rogbarn
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Posts posted by rogbarn
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One black nickel and one antique brass for me please.
Thanks for producing such an amazing coin!
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Despite my inactivity on the benchmarking front, I have been keeping this event in mind. I plan to be there. After all, it's only 10 miles or so from my house.
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The Yosemite Reg. is brass, the LE is pewter.
The Grand Canyon Reg. is copper, the LE is nickel.
The Acadia Reg. is gold, the LE is copper.
The Yellowstone Reg. is nickel, the LE is gold.
Hope that helps.
Yes, it does help a lot. It sounds like I have a G.C. regular, Acadia LE (both copper) with no cooresponding copper in the other two. So much for expecting consistancy.
Thanks for the explanation. -
I went thru my coins the other day and realized that I have different National Park coins. The Yosemite and Yellowstone seem to be regular coins. The Grand Canyon and Acadia coins are darker colored and I guess are the LE coins. I tried to find out if the Yosemite and Yellowstone coins come in LE versions but the Yellowstone description I found refers to a "golden" color on the LE version. Is that the same thing? Can someone decribed the different versions that are available? I'd like to have a full set that lokks the same, so I guess I need to hit the trading corner. Thanks.
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The NGS assigns each disk a unique two letter, four digit PID. This gives the NGS 6.8 million possible PIDs (26^2*10^4), of which about 720,000 are used. The two letter combinations are assigned geographically, in 1/2 degree North-South by 1 degree East-West chunks. So, you can know roughly where a disk is, and you can distinguish each disk uniquely. But, you have to deal with two names.
I can't find the thread(s) but the group did some analysis of PIDs and found that PIDs are assisgned in blocks of 1 deg lat by 2 deg long. I put together the data and posted it as a spreadsheet, someone else overlayed it on a map of the US. The result is pretty neat and is available somewhere. I'm sure some kind soul with a better memory than mine will post the URL.
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It's amazing how things come around in a circle sometimes. Read this thread from almost 4 years ago, started by yours truly:
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You can get a head start on looking for destroyed markers by going to yearly archives section of the NGS site, choosing your state and click on Get Misc Files. One of the options is nonpub - Station list of all non-published stations in the state. It's a simple one line per station but it does give you PID, designation, coordinates and a couple of other items. Once you identify possible entries, go to the PID menu and select them by PID as you did before.
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Incidentaly, the Washington Post yesterday ran a lovely obit ("Cartography Expert Knew Maps Were About More Than Travel") of Walter W. Ristow, former chief of the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress.
-ArtMan-
It is amazing how often I read obituaries or attend funerals (I am active in my church and often attend funerals of people I didn't know very well or not at all) and come away with the feeling that I wished I had known the person. This is certainly one of those occasions. How much fun would it have been if I had known Mr. Ristow! Maps flying everywhere! No detail too small not to be noticed. Woo hoo! Thanks for posting the link.
Roger
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I have seen many datasheets showing USACE monuments that the CGS/NGS has picked up and used in their system. Many of them show a monumentation date of UNK. It appears that the CGS/NGS didn't bother (who can blame them?) to take the time to determine such mundane details. Also, many of them say DOD. I interpret this to mean Dept of Defense, which is where the USACE is. Admittedly, this was not the name of the dept when the monument was placed, but it gets the point across.
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One of our local cachers has started interviewing cachers and posting the edited results as podcasts on our local caching website. I was recently interviewed and you can hear me talk about benchmark hunting, caching and several other topics here. Scroll down a bit to find podcast #18. Oh yes, Dave Doyle gets mentioned by name! Happy listening
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The 1968 entry must have been for a different benchmark. The Pennsylvania Railroad never ran through here. Unless it was a mystery train that ran on non-existant tracks, at midnight?
I'll bet that if you search thru the states where the Pennsylvania Railroad runs (or ran) and look for a station with the same or similar designation that you would find the one that this recovery belongs to. Then you can provide all the relavent info to Deb and there will be another good correction made!
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I normally don't post to these kinds of threads. But yesterday, I got 4 packages in the mail! Plus, by mere coindidence, I opened them in order of excitement. First was 2 Signal Coins. Mine were OK, but like many others, I'm not thrilled by them. Next was a 2005 Washington with Mt. St. Helens to go with my 2004 Washington that my wife got me for Christmas. 3rd was 2 Geocoin Town coins. Now that is a great looking coin. And last were 2 2006 Compass Rose coins. WOW! They are gorgeous. So, with 4 packages, it felt like Christmas. (oh, I already have one of those).
edit: *&^% typos
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I haven't done much benchmarking recently. Maybe this will be what I need to get out and find some. Sign me up!
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Can you send me 5 coins by mistake please? I'll send them back, I promise! I just want the benchmark coin!!
Really, both sides did a wonderful thing here. Geocachers and benchmark hunters are the best!
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This is really neat. I love geocoins but I have to be very careful to stay within my budget, which is basically zero except when I cheat on it. I'd cheat on it to get a couple of these. Will we see more artwork when it is closer to minting?
Roger
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I wasn't around during the upgrade and apparently there still needed to be some work done in the forum integration side of things. I spent this evening re-coding the integration and it should work ok now.
<- I also added location while I was at it.
Let me know if there is something out of the ordinary. They did some pretty major changes with how they stored passwords so I did my best to make sure they were saved properly.
Thanks for workin' on it
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Me too, also using IE:
Server Error in '/' Application.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Source Error:
An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.
Stack Trace:
[NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.]
Geocaching.UI.ForumUpdateControl.UpdateForumUser() +1060
Geocaching.UI.forums_register.Page_UserLoggedIn(Object sender, EventArgs e) +268
Geocaching.UI.WebformBase.IsLoggedIn() +1082
Geocaching.UI.forums_register.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) +131
System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +67
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +35
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain() +744
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.2032; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.2032
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I'm here. My mother died in Dec and I was in Massachusetts last week helping to clean out the house. It was, without doubt, the most difficult week of my life.
I'm very interested in the coins because I have started a small collection and find them very interesting. Do you have more details, design, etc?
Thanks for the update on the event. I try to remember to check every now and then, it's good to know someone else is watching too!
edit: typo
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I once emailed Craig with a problem in one of the programs that are available at the NGS site. It wasn't a huge problem and I had a work around but I just wanted to let me know. His response was immediate, courteous and professional. Within a couple of hours he had a new version posted for me. I wish I had people like him working around me all the time. Please pass along my sympathies to his family and to his colleagues at the NGS.
Roger
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A great list and great info on how it was obtained. It makes me want to learn a bunch more programming languages.
I note one possible problem (I only have one example, so it could easily be something else). EB1383 is not on your list. It coordinates as listed on the datasheet are 33 11 13. (N) 078 04 20. (W) which places it in the Atlantic off the coast of SC/NC by roughly 50 miles. It might be a coordinate typo, I estimated its coordinates according to its description as 34-11-34.8 (N) 78-04-16.7 (W). Is it possible that the datasheet coordinates place it outside all counties and therefore got dropped from your list?
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OK, I'm impressed! Let me know what software and/or process you used to do that?! I'm guessing it is a pretty definative list, right?
I will reiterate that there are many reasons why this situation can occur and each one needs to be researched before asking for an update. As I mentioned in my other post, I map the coordinates and then try to determine if the description matches the mapped coordinates. If they do, then it is probably a simple county error. While a simple county error is the most common, other problems I have run into include having a description that is mixed up with another datasheet (often with the same or similar designation or, less frequently, with a nearby PID) and a typo in the coordinates (off by a degree or some other obvious amount). The confused descriptions can be difficult to figure out but I have figured out some of them before sending off my findings to the NGS. Other times, I just mentioned that it isn't right and let them try to figure it out. Most of those are still outstanding issues, I've never seen an update come thru. I'm guessing that field research would be needed to clear those up.
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I am doing some county research. Please look at the datasheet for DG7950 on NGS (it does not exist on GC). When I map the coordinates, it places it in VA. The description says:
NC-VA GRANITE MONUMENT NO. 30 IS ON A GRID AZIMUTH OF 111-16-26 (DMS) AND AT A GRID DISTANCE OF 499.982 METERS.
The state line is basically east-west, so does that mean DG7950 is in VA or NC according to this statement?
When I do this research, my bottom line questions are:
1. Do the coordinates given on the datasheet agree with the description (not always possible to figure out but usually can)
2. Does the listed county on the datasheet agree with #1 above.
So, these two questions are my questions to the group.
Thanks for your help.
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any amateur genealogists hanging out here?
yes, with entirely New England ancestry. On the other hand, my wife's is Scots-Irish, ending up in southern Ill and western KY.
Initial points
in Benchmarking
Posted
RattlingCrew is producing an interesting geocoin of the Initial Point at the 6th Prime Meridan on the 40th N Latitude. It's a big coin at 3 inches. His first post has some very interesting history about the point here.
But his post here is about some real benchmark hunting!