kc2ixe

OK - you did NOT find PID MO0962 U344 You DID find fin U334 RESET 2000 which is a "Non Database" mark You've got a "Not found" on MO0962 and a found on a non database mark

I've submitted two for 'destroyed' status today. One an intersection point, one a disk. KU1430 has obviously been destroyed. See evidence: Photo. Also: Yorkville/Ruppert. That seems fairly definitive that the disk has been destroyed. I've actually got a stack of about 15 or 20 destroyed marks sitting on Deb's desk right now. 2 were intersection stations that I went out and photographed. The rest are datasheets that have destroyed recoveries in them, as in "Station has been removed during XX construction project by YYY". Found them while looking for "interesting" marks to hunt - most of them in the mid 1930s to 1950s

A whole quad - man, your mark density must be a LOT lower than they are around here 246 marks in my local quad Either that, or you work a LOT quicker than I do Lets see - lets figure it at 2 days, at 12 hrs each - or 24 hours, or 1440 minutes - you've got 5.8 minutes to do each mark, and that includes GETTING to the mark, parking, finding, photographing, and recording data

Funny, I do a LOT of interesction station - but NOT ones I expect to find, or unless they have not been found in 50 or more years, and generally not even then. Believe it or not, for me, "destroying" intersection station around here is one of my "fun" things - so many are gone - now to prove it As for non FTF - I decide on those on a case by case basis, depending on what else I have to do - went to look at one tonight where I would have been 2nd to find, but 1st since 1934. I won't bother with a station that has been reported in the last, oh, 20 years or so. (BTW I did get another 2nd to find - the Monumented was "unknown", 1st find, 1952, then me tonight) Permission - yeah, that can be a "problem" but have only run into ONE of those so far, so....

NOT rolling on floor The horizontal position of a benchmark comes in kinds "Scaled" and "adjusted" For scaled - your right - someone looked at a map, and said - looks to be about there For ADJUSTED - they are right on the money - a heck of a lot closer than your GPS can measure (unless you are running a Multi 10s of K$ total station) - we are talking within milimeters - How do you think they defined the grid system So, if you want to check, go find an adjusted point, and knock yourself out

Going through the list of local marks, I've come up with a stack of marks that I will NOT search for - and some of them would even be "first to recover" marks. Why? Many of them are set in the center pier of highway overpasses where the ONLY way to recover the mark is to shut down a lane on the highway - all fine and good, but I'm not doing it - I don't think NYC would appreciate that, and if the traffic didn't kill me, I'm sure the passing drivers would. One one or two, I'm tempted to take out my telescope, and see if I can recover the mark from well off the highway..... Heck, it would be "different"

While waiting for my daughter's dance recital tonight, I found 2 out of 3, but want to go back tomorrow for hand held numbers and photos - the description of the area has changed Both are remote marks to a vertical station! that have pids, and are FTFs- the actual station is "Not found" and should have been in the walk that is leading up to one of the remote stations - I think that one is going to be "not found"

First, head on down to the Benchmark section - we welcome benchmark hunters, and there are a couple of VERY long threads about WGS84 vs NAD83 The IMPORTANT things to remember are - Geocaching.com uses WGS84 in DD.DDDD format If you get seriously into benchmark huntingm the USGS uses NAD83, and in DD MM SS.SSSSS format - so all the original datasheets are in this format, and is is prefered I leave my GPSr in NAD83 - accurate enough for caches (gets you within a few feet) but I don't have to worry about translations for the USGS

Here is an idea for a thread a bunch of us might find interesting...... How does one learn the art /science of Surveying How does one become a surveyor (I know it's usually a degree) If someone wanted to learn the basics (NOT for professional use) who would you do it? Any good books? I think that this would give us amateurs tromping around out there some insight into what is going on with the pros....

Of COURSE you've had one of those days Today, I start of simple - I have an hour or so to kill, so I go looking for KU1125 aka A341. As I'd seen this mark before, this one was more a 1/2 mile walk in the heat of the day than a "search" - found the disk under so much paint, I had to peel some off the disk. NYC uses a VERY heavy latex paint to cover graffiti, so amost all marks on city walls are painted to the point your lucky to find the disk, never mind READ it. Anyway, that one was simple Later in the afternoon, I had another 90 minutes to kill, so I went looking for KU3269 (found good) and KU3328 - and THAT was when my frustraion for the day started. I had NO problem finding the area - but of course, all the gates were locked - I could SEE the edge of the monument - but of course could not read it. It would be a trivial mark to recover if someone from the water dept was there to let you on the property Then tonight, I decided to look for 2 more marks in the 341 series - B341 (KU1124) and C341 (KU1123) Walk along the edge of the highway right of way (but OUTSIDE the jersey barriers - aka in the park) and get to the location of KU1124 - NO joy - find what looks like it MIGHT be the stem, and find another disk - B341 RESET - which of course is non database - I'll submit a "Not found" for this one Then I go to the location of KU1123 - find the ramp described - in fact was standing on TOP of the retaining wall, but there is a fence that prevents me from getting down to the mark - I think I've figure out how to get there - the wall is about 24" from the jersey barrier next to the highway - most of the way there is a 15 yd wide right of way between peoples back yards and the jersey barrier - I found a place where I should be able to access the buffer about 3/4 mile away - but a line of thunderstorms started to come through So went looking for 5 marks - found 2, didn't find 1, and just can't GET to the other 2

OK - then you will understand what I'm trying to do I'm NOT a cache hunter - I'm one of those crazy benchmark hunters Right now, USGS is talking about two new classes of accuracy, between SCALED and ADJUSTED - H_HELD1 and H_HELD2 (aka no diferential and diferential hand held GPS) - when reporting H_HELD, I just want to be as accurate as I can

I think I've said it here once or twice before - I'll tell you exactly what to wear to get in just about anyplace First a pair of either jeans, canvas pants, cargo pants, or chino type work pants - not dress chinos, but mechanics pants Then a work shirt - be it a polo shirt (goes with the chinos) or a button down shirt like a flannel shirt (fall-spring) - tee shirt in summer etc Work boots Carhart jacket (weather depending) Florcent vest Metal clipboard (the ones that hold paper inside) Bump cap (aka hard hat) grab a work belt, put your tools in that, hang a HT on it too Pull up in a dirty truck with a yellow kojack on it, with a couple of antennas Put out a string of 4-5 traffic cones behind the truck You'll be able to do just about anything you want In general - go by your local major construction project - you know - a skyscraper, a road project (even just repaving) etc - and LOOK at how the workers dress. Dress like them. NO ONE will ever question what you are doing

I've got un unclassified Orange, a class 1 orange with a refelctive lime green panel that says "Communications" on it - That one because it's the vest I'm supposed to wear if I'm involved in any 'Incident Command System" call out - "Lime Green" is the color for communications believe it or not - in fact, it REALLY is supposed to be a lime green vest in the ICS, but they take a green panel as OK

Does anyone know if the G60C will work with GRINGO? Gettin RINEX files sounds interesting

Agreed. Or, if you are friendly with a real estate agent, ask if they have the tax records on-line. If so, they can look it up. I suspect that in your area, the info may be available to the public on-line. Go to the web site of the local government (county/parish/etc) and look for a link to their GIS Department or to the Tax Department. This data is public knowledge, and the trend is to give the public easy access. -Paul- Looking at the GC map - it shows it inside a park! Probably an unimproved park. Wish I was down visiting - Point of Rocks is and interesting area Next time I'm down there I want to recover JV4624 - which is right up the road from my wife's family farm I'd also like to find JV4623 Maybe later this summer I'll make a trip down

Finally got some TIME for hunting in the last 24 hrs 2 Not founds - One I pretty much knew would be a "Not found" as the 1964 report on it said it was about to be dug up, BUT the azimuth mark was one of those infamous"non publishable" pids in itself - no luck on that either The other not found was a disk in the wingwall of a railroad underpass of a highway - no unerpass or railroad there anymore - it's been filled in - who knows if the wingwall is in there - the whole area was covered in posion ivy, so..... 3 founds - 2 intersection stations, one disk. In addition, I have found what is PROBABLY a 3rd intersection station, but the description on the datasheet stinks, and I could not get close enough to be sure - there are a pair of smoke stacks - the NE stack has a pid and a description - there is a PID named SW stack that maps right where the other stack is, but no description. Want to get closer before I submit a "found" (that would be a 73 year recovery - and yes, the stack is that old) - in fact, there are notes from others on the NE stack that they believe the SW stack is the other PID So, all in all, not bad

Or watching ebay for a used total station

I was thinking more for the new HD_HELD1 datasheet type - aka "scaled" marks that are now located with a hand held - I figure the more accurate, the better

As for what they foun for accuracy http://www.fig.net/nottingham/proc/gs_05_cosser_etal.pdf http://www.fig.net/pub/morocco/proceedings...1_schwieger.pdf They seem to be in the 10cm range And I'm NOT going to run out right now, as I would need to buy a 2nd GPSr to take the realtimes at the reference mark, unless there was a CORS station and data nearby for me to get RINEX data from

OK - I KNOW I'm going crazy now. I've just run across a program called GRINGO - which allows you to record the phase, pseudorange etc data from 12 channel Garmin handhelds (yes, you are still only single frequency, but...) and outupt Rinex files How crazy would I be to actually go through the bother of recording at an adjusted horizontal point, while going out and recording the scaled horizontal points (Benchmarks), doing the post processing, and reporting THAT to the NGS? aka - am I nuts to even think about this?

Heh, I just counted how many I have in a 7 mile radius - 537, and a GOOD portion of that circle is water

All depends on our definition of "In the area" - remember, I live in NYC - 7 MILES to the second nearest benchmark? Do you know how many benchmarks I'd hit before I did a 7 mile circle from my house?

And as for the old RR - I was thinking about the old Narrow Guage Sandy River and Rangley Lakes RR As for the B-52 - interesting. I was up there just after laborday, and a pair of A-10s did a practice run down the lake - Impressive considering I was on a bluff about 30 ft high or so, and they were level with me, and waved! Yep, you've got the right spot I was talking about the map on the USGS site - sorry - No lakes there at all Edited to fix quote tags

OK - It's the NYer coming out in me Way back when, when I was in my teens, I camped up in a town called South Arm Maine - (Nice place to camp BTW) For giggles, today I decided to see what benchmarks were up in that area - enter the town - nada - go to the interactive map - it doesn't even show the 11 mile long lake!!. I finally found the nearest marks - when you have to go 15-20 miles to find the nearest mark, and it was monumanted in 1925, and never reported since.... Look up the following marks for fun PF1177 PF0895 PF1181 The lake (and there was a railroad in there too at one time) is between those 2 sets

Looking through the sample datasheets last night, I came across something "Interesting" - there are 2 sample sheets for horizontal positions of HD_HELD1 and HD_HELD2 ...snip.... EDIT - NEVERMIND - found it in the older forum, and went from there