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andylphoto

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  1. Yup...that would be it Papa Bear. I knew it had to be mathematically possible, but I am with Bill93. When I use trig, I like dealing with right angles, and do the same thing he does. If I learned this in high school trig, I mis-filed it long ago, and have never had to use it since.
  2. If you find the station, it's probably unnecessary. However, Difficult Run is correct. Having both angles and the distance to one RM, if you could not find the station but do find both RMs, measure accurately the distance between the RMs. With this measurement, the distance from the other RM to the station could be calculated, allowing a more exact pinpointing of the station location. EDIT: Just put this down on paper and realized it wouldn't be quite as easy as I had thought. I think the exact distance could be calculated, but it'll require more thought than I'm willing to give it right at the moment.
  3. LOL. Great analogy, Andy. I'm going to shamelessly copy it. By the way, Radio news is more accurate TV, where if there is no video clip, the story probably won't airtime. -Paul- (Formerly at WTSB, WBSC, & WUNC-FM) Feel free to use it--I can't tell you it's original though. It seems like I heard it somewhere years ago, but I have no idea where. Because it struck me as both amusing and true, it stuck with me. Every time I've read a story in the paper about an event I had personal knowledge of, it seems there's been at least one error in fact.
  4. As a news director for a local radio station, I strive for accuracy in my writing, but errors still occur, unfortunately. That said, in my experience, the relationship between what you read in the paper and the actual facts of the story is similar to the relationship between the color green and the number seven. Andy
  5. Interesting article, but not evidence of global warming. It would seem that the marker has been moved if it was placed in the ground 200 feet from the summit and is now set in the snow at the summit. I also enjoyed a couple of the logs on the geocaching page. Here's a good one, including photographic proof... "recovered in good condition, hundreds of miles from where it claims to be located. the marker was located indoors, as you may be able to tell from the photos, so a GPS fix, or very accurate GPS fix was near impossible. it was very near GC13A70, in Muncie, IN" There are actually a couple of honest logs on this one, which is refreshing.
  6. Excellent suggestions! I guess I've never had the thing time out, because normally I don't give as detailed a report as I did on these. For the most part, the logs I post are simply updates to reference objects, which I note on the data sheet in the field, and include in my log. It's extremely rare that I will include in a log an entirely new description or to reach like with these. What I have also done in the past is post my geocaching log, then go back and work off those logs to post my NGS logs. If I catch an error on that round, I can go back in and edit the GC log.
  7. Actually, I think I'll agree with AZcachmeister. To me, this looks like a 12-inch cylindrical monument--the top, left and bottom all appear to be curved, with spacing on these three sides that would appear to be consistent with a 12-inch cylindrical monument. I think it looks like it's been struck by some type of equipment which broke off the right side of the setting. I won't take a position on the RM. It does certainly appear to be the shape of the other RM disc you posted a photo of, and what are the chances of finding something of the same size and shape? On the other hand, it seems hard to believe that none of the lettering, including the cast lettering would be visible, while the surface remains so flat. A badly corroded surface I would expect to see more pitted, like the center area. Hard to tell from pictures though.
  8. Friday was a good day in most respects, though disappointing in one. I spent the day with my dad, and we visited three of the top ten highest stations in Michigan. Also not on the list, we visited Mt. Arvon, Michigan's highest point. I have had these three on my radar screen for a couple years--ARVON, RL1514 keeps getting incorrectly logged by people who visit Mt. Arvon. (I have previously posted a couple of times on this particular logging problem, most recently here. I already spent too long posting detailed logs and photos, so I will let them tell the story. We started out Friday morning and went straight for ARVON (highest station #7) and ARVON LOOKOUT TOWER 1956 (highest station #8.) After hiking a mile up the hill to those two, we returned to the truck, headed east, forded a river, and climbed Mt. Arvon We did more climbing recovering ARVON than here, actually. Roads have been improved, and you can drive to within a half mile or so of the summit. If this USGS mark were in the NGS database, it would be the highest mark in Michigan, of course. Since it's not, we went about a mile south and recovered the highest station in the NGS database in Michigan: HIGAN (highest station #1.) The only goal I had for the day (other than spending time with my dad and having fun) was to visit those four marks, so in that respect we were successful. The only disappointment...the ARVON surface mark had been destroyed. We measured from reference points & located the sheared-off concrete monument where it was supposed to be. HIGAN has to be called poor as it is leaning slightly, but the station is there. I also found out while posting logs on these stations that the site limits logs to 4000 characters, and logs you out if you spend too much time typing and editing a log.
  9. Looks to me like an intersection station--the mountain is the bench mark. The location is adjusted, and the description refers to the mountain--not a disk or a drill hole, or any other type of physical mark. Finally, the data sheet says "first observed." This is common on intersection stations where there is a point observed. The NGS didn't put the station there, but observed something that already existed--a mountain, church steeple, flag pole, tower, etc.
  10. Thanks George. I just finished it, and it was a fascinating read! I'll be looking a bit further into some of the history on the web site as I have time. Great stuff!
  11. I'd have asked if you didn't, Patty! I hadn't even caught the PROS & SPECT. That's really funny. Papa Bear, thanks for changing the buttons--that's much more intuitive.
  12. I was just perusing the maps again, and realized I had recoveries last month in nine different Michigan counties. That's my highest count ever for one month, I am sure, and I wasn't even trying. If I had been I'd have sure made a recovery in the county I actually LIVE in! There's one I just haven't visited less than 3 miles from my home. I bagged marks in three counties while on vacation for a few days, then made a trip for work and got two more. One of those was just a drive by where I spotted a witness post on the way home--it just happened to be in another county. Two more counties while picking up my wife and daughter from a camp, and then finally two more, including one new one, while on a trip downstate to pick up horses for my sister in law. I just find it impossible to go on a trip without planning a few benchmarks along the way. Any one of those four trips, and it would have been a fairly "normal" month. I'm going to have to print that map for the record books--only ten Michigan counties had recoveries this month. Does this mean I'm addicted?
  13. The layout is nice--very well presented. I love the clicking on pictures for the slide show, and the right click to resize. I had no problems, except I kept trying to click on the Tall Timbers Lodge picture and expecting something to happen. My one complaint (even before monkeykat said it) was that I kept wanting to hit the "previous" button to go forward. I wouldn't have any problem with them both being together like that, but "next" is generally on the right, while "previous" is on the left. Even at the bottom of search pages, like google, or multi-page indexes, like a list of benchmarks here. The layout is very nice, and not having to click on links, view a picture, then navigate back to the narrative is a big plus if you want people to view your photos. Well done! I only wish I had the skill, and the time, to do some of the things you do with your online maps and write-ups.
  14. Thanks again for your great work in putting all this information together! Once again, thank you for your hard work. It's gratifying to see the colors changing and the individual statistics climbing! EDIT: If anyone read the lengthy post about updates, disregard. Apparently it was my browser cache that I was viewing. I need to check--I thought I had this set not to cache. Grr.
  15. tireman, There are a couple different things going on here. First, no one "owns" the listings for benchmarks on geocaching. The database available here is a snapshot of what the NGS database looked at in 2000. Any updates on the gc.com web site must come from user logs. A careful reading of the description should lead you right to the mark if the area has not changed significantly since the mark was placed. The coordinates are a different story. The first two marks both have scaled coordinates. 67 feet off really isn't that bad, considering. The coordinates were derived from someone reading the description, plotting the location (based on the description) on a topographic map, then scaling the coordinates for that particular point. Depending on how accurately the location can be pinpointed on the map, errors of several hundred feet aren't uncommon for scaled coordinates. (See the "Me First" pinned topic at the top of the Benchmarking forum for more info.) The descriptions for the first two marks are not the same. Both happen to be in the same general area (the southwest end of the pier) but a careful reading of the complete descriptions and the designation (what is stamped on the disks) indicates that they are two separate disks on the pier. Here are the "official" NGS data sheets: MC0943 MC0944 Regarding the third one, where people are logging a disc 1500 feet away, see the discussion in this thread about that exact problem. It happens frequently, and people don't care--even when the error is pointed out, many continue to log "finds" on the wrong mark. EDIT: Just looked closer at the description vs. the coordinates. The error is more than the 67 feet I see--looks like several hundred, but still not uncommon for a scaled entry. When you post a log for a mark, you have the option of adding a waypoint. This doesn't update the coordinates on the benchmark page, but lets others know that there are better coordinates available.
  16. I can't give you a definitive answer about this particular station, but the stamping you found would be typical in my understanding for a triangulation station that was reset in 1992. See my recovery photos for Loretta Reset. Z15, a member here and retired M-DOT survey tech was involved in resetting this particular one and offered some insights on it in a thread on triangulation station resets. I wouldn't connect the other 1992 settings--it looks like they were set by the Wisconsin DOT, and it would seem unlikely that they would be resetting a triangulation station in IL. It does seem likely that the station was properly reset by someone--either the NGS or the IL DOT, but the update never made it to the data sheet. Also see my thread on QK0775. It's a similar case--found the station, but it's not what is described in the data sheet. There is also a post from Mike, Z15 with some thoughts on why the change never made it into the data sheet.
  17. Thanks BlueDeuce. That's exactly what happened. I had looked in My Controls, but missed the options. I guess it was displayed on the page too prominently. Much appreciated.
  18. I don't know how this got changed, but when I view a forum thread, it only displays the first topic, then a list of replies, showing the author and the first line. How do I change this back so it displays entire posts? Thanks!
  19. I'm planning a trip this fall to recover a couple of marks that confuse many people as well. This one is even more confusing to amateurs: ARVON. Only 15 logs so far, but not one is correct, and in one respect it's even a worse error. It's not even a reference mark being logged--these cachers aren't even on the right hill! The people logging this one have not done any homework at all--not only do they not have the description, but obviously they do not have the coordinates either! One mistaken logger has also posted a found log on the ARVON LOOKOUT TOWER, which is on the same hill as ARVON--four miles west of where he took his photos! I'm guessing the lookout tower has been torn down, like 95% of all of them, but either way, he didn't even find the correct site. A bit of history...when ARVON was monumented in 1956, it was just another triangulation station, named because it is located in Arvon Township, underneath the Arvon lookout tower. At the time, Mount Curwood, about 4 miles south, was listed as the state's high point. In 1982, a survey with modern equipment found that Mount Arvon, about 4 miles to the east, was actually about a foot higher. At that time, the USGS placed a marker there, MT ARVON 1982. So now we have the state's high point, Mount Arvon, with a USGS mark, but nothing in the NGS database. Then ARVON, RL1514, 4 miles to the west, in the database, but with an elevation of 1867, 112 feet lower than Mount Arvon, at 1979. To add a bit more trivia to the puzzle, while Mount Arvon is the highest point in Michigan, ARVON (which again is not on Mount Arvon) is not even the highest NGS benchmark. HIGAN, with an elevation of 1949 gets that honor. It is located about a mile southeast of Mount Arvon (the high point, not the NGS benchmark!) I am hoping to visit all three sites this fall, at which point I will post a detailed log with photos on the ARVON page for other casual benchmarkers to ignore when they log their visit to a mountain four miles away. Here is an illustration of the layout...ARVON and HIGAN are the benchmarks labeled in red, while Mt. Arvon is labeled on the map. The Arvon Lookout Tower is at the same location as the ARVON benchmark. Interestingly, there are six (yes, six!) waymarks for Mount Arvon, in six different categories: Mountain Summits, Summit Registers, US Benchmarks, Elevation Signs, Geographic High Points, and a tree on the summit in Native American Trail Trees. All created by the same person, none with any visits.
  20. You can narrow it down using the approximate location, and the designation, which is stamped on the mark. It's quite possible, however, that you found one of the thousands of marks that are not in the NGS database. For more details, check out the "Read Me First" thread pinned at the top of the forum. If it's not something you can log on Geocaching, there is a category on Waymarking.com where you can log it.
  21. Thank you, George! Like Papa Bear, I've only skimmed it so far, but it looks like fascinating reading. So much reference material there!
  22. Speaking of witness posts on trees... Found earlier this month at KENTUCKY, RK0642.
  23. I'm not sure on this one. My first thought was that the metal tag was the mark, which I thought was odd. After reading Mike's (Z-15) post above, I re-read the description. It does not say that the tag is the mark. I would tend to concur that the actual mark was a nail or spike or something in the limb, and that the tag was placed to help identify the correct tree, like a witness post. However, the data sheet is pretty vague on this one.
  24. I recovered one last winter where this appears to be the case. I did not log with the NGS yet. I had planned to visit a second time during better weather to investigate further. My first visit was in the middle of winter, during a snowstorm. I found the mark in the described location, in an abutment that certainly appeared to date from 1948, but the bridge on top of it was much newer, and was listed by the state as reconstructed in 2007. My geocaching log is here. RL0735. I don't have a picture demonstrating the difference in concrete, but noted the interesting construction in my log.
  25. Hmmm...I thought I posted this reply yesterday, but apparently it got lost somewhere. Bill, it was my understanding that this was the case. I was originally going to post a note, but decided to change it to a find. As you pointed out, for a horizontal control station, the position of the reset is identical to the original--big difference from a vertical control mark. The disk I found has the station name, and is where it should be, at least within the accuracy of my GPS. As I mentioned, I did not have the datasheet with me at the time, but it is also about where it should be in relation to the one reference mark that I did find. It would certainly appear, as Mike suggested, that the station was brought to the surface by a surveyor--whether with M-Dot or the NGS. I would submit that at first look, there is more evidence for the accuracy of what I found than there would be for logging a vertical control mark as "poor" when the disk is missing but the stem remains. If the consensus is that this should be a note, I will be happy to change it. That said, under the circumstances, I wouldn't log anything with the NGS. If and when I am able to return to this station WITH the datasheet and some time, I will attempt to take measurements from both reference marks 2 and 3 (RM1 is presumably also under concrete) and send an email to Deb with my observations. Quite obviously it is not what is described in the datasheet. Presumably the location is accurate, but without the documentation on the reset, I would leave it to her how it should be logged, if at all. EDIT: AZcachemeister, I would highly suspect that you are correct...but given what's there now, it's not likely ever to be seen again, which in my mind is unfortunate.
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