RTN expert Gavin Schrock provides everything you need to know about network-corrected real-time GNSS observations.
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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: America the Beautiful
After a rough wagon ride up to Pikes Peak in 1893, it was the view from the top that inspired Katharine Lee Bates to write a poem that became known as "America the Beautiful." Later set to music by Samuel Ward, its images have become part of our national conscience. Few there are who cannot sing at least one stanza of the four. It's no secret to .... Read the Article
Brass Caps and Bandanas—Monumenting Anaktuvuk Pass
The Inupiaq are Eskimo people that live along the Arctic Ocean coast of Alaska's North Slope. In the last few hundred years a nomadic splinter group of the Inupiaq known as the Nunamiut moved inland away from the coast to follow the Caribou migrations and settled at Chandler Lake and the Killik River in the .... Read the Article
GIS Mapping—Campus Style
When Craig Moore switched from the academic side of Virginia Tech in October 2004 to become an engineer for site development in the campus' Facilities Department, he inherited a GIS that was not easily updated, and maintaining it was a problem. As a result, "it trailed off to nothing," he said. At that time the system focused on ... Read the Article
Alleviating Poverty in the Developing World—Leveraging Property Rights with Geospatial Technology
According to renowned economist Hernando de Soto, the inability of persons worldwide to gain formal recognition of their real property rights is a major stumbling block to alleviating poverty. This lack of formal legal recognition of property rights is ... Read the Article
A Dividing Line Brings Us Together
Oh, the lines. The shortest distance between two points? A line pulled to ring a bell? A colonial boundary between two long forgotten counties? Lines of dialog in a television documentary? The lines marked of legal secession from an illegally seceded state? Soup lines during the depression? A line connecting a hook to .... Read the Article
Conference Review: Leica HDS 2009—Simplifying the Complicated
When GPS technology first began to filter into survey work, it was necessarily complex, depending, as it did, on satellites, atomic clocks, relativistic equations, and the like. Surveyors took this in stride and accepted that working with such arcane magic would always require expensive equipment, lengthy training, and endless hours of .... Read the Article
FeedBack
Clarification Regarding 2009 Manual: I found the article "Why a Federal Surveying Manual is Relevant to the States," by Steve Hansen intriguing [Sept. 2009]. I interpret the author to mean that the new manual soon to be published (2009) is binding on all recovery, restoration, and retracements of the Public Land Survey regardless of the date of ... Read the Comments
Vantage Point: Going Out with a Sigh
The story I'm about to relate took place over the space of seven months, and the outcome ratcheted up so much emotion that it was impossible to write at its last turning point. On October 1, 2009, the backhoes revved up their engines at 8 A.M. sharp, the earliest time allowed for such noise in my township, and La Ronda began falling to ... Read the Article
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A “Fixed” Fight: A peek inside one construction expert’s campaign to make fixed-price contracts and cost containment the industry’s new normal: Huge cost overruns and missed deadlines have long been the accepted norm for construction project operations. But as the economy struggles to fully recover, construction expert Barry LePatner stresses that these precepts can no longer define the nation’s most inefficient industry. He provides a proposal for hardwiring construction cost containment into future projects.
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