Ok, I had to prove to myself that yes, the almanac is a viable tool prior to hitting the field with the gear. So I acquired almanac 01.200 this evening and did the sky plot for 9-9:15 pm, then went outside with my NEW Magellan 315 handheld and compared the two. They were all right there, just where the plot showed they should be. And then some. But the pair of SV's that didn't make the plot were more than likely below the 12 degree cut off mask.
Prior to the 315, I was using a Magellan 2000 receiver, but it has slowed down in acquisition as of late. So if you are in the market for a new handheld, think of this board, the support we get from the guys and support Ashtech/Magellan.
Now, for the latest "Psuedo kinematic" dealings with J.D. and Shawn, since you guys are from Texas, I suggest we pronounce the topic "Swayed-deaux" Kinematic. Cows, boots, leather, suede? My Dad would have a term for you guys, and that would be (with a grin), "knuckle heads". Keep up the testing and keep us informed!
BR Dave in MS
Dave,
Good to see you're still kickin'.
The test is looking better all the time in our opinions. We're going to give it another few shots, I believe, before making any judgements. My preference is to make a return trip to a current route project we set up with Locus, ran a base line control between pairs (with intermediate gps check points) and adjusted by compass rule. Compass rule should rile up some feathers. We then had to reroute our line to hit grade for our project (0.112% minimum grade) so we used the base line control to search "uphill" for potential manhole points. This line was then run independent of the original base line, and adjusted by compass rule to an open traverse between the original gps pairs at each end of the 4200+/- route. Cross check ties from our preliminary base line points to our new "route" line were all within about 0.03'. Not bad for 175 - 350' turns.
Anyhoo, this network should give us a multitude of points to check in a "real world" situation. Shawn wants to stress the technique under adverse conditions in different types of canopy. Believe me, we got the canopy. Should be interesting, but so far I think it's good.
Like I told Jimbo, we are trying to re-invent the wheel and believe it's shape is really somewhat eccentric.
As for the procedure, I have renamed it Sumo Kimenecktic. Shawn has a better name, but I can't spell it either. As for being "knuckle heads", your dad would be correct, but the term "Swayed - deaux" Kinematic would be better suited for Jimbo's neck of the woods. (He's on the other side of the Sabine River from the Republic of Texas).
J.D.
I think it is properly spelled as
sudeaux kennymattic. Is there another way ?!! ;-}
And JD, I think revitalize instead of re-invent is more like it.
Was gonna run a test yesterday but by the time I could get out of the office the PDOP was near the top of the chart. Holding off till this AM.
If ya talk to those people over in Newrlens, they think We are in the Republic !
Of course the reason the Saints are still in Newrlens instead of moving to Biloxi(like they wanted to do) is because We demanded that Mississippi take Newrlens as part of the deal and Miss. would have none of it.
Jimbo
Dave,
Ashtech is no longer part of Magellan, both are now part of Thales Navigation (pronounced 'tallus').
The pseudo kinematic method works very well but needs the right software. Normally you want some hours before returning to the original site, but for short baseline work it is possible to have success with only a 10-minute gap such as in the case where you want to begin kinematic at an unknown site and return so as to be able to determine the start point. Of course RTK works fine too.