I have recently had a Promark2 on demo. I am impressed with all aspects except for the lengthy process to change the description code - surely the code should be displayed on the stop & go screen & it should be a matter of one or two key strokes to change the description from the stored library. I also feel the height of antenna should also be displayed. Any comments from seasoned Promark users?

And there's room for (I think) only 15 codes. Like with all software , just learn to live with what we perceive to be a shortcoming.

I find it manageable if things are grouped together, like as many road centres as possible in sequence etc.

Also, in days gone by we used to carry with us a small 1/4" x 6" wooden rod with a thinner carbon rod inserted along the axis. With this we endeavoured to reproduce ASCII characters on a piece of material extracted from wood pulp. That technology helps a lot to alleviate the suffering caused by lack of room for codes in a Promark.

And I forgot to mention that precisely because of the antenna issue I cut or welded all my rods to be the same length. I now have 2 values for this variable: Long and short.

Makes me think when we used steel tapes: temperature HIGH, minus a BIT, temp LOW, plus SOMETHING.

You can create and use a site ID “picklist”, but it takes several pushes of the buttons to select and change a site description.

I find it cumbersome and the site attribute doesn’t get changed too often. You need to be dexterous, even with gloves on, and have good eyesight.

I still like good old paper notes and sketches. If you use a bipod to hold the gps rover rod and then allow a few seconds to write a field note, you’ve typically used up the time needed for the occupation.


It would be a nice upgrade for the Promark firmware if a person could key in the site ID while a shot is being taken. I expect there are technical reasons why it can’t be done. Maybe the unit needs all of its available resources to log satellite data.


If you have adequate time and need to have detailed digital field notes I use a palm pilot type handheld with a high resolution black & white screen. There are Palm OS programs that allow you to create multiple category picklists that export as spreadsheets. The spreadsheet ultimately needs to be attached to your promark point IDs using matching ID numbers as the key.


We have used the odd/even numbers in the default Promark ID sequence to provide clues for sorting and analysis. For example- use odd numbers for creek water surface shots and the even ID numbers for the creek bottom or thalweg.

Planned ID schemes can be useful- for example: you can switch between auto ID sequences like 0000….0001….0002 and say 1000….1001….1002 etc. Good paper field notes are invaluable if you are doing some tricky number switching.

Maybe there are better ideas or something I have overlooked. The button pushing complexity of many electronic devices leaves me baffled most of the time… and lots of features that don’t get used