pgrig

How about MY0338, from 1923? It's of the circle-with-slash variety. -Paul

And here's a semaphore base with the semaphore post still attached.... -Paul

Apollosmith-- Hi. Generally, the troubles we have with RR marks around Boston are (1) finding out where, along the tracks, the mark is set (usually its distance to the side of the track is given) and (2) penetrating the ballast rock (or piled up brush) that has accumulated at trackside over the years. Here you may be in luck, since the mark is in the semaphore base. This base may be a simple concrete pad, or, more likely, a flat-topped pyradimal base a foot or more in height that sticks up. These are rarely buried. I suspect you find the referenced road and then count 7 telepgraph poles plus 30 ft. from it to find the semaphore base. It often helps to give us the PID (like "XY9999") of your mark so we can help you more easily. Good luck, -Paul

As I was muttering to myself about needing a more copious and accessible means of carrying my benchmarking gear, my wife (who wisely declines to accompany me on these outings) suggested what seems to me to be the perfect solution. Nimble and sure-footed, this gear-carrier could clearly go after even the most inconveniently situated stations. Craggy peaks? No problem. Slippery coastal ledges? Piece of cake! Long hikes up twisting mountain paths? Easily done. Not to mention, my wife pointed out, the delight of the children residing in the homes of the property owners whose turf I needed to request permission to invade. I could offer rides on the Carrier until everyone was happy and then go off about my business, hunting. There was a drawback, she said. Apparently my chosen companion, if it gets irritated with the situation, may suddenly turn and throw up on you to emphasize its displeasure. Not nice, but then, a small price to pay for what looks to me like the ideal benchmarking accessory. Strap on a shovel, pick axe, and even a leaf rake, plus your metal detector, and off you go. Sling-up a water bag and some Gatorade. Wonder how quickly it can clear an area of overgrowth or ground clutter...

Also, even if you are not a surveyor or an engineer, possessing one of these certificates will excuse you from extreme ridicule if you make an especially dumb mistake in a post to the Forum (like screwing up the difference between east and west declination and how that gets translated to different sorts of compasses ). I'm for sure holding on to my certificate....

Shirley-- I now have 3 1/2 grandchildren across two families in No. Cal, so you folks may have to hold on to your benchmarks before too long! -Paul

EOS--that's the official NGS code for "End of Season--Benchmarking--2009." I bundled up and trotted out in the snow and wind yesterday, and found a few things, but I fear that it will soon freeze up, so I've called it quits on my second year of benchmark hunting. It's generally been a good year, focused more on quality (older marks, old coastal military stuff, and various "oddities") than on quantity, and much facilitated by the advice from all of you out here at GC.com. Thanks to your helpful critiques, there are some mistakes I don't make as often. I suppose my #1 lesson learned is, "Read (your Datasheet) many times, dig once!" Yesterday's outing showed me yet again that I still haven't really learned this one, since I keep overlooking small written clues that would have saved me hours of work, but I resolve to be a more thorough reader in 2010. I adopted some new tools. An extensible, light, 15-ft tall (max) pole in a PVC pipe painted blaze orange (and held upright by a big barn spike stuck in the ground) proved very useful in helping me sight on various woodsy marks. Orange flagging tape tied high up trees or branches also saved several finds for me in the same fashion. A compact and easy to carry pair of Friskars loppers let me cut my way through to several otherwise hopeless stations. I also learned that my metal detector lies to me a lot, and I need to make it ping a spot many times before investing the energy in digging it. I also know now that my GPSr lies even worse than my detector! Thank you all for your help (and you know who you are!), and I look forward to next year's hunt! -Paul

Metal Detectors: I use the Garret Ace 250, which Amazon sells for $212. I do however see Amazon's offerings for metal detectors include a model for $35. I can say that the Ace seems to work OK for me--breaks into three pcs and fits in my pack. Has "pinpointer" feature that emits constant tone when you're close, helping to find target. I generally search successfully for disks 4-8" down. Has depth indicator (sometimes useful). Has discriminator and type of metal selector, but I find that these are tricky, and often just search on "All Metal". It sure finds a lot of pull-tabs, crushed soda cans, and random bits of debris, as well as iron-rich rocks . It runs on 4 AAs. I do not use headphones--it's loud! Others on this Forum have reported success with much cheaper detectors. -Paul

As Southpawaz said, it looks like NGS would have measured in grid-like fashion southerly from the tracks and easterly from the road, perpendicularly. This should come pretty close to nailing it. But don't assume the monument will be "sticking up." Many 1934 marks I find have been covered over by several inches of old vegetation and dirt, so your mark might be at the surface or slightly below ground level. Here is where a metal detector might well save your bacon (and a lot of search time!). You're far enough from the tracks to avoid the usual RR-induced false pings. Hunting marks more than 10 years old can be made MUCH easier by a detector, and members of this Forum have opined that even a very inexpensive detector will do the trick ($50 or less). If you're using only a tape, it's very helpful to have a few marker stakes (I buy the bright orange plastic tent stakes from Home Depot or the not-so-bright (but much cheaper) plastic ones tat come 6 to a pkg. ones from the hardware store (about 10" long). Use one of these, or a screwdriver) to hold the end of the tape a measured distance from the track or the road (but be careful here--we would not like to see you squished by the next express or a passing farm truck), and use another to mark the 50 or 32.6 ft. distances. Finding the milepost (CLE 168) which the mark is "opposite" (south of?) would give you a check on the distance (east) from the road. Depending on the nature of the ground, you could use a probe (a long-bladed screwdriver on your hands and knees or a 36"-long dandelion digger if you want to work on your feet) to try and get the mark or its monument to "click" when hit. Tough, sandy, or rocky ground can make this very hard, however. Tall brush will often yield quickly to a brush wacker with a serrated blade (and a handle like an axe) to more painstakingly to a pair of garden shears (which I carry when bushwacking). A simple baseplate compass, adjusted for declination, will usually be just fine for reading true bearings to the nearest 2-3dT. This Suunto M3 is the one I use (just wrote a review on it at Amazon ). Watch out for the iron in the tracks when using a compass--they will really spin it off course. Welcome, and good luck! -Paul [i was apparently writing this while Bill93 was posting. I'm glad to see I share some of his thoughts!]

I'm there!

So that means we have to do a set of videos w/NGS support and involvement, right? Fun!

You're great, Dave! So the chap in England was right--those contours we look at on the Google undersea maps may trace back to these stations! Cool! Unfortunately, it looks like the Deer Island station has been paved under a big roadway, and I'd be 99.44% sure (given the way the MWRA works) that the HI FIX station is now scrap metal. But if I ever run the gauntlet to get out there, I'll check! Do you know if these sorts of stations were unique to Boston, or were they used in other locations for survey work? Also, is there some reason that the "HI FIX" part of the station names doesn't bring two of them up in a PID soundex search? -Paul

Thanks for the tip! It looks like a professionally produced piece, with assistance from NGS. So who no mention of how to log your finds (GC, NGS, Waymarking)? I also thought it was cute that each of the marks they searched for was either a plaque or marked by a witness post. This benchmarking thing looks super-easy! Also, there was no need tp read (or download) a Datasheet, and thus no need to measure anything. I see an opening for a few Forum videos! (Maybe I need to ask Santa for a video camera!) -Paul

Shorelander-- I'm spending some T-giving time plotting another visit out to Nahant, treading in your footsteps through the fire control towers and steel disks (including Ft. Ruckman)! I think this time I will knock on a rich person's door and see if I can actually climb up inside one of the "enveloped" towers. You are gone, but your reports live on! -Paul

OK, maybe some of our resident wizards can help me solve the mystery of the two "Hi-Fix" stations I have stumbled across here on the Boston coast. My report on MY4410--STRAWBERRY POINT HI-FIX 1968--tells the story of what I think I know. These marks (MY4410 and MY4900) were apparently part of a planned (or actual?) installation of the Decca Hi-Fix radio navigation system here in the Boston area. I found an extremely detailed report on the Decca Hi-Fix Navigational System out on the Web. It suggests that the radio stations for a Decca Hi-Fix installation were set in "chains", and that there were ordinarily four stations to an installation, so I'm wondering if there are others to be found in the Boston area. As I reported, an NGS name search for PIDs with "hi fix"in their names didn't even return find both the stations I know to exist near here and which are pictured on the Boston map with my MY4410 report. I would love to find out why these two geodetic stations were set in 1968. So who's our Resident Expert on this? [shirley probably has a Decca Navigator receiver on her kitchen table! ] -Paul Update: Alan Cordwell, author of the referenced Decca system website, has suggested that these disks may have been set in conjunction with a survey of the ocean floor in the Boston area. (Cool!) He also suggests that a third station, at least, would have been needed--he suggests perhaps in the Nahant area. I may have to start searching through the Scaredy Cat map pins by hand...!]

After figuring out how to get permission to get out on Long Island, I spent the day on November 16th tromping around Fort Strong, one of Boston's coastal defense artillery forts whose heyday was the period 1889 through WWI. This map from the Scaredy Cat Benchmark Viewer shows the 11 marks scattered around the fort. One station accounts for four of these: the main station, two surviving RMs, and one destroyed RM. My report on this find, MY0007, contains many of my photos. Many more are part of a Note to MY0007 that describes Fort Strong. In addition to MY0007, I found MY4482 (not hard--it's the existing lighthouse ) Four marks I reported as Destroyed (MY4480, MY4481, MY4484 and MY4485). One (MY4581) was deemed Not Found after a three-hour battle with GPSr, metal detector, probe, and shovel. And two (MY4479 and MY4579) were not searched for, since I shied away from making my way down the very steep, brush-and-bramble covered north slope of the fort to check them out. So there's more to do... One more station will be logged as Not Found (but is almost certainly lost)--MY4536--FORT, which is a bit further SW on the former parade ground of the fort, more recently redeveloped into a large children's summer camp by the City of Boston. On the way off the island, I stopped to check out a pair of 19th Century marks (MY4448 and MY4449), but my GPSr said they had almost certainly been lost to erosion of the causeway bank. A good day.... [This was supposed to show up under the Good Day thread, but I must have twitched... Sorry ]

I too measure to the outer surface of reference marks. (Often with things 30-50 ft. distant, I'm using a laser rangefinder, so that sort of requires me to read the surface. When it's a tree, I usually say something like "12.6 ft. to the bark of a 12-in. oak tree," in the hope that that will assist someone who comes back 30 years after me. I believe I have seen a lot of inconsistency on things like power poles and fire hydrants--some folks seem to measure to the center, and some to the surface. And when it's one of those giant light pole bases you see near shopping centers, it make a BIG difference...(like 15-20 in.). -Paul

A couple of thoughts: -Small loppers are often useful for clearing brush around a mark or for cutting roots away to enable digging. A very sharp trowel (the kind used to plant bulbs) will often succeed in making a neat, deep hole over a mark. This is particularly useful if you're working (with permission) in a landscaped area, or a lawn. -Flagging (florescent plastic ribbon) is often useful to mark turns in a trail or the locations of marks not otherwise visible through heavy woods or brush. The flagging can be sighted on to check azimuths. Pick up the flagging when you are finished. -A round-headed nylon brush (the type used to clean grime off of dishes) will often work to clean a mark where a larger whisk broom will not fit. These are also available with wire bristles, which may be better for cleaning older marks (but be careful not to leave permanent scratches on the mark). -If old reference points (trees, buildings) have been lost, consider finding new ones and reporting them and their bearings/distances to or from the station. This may make the job of the next person who comes hunting the station much easier. Trees, fire hydrants, house corners, signposts, etc, are more permanent and make good reference points.

Thank you all! Yes, I always admired the old reports that named various trees and shrubs near marks. Trying to keep up! OK, I dismiss my dismissal of the honeysuckle identification. But I need more points of ID, I guess. I now see this stuff growing in peoples' yards around here, and on roadsides. Next time I pass some, I will take some "mugshot" photos! I will also look over those cool publications you sent, TillaMurphs. Thanks again, -Paul

TillaMurphs-- Thanks for getting back to this one! Here is a photo with some good images of the leaves, plus a look at its stalks/tendrils when they're smaller. Does this help? -Paul

Thanks, BDT--but nope, I'm pretty sure that's not it. -Paul

OK, so perhaps I'm getting a little too precise in my reports, but I had a battle to the death this past week with some mystery scrub brush that had overgrown a station I was hunting (and its RMs). I often run into this stuff growing over ledges and partial woods here in MA, and would like to curse it by name in my reports. So what's it called? I'm including a photo of it from 30 ft. away (it's about 6 ft. tall here) and also a closeup of its trunk (and leaves) overlying a RM I had to dig for. (I had thought this stuff was "mountain laurel", but the images of that which I pull up on the web don't look like my culprit.) Thanks!

Hi-- There are many benchmarks that are not part of the set displayed on this website, either because theypost-date the "snapshot" benchmarking.com grabbed from NOAA, they were set by another agency, etc. But if you post a few details of your find, there are many folks here who will help you make sense of it. A location and a photo would be very helpful.

Gnikhog-- What I really meant to ask was whether anyone knew of a station below 2000 ft. of altitude with more than 6 originally set RMs...

Thank you George and Jerry. The original mark was set in 1842. As far as I can tell, the land was pasture in 1933, when the station disk was set and all six RMs emplaced. I don't believe there was ever any construction on the hilltop, except for the fire watch tower, which was built sometime in the 1920s. A mystery... Have either of you ever seen this many RMs with a tri-station?