RTN expert Gavin Schrock provides everything you need to know about network-corrected real-time GNSS observations.
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Our cover this month pays tribute to a group of Wyoming surveyors who organized an expedition to Surveyor's Notch in the Wind River Mountain Range, following the footsteps of the Hayden expedition's surveyor/topographer/cartographer A.D. Wilson and crew (pp. 10 & 12). On those days when you're feeling stressed and thinking that your boss has given you just a bit too much to do, consider the assignment given to Clarence King, who at age 25 was made geologist-in-charge of the exploration of the 40th parallel, in which cartographer A.D. Wilson took part. King was ordered "to examine and describe the geological structure, geographical condition and natural resources of a belt of country extending from the 120th meridian eastward to the 105th meridian, along the 40th parallel of latitude with sufficient expansion north and south to include the lines of `Central' and `Union Pacific' railroads . . . " [excerpt from the David Rumsey online collection highlighting Clarence King's report, as well as the map "Rocky Mountains, Map 1 (Topographical), by A.D. Wilson, 1876].
Unlicensed Practice
Our own writer Jerry Penry also wrote about the 40th parallel where it intersects the Continental Divide in our July/August 2007 issue, and has written a variety of articles on fascinating survey history that can be accessed in the Archives or History sections on our website. Penry and his Nebraska colleagues have conducted so many survey expeditions that he created his own website detailing the efforts of his group in recovering, preserving and documenting the marks and monuments they have found (go to www.penryfamily.com/surveying/main.html). But, whoa Nellie, Jerry doesn't just limit himself to penning articles about history. This issue includes an article about unlicensed practice. I receive the Board newsletters for the five states in which I'm licensed, and while my sense is that Board involvement generally involves unlicensed engineering, not unlicensed surveying, surveyors most often seem to run afoul of minimum standards. Still, it is up to us to register complaints with the Board to go after the unlicensed practice of surveying.
Astronomic Obs
Stepping back a bit in time, another article in this issue details the history of Elgin, Knowles & Senne, a Missouri company who developed software to enable us to easily make sun and star shots before GPS came along. Those of you who have done this, working the formulas prior to computers, know how time-consuming it was. On one of my recent road trips I interviewed Dick Elgin, and we'll publish that article later on in the year. Dick has really been a positive force in the industry as a teacher and mentor.
Speaking of teachers and mentors, as Father's Day approaches, many of us will reflect on the influences and impact our fathers and others had on our lives. In turn, each of us will leave behind a personal and professional legacy of teaching and/or mentoring of our own. May our footsteps provide clear and respectable paths for others to follow.
Marc Cheves is editor of the magazine.
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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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