@olemanriver I never for a second thought you were coming across as an anus. LOL! Trig leveling over 800' and getting good results though is just a lucky chance of compensating errors.
I've been in the game for 40 years now and spent my first few years leveling exclusively with a Philly rod. I switched jobs for better pay and on my first day at the new job my PC rolled up to a factory where we had to take a few shots in a parking lot. I set the level up and went to take my BM reading, focused on the rod, looked again, then looked at my PC and said you're kidding me right? The rod is upside down! I don't think he ever laughed so hard in his life before teaching me how to use and read a Lenker. That was about 35 years ago and I still laugh about it every time I pass that factory.
@chris-bouffard Thats sounds like my first time on a lenker. I liked the philly rods for everyday work but once you go big and have an invar it just was a different world. I am glad you didn’t think i was being an anus. Sometimes you just don’t know how you come across on a forum. Have a good one. I ran levels through the Memphis airport many years ago and used the sprinkler heads as turning points on ceilings. Yep inverted rod through the office guy for a loop and he was mad as a hornet as he didn’t pay attention to my - sign on the BS and FS. So he spent the better part of the day cussing me before he called over the cb to see what i had done when he was checking my work. I kept saying pay attention to the sign. Two negatives equal a positive. He was so mad until he finally realized i had been beating around the bush and he knew i knew he was emotional lol. A good laugh and a beer on me that evening settled him down some. My boss said why do you do that stuff to him. I said well he always sends me to the swamps briars and snakes so I figured i had to get him back.
I think the last time I used a Lenker rod was about 30 years ago when we still had three-man crews, no digital levels, no robotic total stations, and certainly no GPS/GNSS.
