genegene

I HATE the new look. Its not as inviting as the last to updates to the home page. I now have to figure out how to find things all over again on the home page if I use it. Luckily I have bookmarked all the main things I use, so its easy to find them that way. Please change the home page back.....

I need to fix broken links that are affecting the Western Mass Geocachers website. I know where they are and in order for them to get fixed I need to update links that show up here on the forums. Sorry if I came off very rude, but I really don't like the new set up here on the forums and have been avoiding them as much as possible. I know that there is not much I can do about it. Even changing the button on the bottom makes it no easier. I just wish that they would put a forum topic back here for questions that can be answered quickly like this one was. Thank you everyone, Gene G.

Why is there a limited time?

Sorry for posting here but the new forums SUCK and I cant post anything to the website feedback because I cant figure out how to ask questions or post things there. I want to know how I can edit my past forum posts. I have broken links that I want to fix and some typos as well. There is no option to be able to do an edit and that is something that needs to be there. I know it used to be but where did it go?

Good News, I found the Benchmark today. Tosborn coords were dead on (my coords averaged N42 20.867 W073 07.186), but the height above the road is wrong. I would say its only 4 feet above the road. The only thing missing was the elevation on the disk. Thanks everyone for your help. Now I need to learn how to use that format so I can find more state BM's

Thank you to Southpawaz

Tosborn, Thank you very much the conversion. How in the world do I get that to show up on Mapsource (Mass Mainland State Plane). For the most part everything on the site is in that format, so knowing how to convert them would be a big help. I'm not sure why they said its 1.7 but from from the town line is actually more like 1.2 miles. Ill check when I'm there today.

I should be near here when its done right: N42 20.849 W73 07.175

MassHighway Geodetic Data Sheet Point ID: 4085 Quad Name: BECKET Station: TT 20 TDA Town: WASHINGTON Sketch(s) Available: No Last Recovery: - Published Values Horizontal NAD83 (Meters) Northing: - Easting: - NAD27 (U.S. Survey Ft.) Northing: 495260.38 Easting: 162031.90 Data Source NAD83: Data Source NAD27: MAGS-ADJ Order: 3rd State Plane Coordinate Zone: 2001 Vertical Elevation: 529.387 Meters Datum: NAVD88 Order: 2nd Elevation: - Datum: - Order: - Stamping: TT 20 TDA 1942 Marked By: USGS DISK IN LIMESTONE OUTCROP Description: 1.7 MI NORTHEAST OF BECKET, 150 FT SOUTHEAST OF "Y" ROAD EAST, 25 FT FROM CENTERLINE OF ROAD, 6 FT HIGHER THAN ROAD. To Reach: - Converted Values Horizontal NAD27 (U.S Survey Ft.) NAD27 (U.S Survey Ft.) Northing: Easting: NAD83/96 (Meters) NAD83/96 (Meters) Northing: Easting: Latitude (NAD83/96): Longitude (NAD83/96): Page1

Can someone please help me convert this page to something that makes sense? I have tried to do everything on mapsource, but nothing is working: I have no idea what I need to set mapsource up for and I'm hoping to go after this one tomorrow afternoon while I'm going to be in the area. The Data sheet says its a USGS disk as well, but I cant find it.. ---------------------------------------------- EDIT FOR BROKEN LINK = See following post

You can check with your state as well. Here in mass, the highway Dpt. has a very large list of marks that can be logged with them. I set up an account but have not logged one yet.

Here is an interesting bit of law: ----------------------------------- Chapter 1: Section 4. Commonwealth boundary markers; inspection, restoration and repair Section 4. The department of highways, in this chapter called the department, shall in the year nineteen hundred and thirty-five and in every fifth year thereafter inspect all monuments or other marks defining the location of the boundary lines of the commonwealth, and if any of them have been injured, displaced, removed or lost the department shall, in co-operation with persons duly authorized by the adjoining state, restore them or replace them with suitable stone monuments, and in the same manner set suitable stone monuments at points not properly marked where the state boundary is intersected by the boundary of any counties, cities or towns in the commonwealth or by a highway or railroad. If officers of adjoining states are required to make such inspection at other times, the department may co-operate with them. -------------------------------- Not sure when it was done last LOL

Hay PPF, I have been useing the topo maps a lot to help figure out where they might be/sould be. After looking more on my end of pictures I have taken of markers along roads crossing from one state to another I can now conferm that there are 5 that I know of that are not on the USGS maps. 3 are at: 42° 19.817 73° 25.125 42° 19.829 73° 25.121 42° 19.870 73° 25.106 One of the 5 (not listed) is a smaller marker with nothing on it but it lines up perfictly with the border. By the way the coords I listed are not dead on as I am useing google earth to give an idea as to where they are. When I do start my full treck I am going to let any porperty owners know what I am doing before going on there lands and get there permision first. Looking at the topo maps for the southwestern corner of Mass it looks like its going to be one heck of a hike.

They were set around the border with one side on mass and the other on the other states side. You may also find ones like this at town borders. It was quite common to see them there to. What does preambulation mean?

Here is another image of what is below what you are supposed to see on the markers.

Yup, these are the markers that I am referring to. As to what those two other marks on the top are, your guess is as good as mine right now. If I did have to guess I would say that they have something to with the town lines. Until I can get the paperwork there is no way to tell for sure.

I'm not sure if they could become NGS marks but it would be nice if they could. I'm mostly looking for help to get them formatted off of paper into a .gpx format. If the data is good enough for NGS marks that would be the added bonus. Im going to try and get a sample tomorow to see what is in them and post it here.

This past week I found out that the Mass Highway Survey and Layout Plans website has lots of data on Non NGS Benchmarks and some NGS marks that they have all over the State. Here is an example of one http://www.mhd.state.ma.us/mhds/main.asp?A...FEATUREIDS=4241 . This one is on the USGS Topo maps but not in the NGS Data sheets. There are many more marks that are on the Topo maps but not listed anywhere else but here on the Mass Highway site they are available to look up. That got me to thinking that the state boundary marks must be here somewhere as well. Here in the State of Massachusetts between the years of 1898 and 1916 the state marked there boundary's with nice granite markers almost 4ft tall with about 3 underground. I looked all around the site and could not find them, and the NGS only has a few of them listed on there list. There are 3 cachers including my self that enjoy looking for these marks when ever we are near the border and I have found 3 that are not listed on the USGS topo maps which leads me to believe that they were never entered into any data base. I sent a e-mail over them and got a reply back giving me all of the town boundary marks via another link to try, There were very few of those markers that I could use and most were not where they were not what I was looking for. I sent another e-mail back to them with images of what I was looking for in more detail. The very next day I got a phone call (yup, they called me) from the Mass Highway S&LP with good and bad news about my request. The good news is that they know exactly what I am looking for and have what I need. The bad news is that there is no .gpx file for them. Its all on paper and they don't have it read for the public yet. They have been slowly working on it for a while and my request is going to help them get the motivation to get it up a little faster. Once it is ready Michael is going to either send me the info or have it up on the site for me and send me the link some time after thanksgiving I know that Curt Crow who works for the NGS out here in Mass has been in the loop as to my request as his name is on the Cc when I got the reply from Michael. When I get all this info I would like to turn it into a .gpx file/files for north, south, west, and east if they put any on the coast. All of this data needs to be inputted into a format like GSAK (I recommend it) so it is easily can be turned into a .gpx format for your GPS. If I did all of this on my own it will take quite a bit of time to do, so I am asking for some help from fellow Benchmarkes and geocachers alike to help me mark all of this data for a GPS. Once I have all of the data complected I am planing on sending the completed list to both Michael and Curt so they have a list that is ready for them to enter into there data bases for easier access. If we wait for them to do it, it will take quite a bit of time since everyone is hurting in the government, State and Federal and they have to keep priorities first. I'm thinking that there are around 250 - 300 (I could be wrong though) I do not know if any or all of these new marks can be listed on the NGS website yet and am waiting for a reply back from Mr. Crow about them. So once I get this info, anyone want to help me on my task. Gene G.

I found this link while searching for something else and its an interesting read if you have not read it before. I'm sure it was posted on the forums here before but I couldn't find it so I'm dropping it in now/again. Message in a Bottle will take you to a story about the USC&GS dropping bottles in the water to see where they would pop up. They were tracking the Ocean Currents and there speed and learned about them more. This was a feature article in "The American Surveyor" March 2007 P.S. If anyone knows where I can get my hands on one of those bottles (besides looking along the beach) please let me know. I would love to add it to my collection of bottles and it would be a good conversation piece.

What if it is marked as a BM? MZ2056 1/1/1960 by CGS (FIRST OBSERVED) DESCRIBED BY COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY 1960 (HRL) STATION IS LOCATED IN THE NORTH-CENTRAL SECTION OF PITTSFIELD, ABOUT 185 FEET EAST-NORTHEAST OF THE INTERSECTION OF NORTH AND BRADFORD STREETS AND 0.15 MILE NORTH-NORTHEAST OF THE COMMON. STATION IS A CROSS THAT IS GOLD IN COLOR AND MOUNTED AT THE APEX OF A CUBICAL SHAPED SPIRE THAT IS MOUNTED ON THE TOP OF A 180 X 120 FOOT STONE BUILDING THAT IS WHITE IN COLOR. THE OVERALL HEIGHT OF THE CROSS IS APPROXIMATELY 200 FEET. POINT OBSERVED WAS THE CENTER OF THE CROSS.

Being a newbe to terms, what is an intersection station?

That's a good idea to get one of those. It will make it real easy to find it in the sand. Maybe I can find someone that would like to come out and help us look for it. We will try the conventional way of measuring first but if we have no luck that way we will cheat and use the radar. Maybe we can make a GC event as well and place a new marker over the original container if we can find it.

Here is a great pic of what thoes guys had to do.

When I go to look for the one while on vacation on the east coast of Mass. I am going to see if I can get Curt Crow of the NGS to join me in its hunt. It would be great to work with someone from the NGS and document its find (if it can be found). I haven't asked him yet so he doesn't know that I am going to ask him to join me. There are going to be a few issues I can see in getting to locate this one so far, 1) Depth may have changed over the past 160 years. 2) Stolen or broken pot. 3) Permission 3 = The location of the BM is located on the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. I have contacted them and was directed to the Refuge Manager and left a voice mail for him and what I would like to do. In order to look for it, someone from the NGS might have to be there on an official capacity to make it OK Its going to be a shot in the dark but its worth a look for a few hours. MY5277 1/1/1850 by CGS (MONUMENTED) DESCRIBED BY COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY 1850 (COB) THE STATION IS MARKED BY AN EARTHENWARE CONE, EMBEDDED IN THE EARTH 3 FEET BELOW THE SURFACE. 1/1/1934 by MAGS (SEE DESCRIPTION) RECOVERY NOTE BY MASSACHUSETTS GEODETIC SURVEY 1934 STATION IS SITUATED NEAR THE MIDPOINT OF PLUM ISLAND. THE OLD DESCRIPTIONS MENTIONS ONLY AN UNDERGROUND MARK FOR THE STATION AND SINCE THE VICINITY IS PRACTICALLY UNINHABITED AT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR, NO ONE COULD BE FOUND TO FURNISH ANY INFORMATION AS TO ITS WHEREABOUTS.

Here are a few of my finds that I like the most. MZ0502 close up MZ0502 with arrow. The light you see at the other end of the tunnel is sun light and not a train in case you were wondering.. Benchmark KU2480 is the big tower in the background middle. This photo was taken from BM KU2378 which is the second pic.