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Black Dog Trackers

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  1. 2. Could the hole now identified a SUGAR LOAF S 1865 have held what Hayseed 40 logged on 17 Jan 04? "Found this marker near a removed disk on Sugarloaf. It's a brass triangle in round hole." Or is this mark now hiding under leaf litter.

     

    4. Is there a new PID in the works for the RESET SUGAR LOAF ERDL? kayakbird

    Re: #2; I could never figure out what Hayseed40 said he found. I saw no "brass triangle in round hole" anywhere up there.

    Re: #4; I wrote to Deb at NGS about the RESET SUGAR LOAF ERDL and provided a photo of the RESET disk in the location. She replied that it was not JV4593; no surprise to me. I suspect however that the now-existing disk was cemented in or very near the original hole of JV4593, however, since it is not the same disk as described for JV4593, the present disk is not a find of JV4593. Deb made no statement about making a PID for the RESET disk. No doubt the "L shaped boulder" was a lot more L-shaped before lots of people walked around there, exposing more of the rock.

     

    Blackdog Trackers posted pics of Sugar Loaf S in 2004 so I doubt that the hole held a bar. I suspect he saw the Sugar Loaf Reset and thought it was a triangle. He mentioned that it was near a removed disk, and that had to be one of the Sugar Loaf Reset RMs. Maybe we SHOULD have dug more!

    The 'Sugar Loaf S' mark hole certainly looked like a triangle to me when I was there. You can see that in the picture I took in the log for JV4590 in the picture called "Mystery mark 2".

    I did no digging up on Sugarloaf Mountain. All marks were obvious without digging since they were all well above dirt level or on large bare rock surfaces.

    I'm pretty conservative about calling a find, and since all the data from the datasheets is not solidly conclusive about where JV4592 is, I did not claim a find that the obvious hole near the top of the 8-foot tall rock is actually JV4592.

     

    The "brass triangle in round hole" is still a mystery. The only triangles I saw were "Mystery mark 1", a large lichen-filled carved triangle on flat rock, and the triangular hole (maybe it just looked triangular because of a particular depth of water in it that day) on top of the 8-foot tall boulder.

  2. How much and what sorts of information would you need to provide ?
    I suggest emailing Deb at NGS about each one and include one closeup photo of the mark and one 'distant' photo of the mark showing the mark from a few feet away. Including your GPS coordinates at the mark would also be helpful.
  3. It is not uncommon to find another benchmark in the general area of an old one that is gone. It's almost as if the old benchmark was missed and someone put another one near there. However, even if there was a disk where you found just a circular impression, that would not be a find of KV1408 because KV1408 is a rivet, not a disk.

     

    It is even possible that the circular impression once had a reference mark disk. However, finding a reference mark is not a find of the station it is a reference to.

     

    Your current log of 'couldn't find' is correct. If all of us answering went there, that's what we'd all log too.

  4. hi kwhart,

     

    You can read about a box score here in the benchmark FAQ.

     

    Box score information tells the distance and bearing FROM the triangulation station you're looking for TO the reference marks. If you want to log a find, you must find the triangulation station (it has a triangle in the center of it). You can use the reference marks (they have an arrow in the center that points toward the triangulation station).

     

    In your case, reference mark 2 (RM2) is 36.027 meters at a bearing of 041.48 degrees from the station mark. From the mark, RM1 is 32.538 meters at a bearing of 130 degrees.

  5. You should not count a find unless you find the mark in the right place.

     

    Also, by the NGS interpretation of "destroyed", you must find the mark anyway, but out of its place. In the case of this mark, you'd have to find the monel metal rivet in a broken piece of concrete curb in the hedge or somewhere like that. Otherwise you really can't be sure it is destroyed.

     

    If you don't find the mark, then you should log as not found or didn't find it.

     

    A monel metal rivet is only about 1/4 inch in diameter and silvery colored. According to the description it has to be on the curb, not in the street or anywhere else. Lots of times benchmarks are gone from curbs or sidewalks on corners because newer laws require ramps at corners, so corner curbs are removed and a ramp is put in instead.

     

    This one's a not-found.

  6. Mantis8854 -

     

    I'm a bit surprised that no one has jumped on this yet, so I'll start.

     

    None of use .loc files as far as I know. We all use NGS files and convert them to .gpx files. This article will give you a start on that path. Bmgpx is an old program now and some of us have written newer ones but it will get you started.

  7. Exploroman -

     

    In case you didn't know, the Canadian Benchmarks Waymarking site is here. It is true that Waymarking benchmark sites are not pre-loaded with coordinates but in the case of Canada, the Waymarking page, if you click on "[show additional information]" there are links to the Canadian benchmark databases for reference. There are benchmark Waymarking sites for several countries, but no Japan as yet.

  8. FWIW, I have evidence that the HH1 coordinates listed at the top of the datasheet are faulty.

     

    The description that TillaMurphs include the statement:

    "32 FEET NORTH-NORTHEAST FROM THE CENTER OF 10TH STREET"

    Using Google Earth, I used its ruler function to measure perpendicularly from the center of 10th street to TillaMurphs' HH2 coordinates and got 32 feet.

    The distance from the center of 10th street to the HH1 coordinates is only 14 feet.

     

    I believe that TillaMurphs' measured coordinates are better.

  9. The mark is 22 feet South of the nearest point of a fenceline that has a true bearing of 167 degrees.

     

    If you're going to be that exact about the bearing, and there's no real reason not to be, you should say whether the bearing is true or magnetic. Really though, if it is magnetic, convert it to True.

  10. If I had found that rod, I would likely post a note rather than a found-it.

     

    I might've logged found-it if it matched distance measurements and bearings but in this case, there are none so it's just an unmarked rod in the ground in the vicinity of those coordinates.

     

    For what you did find, I would also give a couple of distance and bearing information sets like from one of those powerpoles or from the centerline of one of those roads.

  11. In NGSREAD, I addressed that problem a couple years ago or whenever it was. For what it's worth, I called the option scoreinfo (and the user specifies the value yes or no). Scoreinfo=yes means to use box score information to do two things:

    1) generate coordinates from box score information for reference marks that have no regular PID so that those can appear on a map

    2) generate coordinates for scaled regular PIDs referenced in the box score.

    scoreinfo=no of course means to not bother using box score information to do those things.

    The default value is scoreinfo=yes.

    NGSREAD never did use box score information to regenerate coordinates for adjusted marks; it made sure to leave those alone.

     

    The tricky part is to make sure to also only use one box score for a particular scaled mark, so that you don't get 2 sets of coordinates for the same marker and ghosts on the map. :lol:

  12. TillaMurphs -

     

    Here, and here in the second paragraph, and here are a couple of interesting quotes on the subject of USGS bench mark data.

     

    Here is the topic on getting USGS data and reporting to them.

  13. Interesting that all but the West Virginia one are from the 1920's or earlier.

    The WV one gets a ton of rough treatment since it is in part of a gravel walkway to a popular observation tower, but it still can shine. Perhaps the WV one was in a drawer or box for 30 years before it was used.

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