Confused, Please Help

[ffjerm]

Was hunting for a benchmark today and ran into a snag. I was hoping someone could clarify something for me. I found both of the reference marks, but could not locate the mark itself. I searched a large area surrounding the reference marks, but no luck. The notes weren't much help because they didn't list the direction from which the reference marks were in relation to the benchmark.

 

As I understood it, the arrows on the reference marks point to the benchmark. Is this true? If so, it would make the search area much smaller. Any assistance and/or past experiences would be appreciated.

 

Thanks - Jeremy

[+Black Dog Trackers]

Yes it is true. The ref. marks point toward the station.

[TerraVador]

It helps to see the original Datasheet for the mark. On the Geocaching.com page for the benchmark, click on the link that says "view original datasheet". It is near the top of the page. Or , you can get the most current version of the datasheet directly from the NGS at:

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/datasheet.prl

 

On the Datasheet for Triangulation Stations, you will find a box like this:

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PID Reference Object Distance Geod. Az

BM0049 SMETANA RM 1 43.233 METERS 08829

BM0047 SMETANA AZ MK 0922642.4

BM0050 SMETANA RM 2 44.983 METERS 34707

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This gives the exact bearing (Geod. AZ) from the Station to the Reference Marks and Azimuth Mark, and the exact distance to the reference marks.

 

Which Triangulation Station (benchmark) were you looking for?

[+Colorado Papa]

I presume you are looking for COSY (PID EV3703) on forest land. From the description, sounds like quite a challenge to get to this one. The description also made it sound like it should have been pretty obvious. You might be right that it is gone.

 

The EV3703 NGS Datasheet gives the following info:

 

EV3703| PID Reference Object Distance Geod. Az

EV3703| dddmmss.s

EV3703| CC3515 COSY RM 1 5.795 METERS 13800

EV3703| EV3702 CALO APPROX. 2.2 KM 1424449.1

EV3703| EV3668 SAN SEVAINE CANYON MICROWAVE APPROX. 9.9 KM 2151327.7

EV3703| CC3516 COSY RM 2 4.090 METERS 28125

EV3703| EV3700 CAJON SUMMIT LOOKOUT HOUSE APPROX. 6.8 KM 3502052.5

 

Notice RM1 is 5.795 meters (about 19 feet) and RM2 is 4.09 meters (about 13 feet) from the triangulation station.

Edited March 10, 2004 by Colorado Papa

[ffjerm]

thanks Terra, Black Dog and Colorado for the advise. I didn't realize i could get the additional info from NGS. I'll will surely use this in the future. You were correct, for I was looking for COSY. I'm pretty sure I searched the right area well. I may try to return for a second look.

 

Thanks again - Jeremy

[+Black Dog Trackers]

Unfortunately, not all PIDs have distance and azimuth values for their reference marks. All you get is the arrow. Also, lots of reference marks aren't a disk and therefore don't even have an arrow. However, it is good to look for this data if a PID has reference marks. Unfortunately, GC.com didn't import this reference mark data, but hopefully they will fix that when they do their next update from the NGS database, whenever that is.