[james-vianna]

Being blunt here but would suggest a better use of your money would be in hiring a licensed land surveyor. To many pitfalls for a laymen.

[nate-the-surveyor]

To many pitfalls for a laymen.

Actually, that’s a kind of understatement.

Think only of ONE of the components. The bearings system. What is it referenced to?

True North, Grid North, Assumed north, Magnetic North?

This question is not about what a given direction is. It is about what BACKSITE is to be used for all the lines. That’s an expression in laymens terms.

Maybe hire a surveyor, who is sympathetic with your budding desire to be involved.

Learn enough know the coordinate system he used.

know the brgs used on the survey.

At this point, you can see what direction you wish to go. It’s a bit like milking a cow. Those who do it, know all their cows, and their temperaments. Those who don’t, don’t realize what they are getting into.

N

 

 

 

[350RocketMike]

I don’t think GPS would be in that budget. I did sell an older Leica conventional total station for $800 to a contractor who wanted to use it for some basic stuff. I think it was a Leica TCR805 model. You could use that without a data collector and only need to buy a couple of tripods and a prism. 

[hpalmer]

we get called out to do ‘fence surveys’ often – just need to survey one line.  After asking why, the response is ‘my neighbor’.  Generally, there is a boundary line dispute or the boundary is not marked.

So, if all you want to do is locate your existing corners and fence your property, then your plat/map with your deed and/or County/City GIS if they have same, together with an iPhone or Android device can put you in the general location to search (+/- 15′) using L1 GPS.  It is not the coordinates a sub-meter instrument will give you but your physical property corners and the line between them that is important.

Just fyi, a string works good between 2 found points.  Problem is to check if those points are the same as those described in the deed – something a licensed professional would probably do.

Want to learn what we do and what not to do, purchase some L1 equipment and expect it to give you survey grade results.

Hope this helps and you are not alone in wanting to do what you propose,

[jitterboogie]

I’ll second James comment.

if you need anything legal real or reliable hire a surveyor.

use the county gis to locate reasonable places

Ask yourself this…

If you could afford a cheap dental drill would you drill your own teeth?

Same for medical procedures…..

How about buying your own plane with no license or education to fly…

edit for my jumping the gun…

 

 

This professional arena is so much more than just ” Pins in the ground” and I hope you get the help you need.

The internet and realtors have degraded this profession into what they see  to value it at, but thankfully the title companies have to rely on surveyors and the courts too.

 

for now anyway

 

THRAC OVER.

 

 

 

 

 

[jitterboogie]

@nate-the-surveyor 

what about ECEF, geodetic North….

????

just giving you a hard time Nate…

????

[One Eye]

@james-vianna 

Yes, you are of course absolutely correct for anything with a legal bearing as I stated. Before actually building/cutting altering anything even relatively near a property line/corner pin/stream/easement etc I will/would have it property surveyed and marked by a competent professional. We are talking about doing things for my own planning and edification. I do understand the ideas of back bearings/bench marks and reference grids. A lot of what I am doing is planning from 2,500 miles away and when I have a week or to to go out to a lot I don’t like spend half my time trying to establish a reference point and I am not satisfied with the very low accuracy of most handheld GPS’s . So rather then spend $600 on a Garmin that can never get as close as I would like, I would rather purchase something used, that is significantly more accurate. I would like to have things pretty close and then only hire a professional once, not every time my ideas change.

Thank you for your input. I appreciate it.

[bill93]

GPS is the wrong tool for your job.  If you are sure there are iron pins in place, the best tools would be a tape, compass, and metal detector (maybe rent a magnetic locator instead of using a treasure finder).  If the found pins match the plat distances as close as you can measure, then you might be okay to build fence.  Talking to your adjoiners before building would also be a good idea, to see if they agree with the location.

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.

[One Eye]

@jitterboogie

 

Bad example…I did buy a plane before getting a license. LOL Worked out great. 

Ok I guess I phrased things poorly in my initial post. I am not trying to survey my own property and I do/will hire a professional whenever it is needed. All I want to do is what I have done many times before with a tape/compass and or cheap hand held GPS. Just more accurately and hopefully faster. Just for my own planning purposes and general edification. My anal retentive side hates 20′ close enough idea (even though it is generally close enough) and pulling a tape from a pin 600′ away is no fun. 

[nate-the-surveyor]

a cheap dental drill would you drill your own teeth?

our dental drill is dewalt!

 

[dave-o]

If you can find your true corner monuments (“pins” ?) which *should* be called out in your deeds’ legal description, then you can *fairly confidently* set a fenceline… with string and some buddies… you can see already why people are advising a legal survey.

But if that’s all you’re looking for, almost any commercial GPS will get you within 20′ or so, which many times will get you there if you add in a a shovel, good eye and/or metal detector.  Using just GPS though will require you to be able to identify a precise *location* of said corners prior to hunting (or “staking them out”).  This takes finding how your corners were last identified and literally translating that location to a precise (sixth decimal place) lat/long.

But even free smartphone apps like XTopo or even better, Regrid, which already has your county GIS property boundaries loaded into it (also lending itself to even greater possibility of discrepancy) *may* get you close.

---

dd

[bill93]

Remember that the property lines on a county GIS map may be anywhere from right-on to 10’s of feet off. They are just to identify parcels, and are rarely tied to actual surveyed points for the parcels.

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[Norman_Oklahoma]

If you have an iphone you already have a device that will locate you around ?ñ10 feet or so. I don’t believe that (another) $1000 will buy you anything better. 

If you want to find your property corner pins yourself spend money on a hand compass, machete, shovel, and 100 ft. tape measure. Then spend your time researching the maps and deeds.  You can get a metal detector (aka “pin finder”) from the rent it center.   

Everybody places their own value on the blood, toil, tears, and sweat that follows. 

[nate-the-surveyor]

If you donƒ??t use apple, on ox hunt can help you find stuff. 
nate

[nate-the-surveyor]

If you donƒ??t use apple, on ox hunt can help you find stuff. 
nate

[joe-b]

If you are just trying to plot the property on a plan, to see the geometry, then use the deed description.  It won’t be perfect, especially if it is older, but I think it makes more sense than shelling out thousands for equipment, which you may know the math and have the tech-savvy to use, but without an understanding of the legal side of boundary surveying it is useless.

When you factor in all of the extras that go with a total station you are looking at 3k+ for a manual total station, that is used and old, and will require a 2nd person to run efficiently.  Even if you get an old Leica 805, or Nikon NPL dojigger, you will still need to buy a prism, prism pole, tape, tripod, batteries, etc.  It just doesn’t seem worth it for what you need.

You can get some less expensive GPS units, but to get two units to run real-time corrections it will cost you 4k+ for even the cheapest old equipment, and the cheap equipment requires a lot more knowledge to keep running accurately, and I cannot imagine someone putting in that kind of time.  Older units also require more knowledge, as they are not “turn-key” like the 30k stuff, and you cannot get support when troubleshooting problems.

Obviously, by buying old equipment you run the risk of getting stuff that doesn’t work right, or doesn’t last.

The prices I gave are truly bottom of the barrel… It just isn’t worth messing with… especially without experience with the equipment.

I would suggest finding the corners the best you can with a metal locator, plotting it based on the deed description, and using your phone for coordinates (if there is a distinguishing feature you can pick out on google then use google earth.)  This will give you some idea of what you own.  When you need a survey, spend the money on a surveyor.  Even with all of the equipment, you won’t be sure of our corners until you spend the money on the surveyor, so why spend thousands on equipment to be a little more sure… (maybe)?  You can know all the math and science behind surveying, but with understanding survey laws and standards all of that math is useless.  There are libraries filled with the knowledge needed for retracement surveying… that’s why it requires years of experience and in many states a college education in surveying.  It’s not as simple as finding a pin in the woods or plotting the geometry. 

Good luck!

Joe

[One Eye]

@joe-b 

Well I made a hash of this by poorly stating what I was doing and not reading my audience. In the simplest terms I had thought to upgrade my hand held GPS to do what I have been doing successfully for 40 years on many different parcels. The thought that maybe now that GPS had matured there would be much more accurate equipment available used at a reasonable cost crossed my mind. You at least took the time to address the equipment that I asked about and I truly thank you for that. I guess its back to my pack with its 300′ foot measure, compass and basic laser line.

Thank you.

[nate-the-surveyor]

The facts are:

GPS works. This is what is in your cell phone, or your Garmin Navigator.

You MUST use DGPS to get accurate shots. (Differential Global Positioning System) Differential, means DIFFERENCE. So, to illustrate: Take 2 sticks 10 feet long. Tape a needle to one, and the end of the thread to the other. Now, while HOLDING the sticks, so that the needle and thread are 10′ away from you, thread that needle. You’ll never get it. This is GPS.

Now, take the needle, and hold it in your hand, and the thread between your thumb and finger, rest your palms together, and wear your glasses, and now, you can thread the needle. This is DGPS.

When you do GPS, it is an autonomous position. This means it bounces around about 10′, and about 20′ in the woods. So, in theory, two shots, on the same point, in the woods could be wrong by as much as 40 feet. This is NOT adequate for surveying. But, it’s great to find your truck, or atv.

Now, Lets go into the world of SURVEYING. DGPS

Set up a BASE survey GPS system, in a field, somewhere within a couple of miles of the survey site. This is called BASE. At the base, you have a GPS receiver, and a radio. This Radio is TRANSMITTING to the ROVER. It’s sitting stationary all day long.

Now, take the ROVER, which is a GPS system, with a radio as well. It’s radio only RECEIVES.

Now, if it’s all up and running, the BASE is collecting, and processing, and SENDING the data over the Transmitting Radio. The ROVER is collecting all the same GPS data, as the base, but it is ALSO receiving the base data via the radio. Now, ALL the data is combined in the ROVER. The processor now can take BOTH piles of data (base and rover), and combine them into an actual difference between BASE and ROVER. We now have RTK GPS. (Real Time Kinematic). Now, we need a serious software package, to look at this data. It’s called the Data Collector.

Now, we go into the woods. With the ROVER. It now, has signals bouncing all over, off the obstructions. So, only about 10% to 60% of the shots are any good. So, you now need some sort of multi-path filter, to get only the good data.

Now, there are ways to improve GPS. It’s called corrections. There are a few different systems out now, that do your corrections from a FAR AWAY station. These generally can get you down to between 1 foot, and 3 feet. When you use this in the woods, it works poorly. Only about 5% to 20% are good. So, it is not efficient. These corrections go from a FAR AWAY ground station, then up to the satellites, and back to the ground at the rover. There are varying grades of this, but they are not great in woods. It is IMPROVING.

There are other means of getting the corrections from BASE to ROVER. One is cellular corrections.

In other words, to get the GOOD DGPS, you are at somewhere above 20k. To get GOOD DGPS in the woods, perhaps another 10k.

Then, you have to LEARN it all, and understand it, and become proficient. That’s a basic story for you.

So, 1k is going to not get you into the game. But, your cell phone will allow you to find your truck.

I’m not being smart with you. It is just this way. Or pretty close.

Nate

 

[One Eye]

@nate-the-surveyor 

i appreciate you taking the time to address the actual technology. Thx

[nate-the-surveyor]

You are welcome. Some folks assume because we charge what we do, that we are getting rich. When in fact, we are not very good business people. Who enjoy technology. And, we have addictions, to this sort of thing. So, IF you could get an addiction, then you might get in the game! 🙂

Nate