pgrig

I just reported on this find, a tri-station with six (count 'em, six) reference marks. And these were all set at the same time, along with the resetting of this old 1834 station, in 1933. Has anyone else seen anything like this? I'm curious as to (1) why so many RMs were used and (2) why the RMs seem to be ordered (numbered) in terms of their distance from the station, not in terms of their sequence in bearing around the compass rose. This site, formerly used as a huge ammo storage area by the U.S. Navy during WWII and Korea, is also kinda cool! -Paul

I can't recall if I've made NF reports with NGS, but if I did, I believe I would follow something like the following rules: 1. Log a NF if you have searched diligently and have good reason to believe that additional "reasonable" effort would not succeed in recovering a mark. If so, report why you believe the recovery would not be made. 1a. A sort of a corollary to this rule would be that a NF report could be very useful in providing new information which makes the mark less likely to be findable (e.g., buildings have been destroyed, property has been re-graded, a parking lot has been paved over the mark's previous location, a bridge has been replaced, etc.). 3. Do not file an NGS NF report if you believe that more hunting effort could reasonably result in finding the mark. In other words, if you consider the mark "open" (it goes into your "go back here again some other time and work on it some more" file), then don't file a NF with NGS. Does this seem right? By the way, I believe I have filed roughly a dozen "Destroyed" reports with Deb (out of maybe 120 reports filed) , and I don't think any of them has been rejected. Interestingly, some of these have included examples of marks which had likely been paved over or had evidently been built upon.] -Paul

As a long-winded type, I often get logged out while writing my reports (it's funny how the process often prompts you to find/correct errors in your notes). I have just been logging in again and using my browser's "Back" arrow to get back to the screen that has (and still holds) the text I was working on composing.

Nice coaching, guys, and excellent explanations! -Paul

Hi Mike-- Curt really did seem to imply that surveyors who did OPUS work were fairly few and far between around MA. Maybe he's wrong--I'm sure no expert. I actually got curious and read up over the web on OPUS and CORS. Apparently we have only 6 CORS stations in the whole state (one of them quite close to me in Woburn), and New England (except for VT ) seems also to be remarkably sparsely-covered by CORS sites. Now I'm curious. Suppose I wanted to keep pace with the evolution of NGS and make my own CORS observations. What would it cost me to buy a rig that would locate single points precisely (not do whole networks, or projects, of points) at professional levels of accuracy (which I gather is sub-centimeter) ? Assume I already have a beefy PC. Although price info is hard to find on the web, I get the idea it might be a $30K to $40K bill. Egad!

And just when I thought this group would roll snake eyes in the crap game of arcane information... Wow! -Paul

Hi TillaMurphs, I recently ran into a situation similar to yours, with MY2523, an 1890 marble monument which, though uprooted during construction, still survives. The homeowner said she would like to replace the monument "exactly where it had been," and asked m how come I had taken away the temporary stake I had put at the point where my GPSr indicated the mark had been. When I explained to her that a professional surveyor would need to do the work of finding the accurate position for the mark, she said she was still interested, so I contacted our State Coordinator, Curt Crowley, to check it out. Curt said that the mark would probably need to be reset using OPUS, and referred me to a NH surveyor who he said did OPUS database work. He said there were very few of these people around so far. I explained the situation to the homeowner, suggesting that a "replacement" would probably entail a day's work and significant cost. I have yet to hear back from the homeowner, but you never know. -Paul

A question, Dave: More and more, recently, I have been "annotating" my Area images, as, for example, in the Area shot for MY5551. [This is in fact one of the "busier" Area images I've done.] I use the SnagIt Editor (PC software) for this. Hopefully, these "notes" explain to someone viewing the image more precisely how to find the mark. I used to draw squares around the marks, but more recently I've taken to placing an orange marker of some sort near or on top of the mark/s when I take the photo. What's your "official" thought about these techniques? -Paul P.S. Would sending a few images to Deb Brown help as a "get well soon" card?

The letters on your "remainder" certainly look like a stamping (an "A" followed by a ? "L" "P"?), and the center could be he remainder of a CGS disk that had been slammed repeatedly on three sides by hammer blows, driving the center part "up" into a rough triangular nub. It's amazing the lengths people will go to in attempting to rip these from the rock...

Another useful thing might be to update the "to reach" directions given on the station's NGS Datasheet. It is very common to find that these directions have changed since the station was monumented. New houses get built. Old structures get razed. New roads are cut, or the names of old roads are changed. Sometimes you even find that the cardinal compass directions given in the Description were wrong; the field party may have made an error or (more likely) someone in the chain of transcribing the field notes into an NGS Datasheet may not have been paying attention. I find it is also useful to add the name of the town in which the station is located to the Datasheet, if you know it for sure. In 2009, a car's GPSr is happier if it knows the city name. Many of the older Descriptions refer to "the road" or "the house" without giving the street name or the house number. Adding these makes it much easier for those who come after you. Although I'm a little conflicted about this (see below), I try to write my reports (and take my photos) so that a later visitor can almost "walk right up to" the station. Thus, for example, an Area photo, one that shows the station in relation to one or several more permanent landmarks, is very useful. Not so interesting is a shot of your GPSr in the frame with an Adjusted station. This is because the Adjusted coordinates of the station are much more accurate than those your GPSr can provide, and we all spend long enough staring at a GPSr. The exception to this is when you're dealing with a station whose coordinates are Scaled (and are possibly as much as .25 mi. off). With scaled stations, your handheld GPSr coordinates (and an image to document them) can be a real boon to later visitors. The conflict I feel in writing very detailed reports comes from the fact that in many cases after I've done this, it takes all the fun (the thrill of the hunt) out of looking for the station. But maybe this is one of the distinguishing features of a certain type of benchmark hunter--the type who thinks s/he might be "aiding the profession" (whatever profession that might be! ) by making these stations more readily accessible. Along these lines, it can sometimes be very helpful for you to note that some referenced feature in the Description is no longer there (like a witness post has been removed, or a referenced tree has fallen down) or that a new feature can make the station easier to find. If I've worked hard to find a station in a virtual "wasteland" of reference points, I often describe new references (trees, house corners, power poles, etc.). In these cases, I also give the compass bearing from the station to my new reference point and its distance, as I measured it. Describing these as from the station to the referenced point is the same way that these are handled in modern NGS Datasheets. [in the 1920s and before, some references were stated with bearings from South instead of North, putting them 180 degrees "out of whack" in 2009 terms.

This frog was watching me uncover RM4 for MY2568. Said he could leap it in a single bound...

Oh boy, a surveyor debate, otherwise known as a theodofight....

Sad to say that The Boston Globe just reported that Mt. Washington's Observatory cat (not the black one pictured in your clip, but a grey and white calico one) recently passed away. I believe he had reached the ripe old age of 16 or so. I can just see him snoozing by the heater, while the 100+ mph winds and the -50dF temps make reading the weather instruments a threat to life and limb. Benchmarking would also be tough...

Not exactly the wide open spaces, but here in Mass., these are few and farther between...This is MY6400 in Beverly, at the center rear of the ledge, under the shadow of the tree branch. The former tree is a reference that once carried a "witness sign nailed to it." The disk, however, lives on...

I got to thinking about "placing and owning" benchmarks.... Governments are already selling "naming rights" to things as big as sports stadiums (stadia?). How long will it be before we can "buy the rights" to benchmarks, getting our names and a serial number to replace the designations of the disks, and perhaps the right to monument a personal benchmark disk next to the "official" one? Sigh...

This is a fun thread to read! It was a good day when I finally recovered MY2590, probably because it took me four or five hours stretched out over two years, and gave me the sense that I was (1) learning to use a few new tools (like a metal detector) and (2) getting a little bit better as a benchmark hunter (taking my measurements and reading my compass a little more accurately). A similar sense of accomplishment also accompanied my work on MY3453. This one also required multiple visits, including correspondence and negotiation with the landowner to get permission to clean off a lot of ledge. (In the 1970s he had told our state agency to take a hike when they asked to set a disk in this drill hole mark.) It was also fun that our local state agency here in MA was able to provide copies of the original survey data cards from 1935 which described the three old-style "pin in lead" RMs for this 1891 tri-station (itself one of my "oldies"), which I was then able to add to the NGS Datasheet. [it looks like my 6/15/09 NGS report has not been added to the Datasheet yet.]

OK, George. I will now try to find three easily intervisible stations here NW of Boston. Then you come bring the equipment...

OK George, Bill, et al. --after reading the manuals, it strikes me that a team of you Triangulation Greybeards need to plan and schedule an annual "Triangulation Day" (akin to Amateur Radio's "Field Day"), during which Geocaching.com volunteers (and other hangers-on) organize themselves in to "field parties" and carry out a triangulation survey on a set of existing stations. This should be easier in 2009 than it was in 1939! Please keep the towers at 20 ft. or less and do not pick locations involving the rental of pack horses. Let me know when you have this organized and tell me what role you want me to play... Thanks, -Paul

Manual, p.21: "Do not leave odd bits of lumber, papers, worn-out cells, or tin cans around the station." Oops! There goes another government guideline...! It's also notable to see that more members of observing parties were fired for truck driving offenses than for any other reason (careening up those well-cleared trails to the stations!), and that the government warned staff that their potential for advancement would be directly related to their observed level driving skills!

Wow! I now read in the manual (p.6) that if a Lightkeeper had problems with his smaller dry cells, he was advised to use the storage battery of his truck, wiring one side to the inner tower structure and the other to the outer tower frame, and making contact at the light on top. So not only does the Lightkeeper have to clamber up and down the tower in pitch darkness, he has to do it on an electrified tower! Perhaps in a light rain! I do see now why I have a mystical affinity with these poor people--my facility with code! It does look, however, like the abbreviations would confuse a "normal" operator--like sending "R" for "I missed your msg, pls send again," when over the air, this means the exact opposite! This manual is a great read! -Paul N1HEL

A marvelous account, George! Question: what was the physical diameter of the reflector of one of the lights, and what was its observed circumference when observed at a distance (like 10 mi.). I would think that this would be a key variable (or source of error) in the measurements. [OK, your manual cite answered the first question: 7 inches! Obviously a case of RTFM for me.] P.S. Glad I didn't have the job of climbing up and down a Bilby Tower in pitch darkness! -Paul

(1) Nice work on the recoveries! (2) As usual, beautiful photography! (3) Great blog. Loved the story! (4) Arizona seems different from Massachusetts somehow...

Amen to what Paul said. I've found it's important to do your post-knock "retreat" to a position that's visible from inside the house. Removing your sunglasses also seems to help--makes you look less threatening. Holding your Datasheet in your hand and "consulting" it while you wait also seems helpful--makes you look like you have a reason to be visiting (like it's written down on the paper). If you have an orange safety vest, wear it. Burglars and mashers rarely wear blaze yellow or orange... Often, if I'm doing field work in a particularly upscale neighborhood, I stop by the local police station first and tell them I'm in the area and why (doing volunteer work connected with re-finding old mapmaking marks). They seem to accept this just fine and are usually pleased to have been contacted. I've even seen myself put on the "morning report" so that patrolmen I run into later on have actually heard of me!

Oldfarts-- Reading reports like that on VEX (and looking at your wonderful photography) is one of the major pleasures of my benchmark-hunting career! Please keep 'em coming! -Paul

Thank you m&h and Bean Team--your station mark looks like a good match to our RMs up here. But billwallace, your RM at FV1739 appears to take the prize for Massachusetts RM Clone. It also seems to rank high in the category "best camouflaged RM".... I only know of a few sites here in MA where these were used, and interestingly, they rarely if ever seem to have had their distance and direction data published with their NGS Datasheets, abd never make it to the box scores. Apparently, though, MassHighway still has the data cards on file and is kind enough to dig out the data when requested.