Black Dog Trackers

My preferences are: Take a close as you can so that it will still fit the picture. No GPS in the picture. I have almost never had any problem with ligting a disk. (I had BIG lighting problems with the double-Y in New York, though.) There are times though, that there is an obnoxious shadow crossing the disk. In person, it seems OK, but looking at the picture at home, part of the disk can be rather unreadable, even with photo editing. In these cases, a piece of paper will help, either by reflecting more light onto the shadowy area, or by blocking the direct sunlight. I suppose that a paper could also be used to reflect some sidelight on a difficult disk. Cleaning a disk is generally far more significant than fiddling with lighting issues. Bringing one of those little re-closable packs of handy-wipes or whaterver they are called is one choice. Wet disks are difficult. If it's wet, dry it off if possible.

I think they are pretty much interchangeable. Bearing has a bit more of a meaning of going or planning to go in a particular direction, whereas azimuth is more used for looking in a particular direction.

MY ADV - It would be very very good to have pictures posted in the log for BOTH of these disks, including pictures of the "AMAZING VIEWS" (hopefully with the disks visible in at least one of the views ). Is one disk 18.5 feet from the other one?

The speed of wood decaying depends... on lots of stuff. There's chestnut logs and stuff around there from when all the chestnut trees were killed around 1908. Maybe the stump is there and maybe not. Even if it is, the part around the nail might be gone and the nail would then have fallen to the ground to become an unidentifialbe addition to the soil. If the wood is preserved enough, the nail will still be there to find. I once recovered a disk that was approximately in the center of a 12-foot diameter briar plant. I didn't have clippers, so I had to break the briars by hand and use note paper to protect my hands from the thorns on the ground as I made a crawlway into the tangle to the disk to shoot a closeup shot.

Hi MY ADV - It looks like you found 2 reference marks to some government's Department of Natural Resources control station (or maybe a control station and a reference mark to a cadastral mark; hard to tell). The actual control station is probably within 20 feet of those reference marks (assuming both are reference marks). Reference marks generally have an arrow that points to the main mark. There are thousands of marks that are not the Geocaching's copy of circa 2000 NGS data. Yours might be included, however. To find out, put the coordinates in this search page. It will show what marks in the database are nearby. If you didn't take coordinates, you can get approximate coordinates (good enough to search the database) by using Google Maps. In Google Maps, put your mouse cursor on the spot and right-click, pick "Center map here", then click "Link" near the top right of the Google Maps window. It will show the coordinates of the map center. If your marks are not listed in the database, you can read about that in the benchmark FAQ section on that here. Good luck !

Papa-Bear-NYC - WOW that is an excellent colleciton of finds of super-old marks! Excellent finding and detective work too!

It looks like a VDOT (Virginia) ROW marker. Maybe CA uses the same kind for ROW marking or something.

sandiegoellers - I'm curious about this find. Does the benchmark disk say: COWLES, or COWLES RM, or COWLES RM1, or COWLES RM2 ?

I don't know what you meant exactly by your question, but I'm dead certain it would not be acceptable for me (a non-surveyor) to put a new disk in such a hole!

GPSr in a benchmark closeup picture? Yuck ! Southpawaz' closeup picture is excellent !

2amigas - A benchmark can be logged by getting its coordinates from your GPS receiver and reading the name (called its designation) on the disk. Then use this page to enter the coordinates to find benchmarks near the coordinates. If any have a designation that matches what's printed on the disk, then you have a find and can log it by clicking on the mark's record. There are thousands of benchmarks that are not included in the database and yours is probably one of those. We cannot add marks to the database. They can be logged at Waymarking though. Here is the benchmark FAQ and this place in it talks about benchmarks not in the database and where to log them. I will email you with a link to this answer and any others that follow.

dj1996 - It would be good to read this FAQ page on benchmark hunting. A place in there to start is this place. Welcome to benchmark hunting!

Hi LSUFan - Question #1 - this should always be logged as not found. I logged one disk that was in a dug hole in asphalt 5" in diameter and a couple inches deep. If someone wants it enough, they will uncover it. Question #2 - this is an example of two things: a ) people tend to use 2 different standards between geobenchmarking logs and NGS logs. In this case, you could be justified in using destroyed on this site, but not on the NGS site, where it must be logged as not-found. b ) one usual scenario is to send in your log to the NGS site and use whatever decision Deb gives (not-found or destroyed) on your log on this site. (You can always change your log on this site accordingly after the fact as well.)

Hi Gerard - The benchmark hunting database that Groundspeak obtained from the U.S. government is not expandable - it is a static database. However Groundspeak also made the Waymarking site and there is a section of it for benchmarks. They also made Waymarking to have a feature where members could make new categories in a process themselves. There are already benchmark categories for UK&Ireland, Canada, U.S., Spain, Australia, and Portugal. Although there is one for Europe in general, I encourage you to make one for France. If you need any assitance with making a waymark category for benchmarks in France, send me a message.

Excellent finds, photos, and historical research, Camper1 !!! I wondered what railroad RBNF was, but when I checked the NGS contributors table, I found this: RBNF RESEARCHED BUT NOT FOUND

Yes, $250 just isn't much anymore for such damage. Here is another post about this with a link in the next post to some previous discusison on it.

I decided to virtually visit Denver Colorado to look for another mark using streetview. I did find an adjusted station but it turns out I didn't need streetview (there's no road right there) and used a .kml file instead. People found the mark but didn't take a picture but it's pretty obvious on Google Earth, it's a white spot in the grass. I put the hand icon over the image of the mark's logo lid and got these coordinates: 39 47 04.34 104 58 53.46 I looked at the datasheet to find: 39.47 04.35 104 58 53.47 This is even closer than last time. I also experimented with matching the taping with the ruler function. It didn't work quite as well as just putting the icon over the spot. It would be interesting to see a picture taken by someone to be sure that the white spot is the logo lid's location. I tried a few more without success (couldn't get an image). Then I tried KK2099. It's dead obvious on GE. There's a couple logs with pictures, somewhat inconclusive, but showing a fair amount of cement around the mark. It's another one in grass - not too surprising for a horizontal control. I did the measurement with the hand and got 39 44 34.69 105 00 03.94 the datasheet (rounded) gives: 39 44 34.69 105 00 03.95 Try it yourself and see! I tried some others and then tried AE5252. There's no clear indication of a mark except that it is described as being in the middle of 4 piers. I took a 'reading' at the center of the design. Once again the accuracy was extremely close. An interesting 1936 mark, it would be interesting to see a picture of it with the 4 piers. Actually I'm a bit disappointed in Denver as there were no location-adjusted marks that could be seen with both GM-streetview and GE. So, although the results seemed good, I can't be dead certain of any of these 3 marks. There was also no really good 'distant' pictures for them. I guess I should try another town.

A little mystery of HR2868 is to see whether the mark is: a copper bolt a stamped lead bolt a stamped lead plug Speaking of elements, how does Iridium fly, being one of the 2 densest elements known?

I have uploaded an update of ngsread. The new feature is to make two text mode files; summary and statistics. The summary file whose name is based on the input file, except with .SUM as the extension. It is a plain text file that summarizes all the PIDs in the file. The fields are: PID, Marker Code, Monumenting Agency, Monumentation Date, Condition (explained that the bottom of the file), Last Reporting Agency (if any), Last Report Date (if any), Longitude and Latitude (rounded to the nearest minute and sorted). This file has fixed field lengths and can be either read as a text file or imported into a spreadsheet. Ngsread makes a statistics file whose name is based on the input file, except with .STA as the extension. It is a plain text file that gives statistics on the file. The parts are: Status of the Mark, Monumenting Agency Count, Last Reporting Agency Count, Monumentation Type Code Count, Monumentation Year Count, and Last Recovery Year Count.

I also checked with Google Earth, using the location-adjusted mark that Papa-Bear-NYC showed. I have Google Earth set for DDD MM SS.SS mode (tools, options, 3d view, show lat/lon) and find that I can move the mouse in 0.01 second increments as shown at the bottom of the Google Earth screen. This is a PRECISION of 0.01 second. My GPS receiver (and I assume all of ours is the same) has a precision of 0.1 second. (My car GPS receiver has a precision of 1 second). In order to check the ACCURACY, I looked at the KU3822 mark with Google Earth and placed the little hand icon over the location of the mark. The reading I got was: 40 47 37.39 73 31 10.52 the "original datasheet" for the mark has the adjusted location: 40 47 37.37909 073 51 10.49892 The difference is only 0.01 in latitude and 0.02 in longitude ! I don't know if Google Earth has this level of accuracy consistenly, but if it does, it's both more precise and more accurate than the GPS receivers we use. In the area of KU3822, using the Google Earth ruler and watching the coordinates at the bottom of the screen, a 0.1 second longitude difference is 7.6 feet and a 0.1 second latitude difference is 9.8 feet. This is the precision level of our GPS receivers but their accuracy is somewhat less - a radius of 10-15 feet or something like that. I reach the same conclusion as Papa-Bear-NYC !

I'm still waitin' to see a picture of this old 1905 mark in California. There's several error-logs there too. I tried to help. One person says they found it but ... no picture.

Akkkk - all those logs of ES1004 WILD but no scenery picture with the disk in the view.

Hi SARAH It is optional !

Hi KidFromWB, and welcome to benchmark hunting. A good place to start is to read this whole FAQ on benchmark hunting if you haven't already. To search by coordinates go that same page and then click on "Other search options", and then click the radio button called "By Coordinates" and enter your approximate coordinates. The key to correctly identifying a disk is by its general location and particularly its Designation (its name) printed on it, such as "M 143" or "HILLTOP". If you find your disk in the database you can log it here. If you don't find it in the database (no surprise at all) then you can log it in the US Benchmarks Waymarking site.

Here's another goldie - Spruce. A related old topic discussed green versus brown disks. I'd tend to guess that these gold ones are a bit more likely brass than bronze, but in either case, they show a metallic color for some reason, rather than an oxidation color. It's possible that these gold colored disks neither brass (Cu+Zn) nor bronze (Cu+Sn), but instead aluminum-bronze, an alloy of copper and aluminum, sometimes used in making gold-colored coins.