I was setup on the roof of a 1300' long warehouse laying out the mounting brackets for some solar panels. It was a little windy and the roof flexed slightly when I would shift my weight or walk to and from the gun. I decided to set a natural backsight azimuth atop a not too distant monopole with some antennas on top. I chose the thin antenna at the top as it seemed motionless through the gun and was easy to identify. A few minutes later I saw the level bubble move slightly, so I went to check the azimuth and there were two workers in a bucket removing the very antenna I had sighted!!! I guess I should have picked a different sight 😛
Waaaay back in the slope days, we used strobe lights on the top of our backsight setups. During a white out (mind you it was dark too) you could see the strobe with the T-2. Turning your double you would figger in your head (yes I've done it) what the reverse BS should sorta be, then crank that in and look for the strobe. Dang thing seemed to be moving, which by golly it was .... I was looking at the same size strobe on a 966 loader! No wonder the zenith seemed off?? 😐
-JD-
I remember a story that was told to me back in the 60's about running line in AZ. Seems as though there always is a high ridge in the foreground and is easy to pick out a foresight and run line to it. Well, this time the instrument man picked out a black figure and thought it was a rock outcrop....turned out to be a cow!
I guess the line must have wandered a bit?
Keith
I've had a little experience with setting up on a warehouse roof. The 100 year-old frame structure tended to deflect a bit too much if I shifted my weight. Getting the gun leveled was a chore, but, I finally succeeded. Fortunately, I was looking almost straight ahead after that.
Had a Korean I man intern once and he was hard to understand...we had a reference angle to a water tower. Had him check his angle and he starts hollerin' and wavin' his arms when he looked through the gun. Turns out they were dropin' the tower right when he looked at it, but I sure couldn't figure out what he was screaming till I went to look. He also did not waste pages in a field book and would fill out any blank spots with our new info, quite fun to find all the info.
Keith,
That reminded me in the late 60's I was laying out a seismograph line on a three man crew, the Cat operator was clearing a line ahead of us and I told him to head for a dark object on the Atlantic Rim.....well the dark object was a sheep wagon and being moved to a new location. The cat operator took off and never looked back, that was my first experience with a curved line!!:>)
Pablo
I once spent 2 hours digging through asphalt overlay after asphalt overlay to expose an old stone section corner inn the middle of a road. We set up a tripod backsight, drove a few hundred feet to the base of a steep cliff, hauled the theodolite and EDM (with large battery) up the cliff to the quarter corner. I sighted back to the section corner but could not find the backsight to save my life. My co-worker looked in vain also. I finally hiked all the way back and found the tripod sitting off to the side of the road and a brand new asphalt patch over the stone!! A County road crew had come by and diligently performed thier job. I dug the new asphalt (still warm) out and re-set the tripod, only to find I had left my radio back at the quarter corner. I hiked all the way back to tell my co-worker what had happened. We spent an entire day measuring two distances and one angle...
Jim in AZ
Wow. That was quick. I had a much smaller, but similar, occurence. We finished the day Friday digging a hole about 6" across and 12" deep in an asphalt county road. We arrived back onsite about 8:30 a.m. on Monday to find it full of new patch.
Pablo,
Did my first Doodlebug work in 1970 in Oklahoma, Texas and Montana in less than 3 months.
Never had that type of curved line though.
Pablo
Hey, now you have an appreciation for curved lines.
Keith
