LSUFan

LOL. I might can oblige you there. If we are not getting hammered (with rain I mean) after work, I'll drive over there and tape it out. We had left the 2 reference marks uncovered........but they are right beside the road ditch, which may be slap-dab full. So far today, the rain has been staying west of us.

We're still waiting for the rain to quit, so we can try and find this triangulation station. I am chomping at the bit now. We are supposed to get 3-6 inches more of the wet stuff today and tomorrow. We're about to have a levee breach on the river 20 miles south of me. We are already a few feet above flood stage....and rising. I don't think it will take much more rain, and that disk may float to the surface.....or sink a lot further than 18 inches. LOL

Well, we're still getting rained on down here. Maybe we can try for this one next week, as we have a geocaching event this weekend. I have found another thing to help in the search(es). Harbor Freight carries a 100meter tape reel that has metric on one side and SAE on the other for $15. Our group has several of these now, which should make measuring easier, without having to do any conversions. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/disp...temnumber=36819 I'll let everyone know if we find the station..............or if that fails, see if I can get a deal on some airfare to fly everyone here in to show us how it's done.

BDT, post 21 (or the link below) was supposed to be an email from Deb Brown stating she didn't want intersection station reports, but would take them. I agree, an official word directed to us, would be better.....or at least make us feel special. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...t&p=2694685

BDT, this may be the forum you are thinking about. Post #21 in particular. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...ection+stations http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...t&p=2694685

So the NGS does want reports of intersection stations that are destroyed/removed? The reason I ask, is we are still organizing the info to submit for triangulation station Marx CQ2750 that we recovered last week. There was a radio mast on site there at one time (CQ2761/Monroe RAD STA 684 MAST) that had power lines going to it, that according to a report in 1971, required the NGS to set out another reference mark to Marx. This 3rd reference mark, which is also in the NGS database as CQ2760/Mary reference mark 3, was damaged/bumped when they removed the antenna...according to the property owner. The base where the antenna was located, is still on site as well as the power box that went to the antenna, but we didn't take any pics of it at the time. Should I go back and get proof of it being gone, and submit a recovery report to the NGS? Thanks http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=CQ2750 http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=CQ2760 http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=CQ2761

We're trying to plan out a return trip Wednesday or Thursday evening. I went by Lowes and bought a 48" pipe probe rod to aid in our hunt. There is another member of our group who has a better metal detector. We may see if he can join up and help. We will be using all the applicable techniques that everyone has shared here. I feel confident with all that I have learned of late from this thread. We plan to retake all measurements from each reference mark to the station..... and between the reference marks themselves (if that would help). If we are successful in the recovery, I think everyone here should log it.......especially since everyone has helped so much.

Well, isn't this just great! Now, because of you smart guys, I have to go find Mrs. Johnson (my tenth grade geometry teacher) and apologize to her. I argued with her when I was 16, that I would never use the stuff she was teaching me in real life. Ya sure proved me wrong. I hope you are happy. LOL

Absolutely Brilliant! I see why you make the big bucks. I can't wait to go back now. However it's raining cats and dogs here, AGAIN. Yes George, that's exactly the way the marks were set. The two reference marks were near the road, where I imagine a fence line probably used to exist. I have been been lucky so far in my searches for triangulation stations and have just about always found the station first, then measured the distance to the reference marks....set a temporary flag....and then used a metal detector to pinpoint. There was one, that I had to do reverse azimuths from the reference marks to the station, but it was fairly easy to locate. Now thanks to the great advice that you and everyone has shared with me here, I will definitely change my techniques and should be successful in locating this station. I feel extremely confident now (famous last words). I can't say enough times, how much I really appreciate the help from everybody. Being I just do this for fun, I might have passed on one in a pig sty.

It makes sense now. Many thanks to everyone for the education. I always appreciate it. Now I can go to sleep knowing I'm not quite as dumb as I was when I woke up this morning.

Yes, I tried that unsuccessfully. My compass isn't the greatest, but usually puts me close enough to finish it out with the metal detector. I even tried to line up off the reference marks, but the arrows on the disk didn't quite point to where the measurements from the road center and fence put it. It is in someone's front yard, and I don't want to push their generousity by digging holes in their yard.. I guess I will get a ground probe and go back. I almost thought about trying to use witching rods and see if I could find it. Can you think of a reason for placing it so deep? We don't have anything near bedrock here, Just gumbo mud and more gumbo mud. On another note, the property owner described what I believe was possibly a Bilby Tower being there at one time. I do see where the height of the light above the station was 35 meters. (another thing I have yet to encounter in my limited experience, one being so high)

Well, it has rained everyday now for about 3 weeks straight, so the water table is probably about ground level or higher in some places.

We attempted to recover CQ2753 triangulation station today. We were successful with it's two reference marks, one of which was at ground level, and the other one about 2 inches below the surface (the metal detector sniffed it out easily). However, the station mark was not found. The description states that it is 18 inches below the ground surface. I have never encountered one like that before. Is there a reason it would be so deep? The ground seemed to be all level, and according to the property owner, there has been no major excavations or anything there. I don't think my current metal detector will sniff that deep. Thanks

I ran into something similar with benchmark DL1327 which we discussed here: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=230552 The topo maps and such show a Donaghey State Park where this monument is on the LA side as well as a park on the AR side of the line, but there isn't a park there. There was a newspaper article which explained the monument and the "plans" to build a park, that never happened.....but the link is no longer good. The monument and nonexistent park(s) are discussed here in the wikipedia article about Governor Donaghey. It's near the bottom of the page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Donaghey

Curious, how did a banned member get logged in and post in the forum? Should not this topic of "Global Warming" be posted in the Off-Topic forum? John John, I kind of have a feeling that the post was an attempt at spam, which promoted the website link above for geositu.com. Possibly, they were banned for being a spammer.

This is news to me. I'm not sure I can understand the question. I would figure just about all benchmarkers are also geocachers...........since we ARE on the GEOCACHING.com forums. It's just that not all geocachers are benchmarkers. How can there be a rift? We're all geocachers, and some are geocachers + benchmarkers. I do both, and I have friends who do both....... or some who just do geocaching. I've never heard anything negative from them, either about geocaching or benchmarking. Have I missed something?

Walking tour: Definitely do the View Carre cache by Team Bamboozle.... and the ones around the French Quarter, Jackson Square, the Old U.S. Mint...up to St Louis Cemetery and do the Marie Laveaux virtual. You can just take in the restaurants, sites, etc while doing the caches. I would plan to spend the whole day doing this Driving tour: go to Mandeville (which is right across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, the longest bridge in North America). Any cache by Angel&Richie in Mandeville are great. They go the extra mile on their design and placements. I would also post your question on the South East Louisiana geocaching site, http://www.louisianageocaching.org/ You just may luck up and get a personalized guided tour of the area. They are some good people down there in the southern part of the state.

Funny thing is Okie-wan, what you described above, is exactly how I discovered my first benchmark. Seriously, I don't believe anybody here was berating you. Everybody is just pointing out that they will bend over backwards to help out everyone. I will vouch for that. This forum has been of immeasurable help to me, and I learn more everyday from reading it. Any question I have asked, has been answered. I would never use the terms "elitist" and "snobby", to describe anyone in the benchmark forums........or really even anyone in the geocaching forums. (maybe terracachers though ) What I have noticed being a big difference between the benchmark forums, and the geocaching forums, is the friendships and willing to help, of everyone here. I can't say the same when you get out in the open forums of geocaching. I can understand if someone may possibly get frustrated with anyone trying to post questions that (might seem on the surface) to try and stir the pot. Whether or not you realize it, sometimes the words you choose can invoke unintended results. "Elitist" and "snobby" could be considered insults. Stick around for awhile. I'll bet you'll like what you read......and will see that there are no elitist or snobby types around.

Well, the short answer is because they are not considered geocaches (and rightfully should never be). They were not placed (nor listed) by geocaching members. Only containers/events/virtuals done in the name of geocaching should be considered geocaches. GC.com does keep a count of how many benchmarks you log there, but won't count them toward your geocache find total.

I use Jim's webpage to get county (or parish in my case) datasheets. http://www.holoscenes.com/special/geocac/ds_archive.html

Many thanks to everyone for their replies. I always appreciate your advice and time spent, educating others like myself. I always learn so much from these forums, and really enjoy reading them.

Hi Everybody. We went and found triangulation station SANDY CQ2730, yesterday. We easily found the station and it's two nearby reference marks. Since the station mark already has adjusted coordinates, I know I can't improve on anything there. We then went and found the azimuth mark for SANDY up the road. My question for the experts here is: Would it be useful to anyone to put the HH2 coordinates into a NGS recovery report for SANDY, for the azimuth mark? I kind of have a quasi understanding on exactly what the azimuth marks purpose is. Thanks

Tireman, welcome to the world of benchmarking. It is a lot more challenging than hunting for geocaches...and a different beast all together. There is lot to learn, in order to do it correctly.....but it isn't real difficult. You'll have the fundamentals down in no time. Andylphoto, gave some great links on where to begin the education. You especially want to learn the differences between scaled coordinates and adjusted coordinates. Holograph has a great wiki too on getting started: http://www.holoscenes.com/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/FirstTime Let us know how it goes.

Howdy Everyone. I thought ya might enjoy this benchmark I went to Saturday. There is a stone monument placed at the Louisiana/Arkansas line. It is a pretty ornate monument, with benchmark disk DL1327 set in it. The monument was built in 1931, but I'm not sure if the benchmark was placed during construction or afterwards since it has a 1952 monumented date in the NGS database. I am kinda leaning that it was placed during construction, since the latitude and longitude are actually inscribed into the stone monument on the LA side. The official datasheet says the disk is stamped 271, but all I saw was the elevation of 270.952 stamped on it. I guess they just rounded up. Anybody got an idea on that? Would that be worth pointing out in a recovery report, especially since it hasn't had one in 57 years. The funny thing is, as we were wondering more about the history of this dividing line monument, our local newspaper did an article on it today. I wonder if that was fate. Evidently the monument has been defaced, but was cleaned up somewhat from when we took our pics Saturday, and from when the newspaper took theirs. I am glad to see someone take an interest in it. Here are some pics. The newspaper article on the monument: http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/2009083...ONTPAGECAROUSEL

I used GSAK to filter out the benchmarks that have a 1971 monument date locally. After reading up on the few it showed as having a 1971 stamped on the disk itself, there are some I may go try to recover and see exactly what kind of disks they are. If I can find a NGS disk, I'll let you know (along with a pic). It appears that the majority of everything monumented in 1971 around here were intersection stations.