Product Review: Altus APS-3
A few short years ago it appeared that the precision GPS equipment manufacturing market was going to be controlled by just three or four companies. Mergers, acquisitions and partnerships consolidated the market at a rapid pace, with no new companies entering the ... Read the Article
Hardware Review: Magellan Professional ProMark500 RTK
It's nice to pick up a piece of equipment that works right out of the box. That was my experience with the Magellan Professional ProMark500 RTK system. Building on the blade technology that made the ProMark3 RTK system such a capable L1-only RTK system, the .... Read the Article
Hardware & Software Review: Carlson Surveyor and SurvCE
If you're in the market for an extremely durable, fast, comfortable and well-equipped data collector, check out the Carlson Surveyor. Based on drafting specifications by the folks at Carlson Software and using the very reputable people at Juniper Systems to make it a reality, this unique data collector merits ... Read the Article
Equipment Review: JAVAD GNSS Triumph-1
In the world of precision GPS, Javad Ashjaee continues to push the industry ahead with new technologies and new options. With roots that date back to the early days of Trimble Navigation, Javad was integral to the creation of the first combined GPS/ GLONASS system. More than a decade ago he was .... Read the Article
Equipment Review: Spectra Precision EPOCH 25 GPS System
The EPOCH 25 GPS System, manufactured by Spectra Precision, is a unique system that markets to a unique customer base. Priced in the neighborhood of $25k for a complete system, the term return on investment doesn't sound so dauntingespecially for those who are only now considering entering the GPS market. Of course, anytime ... Read the Article
Equipment Review: ProMark3 RTK from Magellan Professional
The ProMark3 RTK is Magellan's latest precision, entry-level system, offering real-time kinematic power in a system that is substantially less expensive than dual-frequency RTK packages. The ProMark3 is a rugged Windows CE device (Fig. 1). Other than the operating system itself (CE.Net v4.2), most of the Windows applications have ... Read the Article
Equipment Review: Leica System 1200 (Part 2 of 2)
The Smart Antenna is a lightweight device that includes a GPS/GLONASS (GG models) or GPS-only antenna and receiver. For connectivity, it includes a wireless Bluetooth port, a LEMO port, and a clip port for attaching to the TPS1200+ Smart Station handle. It is powered by the ... Read the Article
Equipment Review: Leica System 1200 (Part 1 of 2)
Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor once said, "You've got a jet engine and you've got a riding lawn mower. It was only a matter of time until someone put those two together." Jet-powered riding lawn mowers notwithstanding, many of the new technological developments going on around us are built on nothing more than ... Read the Article
Product Review: Spectra Precision FOCUS 10
The Spectra Precision's FOCUS 10 brings back a lot of memories from an instrument I reviewed several years ago. Without a doubt, the FOCUS 10 has benefited from the former, but is updated and less expensive even in terms of 2002 dollars. And that's a good thing, since many more surveyors will be ... Read the Article
Product Review: SECO Poles and Prisms
Tired of prism pole slippage and non-adjustable prism pole bubble levels? Tired of tilting prism target assemblies that slip as you are walking back to the instrument or having to lift the prism pole out of the bipod ring, or not being able to adjust the "spring" out of your setup and finding it has gone out of level by the ... Read the Article
Product Review: Nomad by Tripod Data Systems
The Nomad is the newest handheld computer from Tripod Data Systems (TDS). It shares a strong resemblance to its predecessor, the Recon, which was first introduced based on a couple of relatively new approaches to field data collection and data manipulation. Although common variety personal digital assistants (PDAs) had been ... Read the Article
Product Review: CST/berger CST-Series Total Station
In this installment, I review a CST/berger CST-205 total station, which is targeted for the construction stakeout market. After spending some time with the CST-205, I have concluded that it is well suited to that task, and in addition, I believe it will find much wider acceptance and usage, based on cost as ... Read the Article
Editorial: Maps as a Metaphor
"I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us--everything that exists--proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision." There are many surveyors and mappers and members of the precision community who concur with these words of Thomas Edison. Economy, too, hangs on immutable laws. One of the .... Read the Article
Measuring a Caribbean Disaster
On January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the city of Port-au-Prince, the capital and largest city of Haiti. Tens of thousands of buildings collapsed, and more than 200,000 people died in the disaster. Earthquakes are not unexpected in Haiti. The country sits astride several fault lines, among them the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault .... Read the Article
3D-Laser Scanning and Surveying Collide
LandAir Surveying started business in 1988 performing site surveys and topographic surveys for contractors in Georgia and surrounding states with two survey crews and a total staff of less than 10. By 1998 the firm expanded to surveying cell tower sites for the telecommunications industry (more than 3,000 sites in four years) using ... Read the Article
Another Triumph!
He's done it again. Javad Ashjaee has released an impressive state-of-the-art product that enables surveyors to expand their GNSS capabilities. On June 29, 2010 Javad unveiled the Triumph VS at the company's 40,000 square foot newly designed headquarters and JAVAD EMS boardmanufacturing facility in San Jose, California. Over the decades ... Read the Article
Product Review: Hemisphere GPS R220
One of the recent trends in precision GPS manufacturing is the enclosed, fully integrated receiver. This is no doubt in response to market demands by surveyors in the field for gear that offers more durability and less complexity in setting up and getting to work. This trend has certainly offered surveyors many benefits, however, it has also ushered in a few limitations. For instance, many of these ... Read the Article
Comprehensive Collection
Recording the location, dimensions and physical attributes of every piece of equipment constituting rural utilities throughout the United States might seem like a tall order. But information tools used to build a GIS have advanced so much in recent years that the endeavor is not only possible, but plausible. Great Falls, Montana-based GeoNav Group International, Inc. recently acquired the technology to pull .... Read the Article
Feedback
Doing a Proper Job: I have a better reason for the legal profession insisting on a metes and bounds descriptions for dependent resurveys than clerk mentality or ancient check lists. In his article "Rewriting Legal Descriptions" [Vol. 7, Num. 4], Gary Kent's example of "the most egregious example of description rewriting is the preparation of a metes and bound description for a property that is a lot in ... Read the Comments
Vantage Point: "Just" What?
Several months ago my husband and I were working on a rail to trail conversion in our neighborhood, digging out debris and planting trees. At one point I was separating the junk found in the digging process from the recyclable beer cans and glass bottles when someone walked up and started talking to me. With my head still down, in the midst of trying to subdue a long strand of barbed wire into a ... Read the Article
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