and round over grid-ground issues with a NATIONALLY known firm that works all over the country. They finally told me that there was no one in their company that had a clue what they were doing, and that after talking with me they didn't think they had ever performed a project correctly.

I recently called a surveyor to ask him to help explain what all the information regarding grid-ground, scale factor, etc. on his companies plans actually meant. He flailed around awhile and wound up telling me that he didn't really understand what it meant, it was just company policy to add this to all plans and drawings. He signs and seals drawings like this on a continuing basis, without a clue of what it means.

Last week I discovered that an entire flood planning mapping project was done at grid instead of ground... Someone is performing hydrological calculations and placing flood boundaries based on this data.

The incompetency in this field stuns me...

pretty SOP around here. i would love for my field guys to see more of the big picture but normally they don't. and that is fine. sometimes the tribe needs many braves but only 1 chief. i try to create an environment where the info is available but it is up to them to learn. most of the time field hands are happy to get what they get and don't care to invest the time to learn the detail of why it works the way it does.

yes, they do not care to learn.
i have one guy who needs to print out every book of regulations that we may ever touch. he then binds them and lets them sit on his shelf.
he really needs a state job...

The general lack of knowledge and training creates situations like this over and over.

The worst thing about it is that somehow some of these people manage to become "professional" land surveyors.....and it continues.

It appears that some people have no thirst for knowledge, or for improving their lot in life. They just meander along, carring ignorance and misconceptions along with them.

So depressing! It must be March 1st.

> The incompetency in this field stuns me...

And yet many states do not have an education requirement for professional licensure.

> The general lack of knowledge and training creates situations like this over and over.
>
> The worst thing about it is that somehow some of these people manage to become "professional" land surveyors.....and it continues.
>
> It appears that some people have no thirst for knowledge, or for improving their lot in life. They just meander along, carring ignorance and misconceptions along with them.
>
> So depressing! It must be March 1st.

:good:

Setting up base stations, I assume, for the purpose of doing local RTK?

Perhaps it is a case of ignorance. Were all of the entities you mentioned licensed for the radios used? I recall that the FCC license for operating such equipment was very specific about monitoring frequencies and what was required when conflicts occurred.

I can't imagine sending an operator out without the knowledge to make changes to radio and other settings to fit the setting. It flies in the face of what I believe is a tenet of being a good surveyor: Adaptability.

If you don't want a guy making changes to settings for fear that he will screw it up, teach a guy how to make (and undo) changes and what those changes mean.

MHO

JA, PLS SoCal

Actually, I went through the same process last fall with one of my clients. Sitting out in the field showing him how to change his radio was a good day. He knows quite a bit about what he's doing, but being an engineer it's an uphill struggle with the GPS equipment and surveying. OPUS is also not always the best tool for someone who kind of knows what’s going on. I’ve had to stop him from using it a few times when it wasn’t the correct approach.

Some people consider it a profession, and some people ...

... just consider it a job inbetween weekends.

Some people consider it a profession, and some people ...

I use single frequency receivers, but could the 3 of you determined who would be there the longest, all used his base and never needed to change frequencies? Kind of like a base and 3 rovers.
jud

Some people consider it a profession, and some people ...

Yes that can be done. The rovers are collecting base info but not sending it back, so there could be any number of rovers operating off one base. But, you want to be sure that the info the base is sending is tied to the system you are working in. However, if I would have been John, I wouldn't have trusted what was going on with the other bases....particularly when they didn't even know how to change the radio frequency.

Some people consider it a profession, and some people ...

:good:

But it is sad that this total lack of understanding is so common. All they do is check into a point because thats what the boss said, and get the same wrong answer again - so that makes it good.

Another sad concept is that those crews were likely billing out at the same rate as John was. It's like paying new Mercedes prices for a used Yugo with a bad manifold.

Frequency overlaps

Let's hope John bills at a higher rate. I do have a good story about radios and frequency overlaps:

I'm sitting in another office and a field guy comes in the room with me and the head engineer. The field guy had been staking for a preliminary line. A soldier met him on the ground and told him to change his frequency because it was interfering with their operations at a nearby base. Well, the field guy told off the soldier and said that he had a license for that frequency and he wasn't going to change. After I picked up my jaw from the floor I proceeded to explain to them just how dumb that was.

Some people consider it a profession, and some people ...

This is not a new problem, it is growing larger because where the license has been in the office, more and more trained people are working the office instead of the field also. When I was going around the country demoing high tech spreaders I was often asked what was the most common problem I had observed hindering the reliability and profitable use of the machines. Answer always was management. Got their attention and then I went on to point out that a minimum wage operator, untrained and only seasonal help were trusted to do the one thing that represented the value of the company to the grower. What that operator and spreader did in the field showed up in the growth of the crops. The machine needed operators who knew how they worked, cared about the results and was given the authority to do the proper maintenance when it was required. That was the only way to operate the machine and if unwilling to do that, they would be better of contracting an owner operator for the field work. It made a difference, same principle for surveying, but often not recognized or appreciated from the bosses desk until it is pointed out or an avoidable disaster takes place.
jud

Some people consider it a profession, and some people ...

Yea, unless I saw exactly what coordinate they had in their data collector, no way was I going to use their base. I have no idea what they were even doing out there, other than they were working at the same power plant. Well, I shouldn't say no idea...there is a project to install a new stack scrubber, something like $700M...but I don't know what they were tasked with doing, or by whom. The power plant owner contracted an engineering firm, who contracted a mapping firm, who contracted another mapping firm, who contracted me. The other two guys were not in that loop.

Once we went through safety training and orientation, it is amazing how easy it has been to work there. No one ever bothers us. Last day is tomorrow.....

Some people consider it a profession, and some people ...

There are probably a couple of reasons for this.

Some offices do not want to see the field technicians touch any settings in the field. In this environment, it is difficult for these workers to develop their technical skills, including dealing with radio frequencies.

The equipment itself can be more challenging to comprehend. Personally, on the HPB450, I do not know how to change the frequencies without the use of a computer. I never had to do it. However, on a Trimmark 3, this would not be an issue. The device is designed in a way that a person can easily comprehend in the field the concept of frequencies and make changes.

In my opinion, when there are lack of training/knowledge issues in the field such as this one, the entire group involved with the project is responsible, from the PM to the apprentice. Those technicalities represent great opportunities to re-adjust or create the SOP's and provide supervised training and re-training to all individuals if necessary.

Finally, let's not be afraid to share the information we know with others. A lot of my learning is done by talking with other folks in the field in real-time, whether they work for the contractor, the engineer, the client or whoever.

Because in the end, whether one has a lot of sardines on his jacket or none, we are all in the same boat, painted with the same brush.

Shouldn't the question have been can we coordinate our offsets and indexes. Where I work we are restricted to one set frequency. There is no deviation from that frequency.
We workaround that by setting different timing offsets, and by each user having a semi-unique base index.

I'm not saying that your way isn't valid. But pointing out another way you can work around the problem.