RACooper

Here is the "ultimate reference for benchmarks" from Dusty Jacket.

(I seem to be posting a lot here recently...) When reading a datasheet, I have found quite a few that the only N/S measurement given is ".1 miles from farmhouse" or ".1 miles from road". What I haven't determined yet is if this is an actual 528 feet (.1 mile) or an estimate based on an odometer reading or being scaled from a map? the E/W mesurements given are from "centerline of road" and "from fenceline". Of the ~23 miles of FM 359 (Texas), all but ~7 miles of it has or had a fenceline on one or both sides of the road. I can usually find a mark if I can get a reasonably close N/S reference. Couple of marks to see what I'm talking about: BM0153 BM0152 BM0150 Also, for some reason all the witness posts on FM 359 are gone...makes for a very frustrating time!

gnbrotz: The document was created with Acrobat 5, and I probably used some Acro5-specific functions to protect the document (it can't be printed, the watermark is visible, the name field is locked). If you are using an older version of Acrobat reader, I can only suggest that you upgrade. Acrobat Reader 6 came out a few months ago. Tennessee Geocacher: I read through the terms of use for the logos. My interpretation is that I can use the logo non-commercially on merchandise, which is my intent. I certainly plan to pass this idea by TPTB directly (via email) if anyone here thinks the idea is with merit. I'm not looking to make money of Groundspeak, Geocaching or any of the participants here. My bigger concern is not the use of the logos; it's the fact that the card makes it appear that Groundspeak/Geocaching.com endorses the carrier of this ID card. I don't know how Jeremy et al will take that.

I would suggest going to talk to the church staff and get a better history than the cornerstone gives. I'm sure they have pictures of the church through the years in their archives.

After being questioned a few weeks ago while looking for a mark, I had an idea. I came up with a Geocaching.com "ID badge" that could be laminated with a person's name on it. An example PDF is located here. Would this: a) pass muster with the Groundspeak admins? be useful for anyone else hunting benchmarks? I am also working on a short (1/2 or 1/4 page) description of survey markers that can be handed to anyone who inquires about what I'm doing. Figured this could be helpful when talking to property owners or the county sheriff, if necessary.... Let me know! If this is a legit possibility, I can set up to make them, laminate and mail out for a couple of bucks each (just to cover costs, of course!). I have access to a laminator at work, but I'd have to buy the pouches, clips and cards.

I think (I'm not a pro here...hopefully one of the experts will back me up) that if the post/base/monument is in good condition, and you can see the mounting pin or hole, that it should be considered "found in poor condition". If you are positive that the posts you found are the correct locations for the marks (you can see the pin/hole/outline from the disk), it should probably be submitted to NGS as well. (Like I said, I'm not a professional...just been reading these boards for a while.)

Meridian has a USB converter cable for their Magellan series.

Since the GC.com data isn't directly reported to NGS, I think a suggestion I saw a few weeks ago (sorry, don't remember who!) would be perfect. Split the found/not found/destroyed into two fields: a) status--found/not found(/note). Exact location of mark was confirmed or not. condition--good, poor, destroyed. This would allow GC to give credit for marks that the location has been confirmed, but the marker is missing/destroyed, and still not give "credit" for not founds (but could include them in the stats counts as a "not found" field). I know I've marked a couple as "not found" that I plan to go back and research in depth at a later date. I guess I would edit my entry at that time (presuming I either found it or confirmed destruction) to update the status.

Possibly slightly related to this topic...is there any way to query the NGS database directly without having to use this page (ds_pid.prl)? If there were a way to directly query based on PID, it could help to keep the Geocaching pages updated. Each BM query on GC.com could call the NGS datasheet and confirm or update the existing information in the GC database. I don't know if this would cause a ton of traffic against the NGS site, but it's just an idea...

BUMP! Has there been any progress/change/update for gpx2html to fix the pre-1970's date issue?

Please someone with more professional experience take a look at BM0988. I have found a web page here that records the history of the courthouse and clearly shows that the original courthouse, recorded as a mark in 1933, was destroyed in 1955 and a new courthouse built the same year (which is still there in downtown Hempstead). My question: Is the TexasEscapes page, with the history and pictures contained there, enough to submit to Deb Brown as destroyed? Thanks! [This message was edited by RACooper on September 17, 2003 at 09:28 PM.]

BM0154 BM0147 Well, there are two more missed by USPSQD. However, they're not the only ones who miss markers... AX0221 The main mark MONA 1954 was listed as Not Found by LOCENG, and the same entry indicated that MONA RM1 had been moved. However, if you overlay the 1985 measurements (SE and NE) to the original 1954 cardinal directions (N and E), they apparently end up in the same location. I also have to guess that the church has been expanded since the original monumenting, because the 107 feet given "NW of the NW corner of the church" puts you almost in the FM road now, but the mark still measures very close to original from RM1. (now, of course I could be making assumptions, but that's how it logically lays out to me...)

I'm watching it happen here in Houston along Interstate-10. Local "transportation authorities" seem to think that expanding the freeway to 24 lanes will be an improvement to the traffic situation here. Unfortunately, this expansion will take out ~90% of the benchmarks that were placed along the E/W route of the MKT rail line that used to run parallel to the north of I-10. I'm not happy about the plans to begin with, then discovering the benchmark destruction just got me more depressed. Oh, how I want to get away from Houston....

quote:Originally posted by CYBret: quote:Originally posted by dr.bob:When I use bmgpx, it works great. But when I try to use the resulting .gpx file with gpx2html, it only processes about 1/4 of the benchmarks. Now what's with that? Giving this topic a bump, since it's a few months later and I'm having the same problem. This happens when I download the file for Edgar County in Illinois. I run my .dat file through bmgpx and end up with a listing of 77 benchmarks. From there I run it through gpx2html and end up with an html folder and .loc file that each only contain 13 benchmarks. Any thoughts from the programmers one what to do here? By the way, Plucker doesn't seem to want to play with my .gpx file at all. Thanks for all you guys do do...you amaze me and make my life a LOT easier! :-) Bret __"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again."_ Mt. 13:44_ I've looked into this. The problem is that the GPX file contains dates earlier than 1970, and the perl script that is gpx2html apparently rejects the entire record without throwing a good error. I installed ActivePerl and used the command-line gpx2html, and was able to get some more meaningful error/output messages. I emailed fizzymagic (at) comcast.net (the only contact info I could find, in the Perl source) but never received a reply. this is from the message I sent: quote:...I have run into one small problem...it appears to not handle data in the <time></time> field earlier than at least 1972, and many benchmarks have dates a few decades before that. I've fixed it in my gpx file by replacing the date with the current day and time, but that doesn't really help anyone else who might want to use your script for benchmarks. Here are some examples of the data that throws the error (I had to use the perl command line version to get the error messages from gpx2html): <time>1935-01-01T00:00:00Z</time> gives the error Can't handle date (0, 00, 00, 01, 0, 35) at C:workgpx2html.pl line 489 while <time>1963-01-01T00:00:00Z</time> gives Can't handle date (0, 00, 00, 01, 0, 63) at C:workgpx2html.pl line 489 pretty consistent, really! I hope that fizzymagic is reading this board, or someone who knows Perl better than I do, and can fix this error. I can work around it (using regexes in EditPadPro is great) but it becomes a pain when you're processing a county with 2000+ BMs (Harris County, Texas).

Thanks for the replies, folks. Very helpful!

Howdy! I've been working benchmarks to the west side of Houston, Texas. Through that area runs Interstate-10, aka the Katy Freeway. Along the north side of the Interstate is the railbed of the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas (M-K-T, or Katy) Railroad. Most of the track has been removed/destroyed within the last 10 years, and now construction has started all along the old railbed in prep for an expansion to the Freeway (don't get me started on THAT topic - I'm sure I can find a much better use for $1.6 Billion than creating a bigger traffic and environmental mess). Anyway, here is the dilema - Most of the benchmarks along here are referenced to the railroad track (AW0263 through AW0274, at least). All of this area is being leveled, trenched, sewage/drainage installed, etc. I found 3 of about 9 marks I was looking for Saturday. The rest were either previously marked destroyed, or would be in the middle of the construction zone (where I'm not going to venture - I like my head attached to my shoulders and not in jail for trespassing, thankyouverymuch). I guess my question after all this background is: should I report these marks to NGS as "not found", with notes about the construction, or hope that the have been reported by the construction surveyors? I haven't seen any new info about these marks since about 1995; most were "Recovered in good condition" at that time. As an aside, query for the professionals on the board: What is the chance that any of the destroyed (or "not found") marks will be either reset or new marks will be added to the area after the construction on Interstate 10 is complete in 5-10 years? these are just some of the marks in an 8 mile radius from my apartment...many are being destroyed for road and residential development. Kinda makes me sad, because my original interest in BMs was the history behind the area where many of them are placed. Sorry this is so long! RAC