California Surveyors Forums

Remember when GPS was new and not understood.?

I was asked to leave a property by my client because she hired us to survey. . . not go fishing. She mistook the olde RTK antennna as a fishing pole.

One fella insisted we tell him the name of our sattelite and how much we paid for it before we could survey his land.

Some sweet old folks wanted to know if we were usung "GPA" to survey their land or just a compass.

I got Shot at by a drunk fella who thought my yellow GPS backpack was a mountain lion. (glad he was drunk)

We got hired by a wealthy San Francisco fella to survey his house adition. He lived in the tall pine tree area. hence No satellites. The local newspaper was there to record the event. We set up the gear, posed for photos, then finished the job using a line string, tape and rt. angle prism.

A large ranch owner hired us to stake a line for a two mile fence up in the foothills. He had 12 of the biggest cowboys I'd ever seen waiting to git-to-work. We had no satellites for no reason ?? The big boys left and I finished the job with the client at 10 pm when i had 5 "birds"
Later I discovered that the space shuttle was launched and NASA redirected the satellites for the event.

And last but not least, I was hired to lay out basketball courts inside a gym but fired because I was using my total station and not GPS. I wonder who layed out those BB courts?

What do you folks have ?

"Good"? GPS

I read a newspaper article from Utah a few years ago about a bomb squad being called out to detonate a suspicious box with wires and antennas coming out of it that was sitting unattended in front of a public building. Turned out to be someone's GPS equipment. Since then I've always made sure our base station was clearly identified with the company name and phone number. (I've since searched for the article online, but can't find it).

When we were setting up for the original HPGN survey in 1991, we selected a point by the Peg Leg monument outside of Borrego Springs. When our Surveyor got out there to observe for the three days, the annual liars contest was going on. Lots of people asked him what he was doing with this fancy equipment and he patiently explained about making measurement to several satellites to less than a centimeter accuracy and how the whole system worked, but I don't think the good folks at the Liar's contest really believed him.

Remember when GPS was in use by everybody and STILL not understood.?

You mean, like, yesterday, Peter?

Gps is often used as a means to "speed up" the proceedure.

Crews "pop" on the fly. They are encouraged to drive from intersection to intersection and shoot the points or swing ties or whatever.

Another of my favourite methods is providing a calc sheet for the crew. They localize/calibrate on something they find (usually two points) then search at the points provided.

Harrrrumph !! and Bunk !

In order :

First, calibration on at least 3 points is essential. The more the better AND teach strength of structure for the geometric figure.

Second, Search points are great, but a crew must be able to look for points in places shown from maps AND visualize possible monuments set but not recorded (prior to the old days)

Third, Guys should "foot" it as much as possible. I've amazed them by walking the centerline, finding nails then finding sideline pipes that they didnt even know existed. (see also "second")

Gps is only a third order tool (rtk) A very nice tool indeed, but the tool is only as smart as its user.

I may have the dumbest GPS in the valley Shucks !!

Just ask. Why do we retrace those olden tyme surveys so well, when all they had were some of "Skipalongs" links and a compass transit ??


"good" bad and ugly GPS