HIGH-GRADING THE DATA BASES

[kayakbird]

C/P from the current Yellowstone National Park discussion.

 

"THIS is the reason I asked my questions above (still waiting for a response - no tone - just saying)

 

I would love to visit yellowstone one day - but will really only want to hunt for marks never found or seen in 40 + years etc."

 

frex3wv,

 

Are you wondering how to paw through the masses of information in the data bases and the abundance of changing technology that will retrieve it?

 

For me 'old' means OTM (older that me), although I will shade into the mid 1940's for an 'IRON BENCH MARK'. Unique is wide open - I like copper bolts, chisel marks, GLO's, BPR's, early 1900's Precise Level Net strings that can be found in Special Publication #18 or other old Hypsometry reports , IBC marks along the Medicine Line (and a couple of strays in Utah), Magnetic Stations , State Survey, MORC, MRC, USLS, anything left behind by any of 'The Great Surveys of the American West', and a few others.

 

Early on I would download into Excel a county shape file from NGS and start doing sorts that would bring strings together and add in approximate dates for the UNK's. Two years ago LSUFan force fed me his GSAK primer which I really like because of its 'Placed By' column and I could run a multitude of filters >>>'AND STATE SURVEY', 'BPR', 'BRAZED', 'BRONZE ROD' (a few in Ariz, only one in WYO that is FLARED), ''CGS+SS', 'CHISELED', 'COPPER BOLT', 'FLARED' , 'IRON', 'IRON BENCH-' 'METAL TAG STAMPED', 'MORC', 'MRC', 'USE', 'USGLO', and a few others. <<<

 

After slicing and dicing it would then be exported into Excel where I would again float strings together and edit the UNK dates (one glitch in GSAK is that it does not recognize UNK and defaults to the first RECOVERY with a date). Now I could block up those marks of interest when I headed out on a road trip. Pretty much stopped cluttering up my Etex with pre-loads at this time and just drove until Lat/Long got close and started watching for the calls.

 

Just over a year ago I found out how easy it was to drop a string into DSWorld to have them pegged on Google Earth, so I'll navigate with that as long as my Verizon Air Card is getting a signal - can usually go far enough on what is stored in the lap-top to get signal again.

 

I guess that I know that there are ways of getting cellphone updates with various apps, but I do not own a phone. And I do wish that cell phone camera users would take greater care to produce a useable photo - not just a blob of something shiny set into something else.

 

If anyone has questions, I will be glad to respond off forum. kayakbird

[+frex3wv]

Thanks for the unofficial "shout out"!!!!

 

You seem to have an elaborate system there. Wishing I had even a 10th of your organization and system.

 

On my end I can barely deal with these faxed over USGS sheets! Oh, I was ok putting them in order in a 3 ring binder, but actually figuring them out.....UGH (but to my credit, slowly but surely its getting some easier.)