rusty0101

I would consider this to be a destroyed benchmark. The primary reason for that interpretation is that it is not in the location where it was placed, even if your GPS took you right to it, I do not think it could be used as a triangulation station, a reference mark to another benchmark, or a mark indicating the altitude of the station. As a result it does not suite any of it's original intended tasks. I think that counts as destroyed. If it is on top of, or in amoungst a pile of rocks, a surveyor is unlikely to consider it to be suitable for re-use with new coordinates, as the rocks were obviously moved at one time in the past, and are suseptable to later movement. Fields where rocks have been pulled out of, tend to grow more rocks that have to be pulled later. I seem to recall that the technical term for this is frost heaving, but I may be wrong. Condition here would be poor. Condition at NGS would need to be determined by yourself and NGS. -Rusty

I search for benchmarks generally in one direction from my home at a time, looking for clusters of them to find. My area is not saturated with searchers yet, so I don't have many listed that are already visited, and when one is listed as visited, I tend to ignore it. I am not at all averse to spires, towers, skyscrapers or watertowers, as at times I have found some of them to be destroyed, and this should be reported. Many make great pictures to show or post as well. If I am going to be visiting a relative, I plan my trip so I have some time before I am expected to be there, or after I leave that I can look for benchmarks in that area. If I know or suspect that the relative or friend may have an interest I let them know about the hobby as well. It is only in the past couple of weeks that I have started to report recoveries to the NSG. For these, I happily report any type as recovered, and make a special effort to report as best as possible the condition of any I find damaged or destroyed. There are a couple of marks that I suspect are destroyed, but I don't know for sure. These I just note on the benchmark page for that pid here, not at NGS. -Rusty

... BM (bookmark) that picture of the BM (Benchmark) with the BM .... and so forth... The series could be drawn out indefinately. -Rusty

quote:Originally posted by Web-ling:I'd say go ahead and log it. Jeremy has stated in another thread that retroactive finds are allowed and even encouraged. So logging a watertower you've seen before would seem within reason, if you want to. http://img.Groundspeak.com/user/25021_1200.gif That being the case, might I recomend someone who has been there, or has a picture of themselves with it in the background, logging the World Trade Center Towers. Last I looked, the benchmark had a log noting that something shoule be done with the record, perhaps marked as destroyed if that were possible. While I have not been there, I have a very hard time believing that none of us were there in the years they existed. -Rusty

quote:Originally posted by Web-ling:I'd say go ahead and log it. Jeremy has stated in another thread that retroactive finds are allowed and even encouraged. So logging a watertower you've seen before would seem within reason, if you want to. http://img.Groundspeak.com/user/25021_1200.gif That being the case, might I recomend someone who has been there, or has a picture of themselves with it in the background, logging the World Trade Center Towers. Last I looked, the benchmark had a log noting that something shoule be done with the record, perhaps marked as destroyed if that were possible. While I have not been there, I have a very hard time believing that none of us were there in the years they existed. -Rusty

...but a benchmark would be a great starting point for a geocache. I would hesitate to use a flip top benchmark as a geocache as I suspect that they are some of the most used benchmarks for surveying, and a surveyor not aware of the game may get uptight about it. Sort of like having a geocache in a very public location. If you don't put a sheet explaining the game in the cache, you are likely to loose it. There is alredy a link on the benchmark pages to nearby geocaches, so the system is effectively all ready to go. It is not at all unusual for there to be good cover for a ground cache near a bencmark. You could even go the Start 500 meters due east of benchmark xxnnnn and go due north through the 20 foot tall wall... Have fun. -Rusty p.s. might even be fun for a company exercise. each team sets up a cache, squads compete with each other for shortest recovery time, platoons compete against each other for most challenging location. The team that emplaces the cache must recover the cache using mapreading and compass. Since everyone is in the same company, unit patches would not be good cache fodder, but might be once the game gets out of the batalion level. Perhaps team ribbons, and the team that collects the most other teams ribbons would be the winner.

...but a benchmark would be a great starting point for a geocache. I would hesitate to use a flip top benchmark as a geocache as I suspect that they are some of the most used benchmarks for surveying, and a surveyor not aware of the game may get uptight about it. Sort of like having a geocache in a very public location. If you don't put a sheet explaining the game in the cache, you are likely to loose it. There is alredy a link on the benchmark pages to nearby geocaches, so the system is effectively all ready to go. It is not at all unusual for there to be good cover for a ground cache near a bencmark. You could even go the Start 500 meters due east of benchmark xxnnnn and go due north through the 20 foot tall wall... Have fun. -Rusty p.s. might even be fun for a company exercise. each team sets up a cache, squads compete with each other for shortest recovery time, platoons compete against each other for most challenging location. The team that emplaces the cache must recover the cache using mapreading and compass. Since everyone is in the same company, unit patches would not be good cache fodder, but might be once the game gets out of the batalion level. Perhaps team ribbons, and the team that collects the most other teams ribbons would be the winner.

Visited my dad this weekend, and spent some time out looking for some benchmarks in his area. Of the six I found, and 1 found destroyed, I would say that there are five that could warrent attention. With the first one, ON0782, the mark itself was OK, however one of the reference marks shows serious damage. Too the point of being considered destroyed. As the RM does not have a distinct PID, reporting the damage requires awareness that the damage does not make the TSD unusable. Though it may be considered to be in a risky area. The next two are just off of a runway for a local airstrip. Remember to check the Data Sheet for a contact, follow common sense when working in these areas (Be a hunter, wear blaze orange, and if possible a hard hat. They really are not that hard to find, check Sears, or expensive.) ON1300 & ON1301. My fourth was a church spire that was destroyed two years after the last time the mark had been recovered. I found that it was interesting to find out when and why the church was destroyed. I also had the opportunity to explain why I was recovering benchmarks. In this case the person I was explaining it to was involved in the church that this one was combined with, and when I explained that a surveyor coming into the area, with the out-dated information, may mistakenly try to use the wrong spire to try to verify new work that is being done, she understood immediately that doing so could put the surveyor in entirely the wrong place. ON0788 The last mark that I visited is another church spire. This one poses a slightly different problem, in that the church it is part of, is undergoing renovation. Unfortunately one of those renovations is going to re-align the tower. The reason for this is that the foundation sill for the tower is believed to be rotting, and the people working to preserve the church believe that this should be corrected. For surveyors this can pose two different problems. One is that over some period of time the spire has moved from it's original constrution (possibly in 1866 along with the rest of the church) through the benchmark being first observed in 1960, through today. In this case I doubt that movement has been great, possibly a shift of 2-5 inches, however for near observations this may affect the percieved location of work being done under survey. None of the images I have seen give me a good feel for how much the tower/spire has moved, nor when that movement may have begun. ON0942 This is another mark that would support further investigation. I did not have the time today to do that, but I do expect to make more trips into the area. -Rusty

If you find that a bm has been reset, and you do not find any narrative that explains that it was destroyed, you might want to attempt to recover it on a weekend that you have nothing else planned for. If you do want to try that, start by noting on a Topographical map any high spots that are in the area. It is possible that on a day when the surveyor logged the find he transposed a digit, or put down a 2 then logged it as a 7. If you have the time to plan it out ahead of time, locate on a topographic map the features that the surveyor used as reference points for the PID, and reverse the measurements from those reference points. Of course if he botched one measurement up, he very well may have botched another. The surveyor may have had an apprentice along who wrote down magnetic degree measurements when he should have used true degree measurements. Or thought he was using magnetic and miss-converted. There are possibly thousands of places where the BM may be, but starting with high points that can see the reference marks should improve your likelyhood of finding the original mark. It is possible that you will still not find the Benchmark. There may be a new highway passing through that was not logged, or someone may have placed a Home Depot on that location. Use the experience to help you find other benchmarks that you may not have spotted before. Also carefully read the description. If the mark is a Cut of some sort in a stone, and was placed over 50 years ago, you can figure that the mark may have litchen, or dirt over it now. Have fun. -Rusty

If you find a scaled benchmark, you may wish to consider recovering the benchmark to the NGS. As part of your recovery print off a copy of the web page used to log/recover the benchmark specifically this form. Fill out what information you can, while you let a GPS settle on the benchmark. From what I have been reading, that can take 20 min or so, so sit down, celebrate by eating that sandwich you brought along, fill in the form, Take a few measurements from anthing that looks like it is new and will stick around for a while, notice that the tree they said was a 20" oak in 1965 is now a 30" oak, etc. Log the Lat and Lon in hddd mm ss.s form (note the datum your GPS is reporting as well) This is perhaps more important on benchmarks that you find that were reported lost, are estimated from an earlier datum, or that are scalled off of a topographic map rather than derived from other benchmarks. Then again, I could be wrong. -Rusty

take a look at the responses in the thread opened by harmie with a substantially similar name. The brief answer is that you are generally correct. A light is a device placed over the benchmark to allow surveyors to find the benchmark from a distance away where there may be ground obstructions. The height generally ranges from 1.5 meters for a tripod mounted light or reflector to as high as 33 meters for towers that are assembled over the benchmark for the survey work to be done. These are not absolutes in that a light may be an existing light on a building that is less than 1.5 meters above the benchmark, or may be the beacon at the top of a 100 meter radio tower, otherwised used to warn off aircraft. -Rusty

Ok, first of all, I spent several minutes collecting one piece of statistics that does affect how I use the pages. My zip code is 55426. When I punch that in to the search window I get to take a bit of a break while I download the 746 benchmarks within 10 miles of me. I additionally get to take a break every time I back up to this page from one of the pid pages. First suggestion. PID links as popups. Click on a pid and it opens a new window by default. (this may be result count affected, if there are less than 200 results, perhaps users would not be immediately impacted, but I would expect that if I am seeing delays on my broadband connections at 700+ results, dialup users will see delays on anything over 50 results.) Second suggestion, break up results into multiple pages (like the forums, where there are 20 threads per page, or so) perhaps 50 benchmarks per page. Third suggestion, allow user configurable distances. My sister once lived in a place where the zipcode comes up with 26 benchmarks within ten miles. That sounds like about a two week project to find and log them, if it wern't for the fact that it is really out of my way. Added Features, I would like to be able to sort or filter the results by the different fields. Things like sorting by a compass direction(N,NE,NW,E,W,SE,SW,S...), or Type (Spires, Water Tank, Nail Head, Disk, etc.) I think it would be nice to be able to put together a table or spreadsheet of the results in a useful format. Perhaps a table showing what is already in the results, with the addition of the lat/lon for the pid, as not all of us use a GPS, and some of us that do, use operating systems that we are not aware of a easyGPS or expertGPS package existing for (linux for example) Lastly (for now) a request that will require a bit more coding work than any of the above. I infrequently travel quite some distance to visit family. I would like to be able to take along my GPS, capture a set of "tracks" for my trip, then either upload those tracks, or a subset of those tracks and collect a set of waypoints that are within a user specified distance from the tracks. That distance may be 100 meters, 1000 meters, or 1 mile, (or even more.) That way the next few times I make that trip I have suggested points to take a break from driving, do a bit of benchmark hunting, or even geocaching. I already have to make stops for my dogs, this would give me additional incentives. A variation on this, that would be handy for non-gps enabled benchmark hunters, would be to be able to get the URL from a mapqwest directions page, or for thos GPS' that have mapping software, feed that into a benchmark search window and get a list of benchmarks along the way. Ok, those are just some ideas for enhancements. I would love to see all of them, but I understand that some of these would take a significant amount of time. It's just a suggestion, not a requirement. -Rusty

Ok, first of all, I spent several minutes collecting one piece of statistics that does affect how I use the pages. My zip code is 55426. When I punch that in to the search window I get to take a bit of a break while I download the 746 benchmarks within 10 miles of me. I additionally get to take a break every time I back up to this page from one of the pid pages. First suggestion. PID links as popups. Click on a pid and it opens a new window by default. (this may be result count affected, if there are less than 200 results, perhaps users would not be immediately impacted, but I would expect that if I am seeing delays on my broadband connections at 700+ results, dialup users will see delays on anything over 50 results.) Second suggestion, break up results into multiple pages (like the forums, where there are 20 threads per page, or so) perhaps 50 benchmarks per page. Third suggestion, allow user configurable distances. My sister once lived in a place where the zipcode comes up with 26 benchmarks within ten miles. That sounds like about a two week project to find and log them, if it wern't for the fact that it is really out of my way. Added Features, I would like to be able to sort or filter the results by the different fields. Things like sorting by a compass direction(N,NE,NW,E,W,SE,SW,S...), or Type (Spires, Water Tank, Nail Head, Disk, etc.) I think it would be nice to be able to put together a table or spreadsheet of the results in a useful format. Perhaps a table showing what is already in the results, with the addition of the lat/lon for the pid, as not all of us use a GPS, and some of us that do, use operating systems that we are not aware of a easyGPS or expertGPS package existing for (linux for example) Lastly (for now) a request that will require a bit more coding work than any of the above. I infrequently travel quite some distance to visit family. I would like to be able to take along my GPS, capture a set of "tracks" for my trip, then either upload those tracks, or a subset of those tracks and collect a set of waypoints that are within a user specified distance from the tracks. That distance may be 100 meters, 1000 meters, or 1 mile, (or even more.) That way the next few times I make that trip I have suggested points to take a break from driving, do a bit of benchmark hunting, or even geocaching. I already have to make stops for my dogs, this would give me additional incentives. A variation on this, that would be handy for non-gps enabled benchmark hunters, would be to be able to get the URL from a mapqwest directions page, or for thos GPS' that have mapping software, feed that into a benchmark search window and get a list of benchmarks along the way. Ok, those are just some ideas for enhancements. I would love to see all of them, but I understand that some of these would take a significant amount of time. It's just a suggestion, not a requirement. -Rusty

but I think it would indicate that the disk is monumented as the 50,007th benchmark for the company emplacing it. I suspect the dayglow paint was an effort to keep the construction crews from destroying it, as well as an aid to the survey crew re-locating it at later phases of the construction. Then again, I could be wrong. -Rusty

If your ISP gives you some online storage for a personal website, why not use some mirroring software to update new photos to your own website, then put links to the photos, or individual pages in your found descriptions. If you feel it necessary to have the photos on the benchmark page, check through the available formats, and see if you can find a format that you can upload in with low bandwidth requirements that still looks good when viewed from the web page. You may want to try a couple of different image manipulation software packages to convert the photos. You may also want to consider cropping images of the benchmark itself down to reduce the size of the image. Just a couple of ideas. -Rusty

Looks like we crossed 7000 benchmarks found in the past day or two, so we are under 3000 benchmarks to find before we go over 10,000 benchmarks. Will we do that...

For many people it would make no difference whether GeoCaching became an approved agency for filing reports to NGS. They will continue to file such reports regardless of whether GeoCaching is approved or not. Likewise there are many GeoCaching members who are not one bit concerned about whether their benchmark finds ever get back to the NGS. They will conginue to file reports on the GeoCaching Benchmarks pages. There are some people who are interested in filing reports to the NGS (note that as I understand it, filing a find on the GeoCaching Benchmarks database will not automatically file a find to the NGS) and want to feel that they are part of a group of people who are recognized as having an interest in Physical Geography. At the moment, GeoCaching.com or any name related to GeoCaching.com is not recognized as an approved agency for filing reports to the NGS, meaning that any of us who are not part of some other agency pretty much have to file as an individual. There is nothing wrong with this, and it should not be frowned upon, as it does indicate that the person has an interest in the subject. The sense of community that we have in the forums here, as well as amoungst Geocachers in general would be nice to have recognized by others. That is realy about the only reason to consider having GeoCaching as an approved agency. I happen to think that is a sufficient reason. Even if I never file a report to the NGS. The fact that GeoCaching is an organization that the NGS recognizes, would give me an additional sense of pride. I don't "need" this, but I find it an attractive idea. You may have your own reasons one way or another. These are just mine. -Rusty

While there is no way to record a find, recovery, or discovered destroyed, benchmark that is not in the geocaching database, at the geocaching site, that does not mean you should not log, or keep track of benchmarks you have found. At a bare minimum, get a notebook and record what information you can about the benchmark. I recomend visiting the location on three or more seprate occasions with your GPS, to average your location readings. If you have a camera, get pictures of the benchmark to record the condition. If possible, find out what agency emplaced that benchmark, and see if that agency has an online database where you can record such information. If you have the time and wherewithall, build a database of your own to keep track of benchmarks you have found. This can be anything from a windows 3.1 cardfile, through a sql database. Look at the information that is recorded for a geocache benchmark find as the bare minimum that you will want to track beyond a cardfile database. You will probably want to be able to sort it based upon several criterion, as well as be able to querie it in such a way as to get maps from various online map providers. The benchmarking home page here indicates that Geocaching is looking into tracking this information, just has not had the time and materials to do so. Having a good log of your own experiences would help you post your discoveries if or when that option is available. Good luck and happy benchmarking. -Rusty

... based upon what we do as part of locating benchmarks, I am not sure what part of the definition of surveying we would be violating. I am reasonably certain that the definition of surveying does not fall under the UCTA, which means that it is eithar a federal law defining it, or each individual state has different regulations. Since you indicate that it requires a state licence, I would tend to suspect the latter. In any case, either what we are doing would not qualify as surveying, or geocaching would also be illegal under the laws that define benchmark hunting as illegal. Note that there are other laws such as public safety, private property trespassing, and workspace hazards that may come into play. I may be wrong, but my understanding of surveying is that so long as we are not attempting to define legal boundries for private or public land, or map out right of ways, etc., we are not "surveying" in the legal sense of the word. As I say, I accept that I may be wrong. -rusty

A message indicating that we have gone below 730000? As I write this we are at 730079 to go, with 6346 found... -Rusty

For safety reasons I am not going to find the actual mark. After reading the description, and observing the location, I do not think that it would be advisable to photograph the actual benchmark, or for that matter make an accurate observation. The Transit Station Disk is on the shoulder of what is now I-394. The traffic level may be low enough to visit this disk some time after midnight, but I can not envision any time during the day that it would be safe to spend time at it. Additionally there is a 45-60 degree slope to the immediate south of the disk, (expaining the safety rail described) which drops down approximately 30' to a service road. There is a fence separating them as well. All in all, I do not think this would be a safe mark to "find" for an amature. On top of that the Mall that is on the other side of the service road houses both mall security and one of the city's police stations. My understanding is that unless I have a permit, and follow OSHA regulations, visiting this benchmark would violate some law. With regards to the reference marks, The first reference mark as far as I can tell is in a fenced off area marked private property. I can (and possibly will) check with the mall people to see if they are the right people to allow access. Reference Mark 2 is where it is described, with the understanding that the building is currently unocupied, and the signs marking the building as described have been reversed (plexiglass sign painted with the business name, turned so that the writing faces the wall, but if you can read upside down writing, it can be made out.) Once I have the film developed and scanned, I will post pictures of that, but will indicate that the Mark is still "unfound". There are a couple of other marks that I will look for in the next couple of days that I expect to be significantly easier to find. -Rusty

For safety reasons I am not going to find the actual mark. After reading the description, and observing the location, I do not think that it would be advisable to photograph the actual benchmark, or for that matter make an accurate observation. The Transit Station Disk is on the shoulder of what is now I-394. The traffic level may be low enough to visit this disk some time after midnight, but I can not envision any time during the day that it would be safe to spend time at it. Additionally there is a 45-60 degree slope to the immediate south of the disk, (expaining the safety rail described) which drops down approximately 30' to a service road. There is a fence separating them as well. All in all, I do not think this would be a safe mark to "find" for an amature. On top of that the Mall that is on the other side of the service road houses both mall security and one of the city's police stations. My understanding is that unless I have a permit, and follow OSHA regulations, visiting this benchmark would violate some law. With regards to the reference marks, The first reference mark as far as I can tell is in a fenced off area marked private property. I can (and possibly will) check with the mall people to see if they are the right people to allow access. Reference Mark 2 is where it is described, with the understanding that the building is currently unocupied, and the signs marking the building as described have been reversed (plexiglass sign painted with the business name, turned so that the writing faces the wall, but if you can read upside down writing, it can be made out.) Once I have the film developed and scanned, I will post pictures of that, but will indicate that the Mark is still "unfound". There are a couple of other marks that I will look for in the next couple of days that I expect to be significantly easier to find. -Rusty

quote:Originally posted by harmie:at the bottom of the ngs data sheets some of them give the term height of light above mark can anyone tell me what height of light above mark means or is and how it can be used to help find benchmarks There are several records marked this way in my area, and so far as I have been able to tell they do not have any structures that have lights on them. An example is PP2722 which has an indication of a light above mark of 1.5 meters. I may be wrong, and Survey Tech could probably give abetter explanation, but I believe this indicator is for doing survey work from this site. When a surveyor sets up, he will place a tripod over the mark, and mount a "light" on the tripod. The light may be a physical light for working at night, but will more likely be a laser target that the surveyor will aim a laser rangefinder at to find the distance from the mark he is working at. The added 1.5 meters has to be taken into consideration when attempting to determine the vertical change between the benchmark and the point being surveyed. For most measurements this will be accounted for by the fact that the rangefinder will also usually be on a tripod 1.5 meters off the surface, however if there is a reason that this hight will be different, say an obstruction that the surveyr has to work above or below, changing the hight at the survyors location, he may have to adjust. If he has to adjust, he is no longer working with a parallogram to come up with the correct location, he is working with a trapazoid. That trapazoid has at least three known side lengths, and two known angles, which means that with a little triganometry you can get the correct measurement, even for an obstructed location. For benchmark hunters, this type of a light notice is not very useful, unless you find some indication that the light above the mark is part of the structure the benchmark is also part of. That's just my opinion, I could be wrong. -Rusty

TC0845. There are a couple of others to the north, however based upon the link to the map link provided earlier, they appear to be in Canada, not the US. This is one of a string of boundry markers for us/ca, I belive the other two are as well, however since they appear to be in Canada, I would say it disqualifies them. That's just my opinion. YOu are welcome to your own. -Rusty

I think that is the question that would need to be adressed. If I go out with a recreational GPS, tape measure, and find a benchmark as described in the documentation, that information can be provided as a status update indicating to the NGS that the benchmark still exists as described. If I also take yellow crayon, and camera, and take a picture that provides useful information about the condition of the benchmark, that also would be useful information. Including the information about the Lat and Lon of the benchmark, as your gps reports it, allong with the resolution your gps is reporting, would be of less importance to the NGS, because of the problems of accuracy. Of greatest importance that we can provide is an indication of the condition of the benchmark. Does it still exist, or was it removed as part of rebuilding the road it was originally part of? Did the building the benchmark was a part of burn down 10 years ago, and there is now a completely different structure there? Did someone bring along a hacksaw blade, and cut the benchmark off of it's mounting point? I don't know that these are of major concern to the NGS, but I suspect that condition and existance are of more concern to them than the fact that your gps shows the location to be fifty feet from the reported location. Especially if it is located exactly as described in comparison to the reference markers that were described. Then again, I could be wrong. -Rusty