do you run in your business?

How many units do you think is the maximum, useable number of GPS? I'd really like to hear from the SOLOists.

I have 7 GPS(L1) and have found that using 7 is very hard. I have the opportunity to buy an 8th(at a very good price), and the price is hard to turn down, but 8 GPS(?), plus, I run SOLO(which always means that 6-7 are left "un-protected".

John:

My main concern is thieft. Running solo makes it hard to protect them when they are strung out for miles.

I had a bipod and pole stolen and I was only 500 feet away behind a tree then it happened., Never recovered it.

I have 4 and have figured that the only places I can securly use them is in the country away from people. If I had to hire babysetters, I might as well hire a crew and run it conventionally.

solo here, 3 L1 units. i worry ever time i set them out that i'll come back and they'll be gone. what can you do? live right and hope the survey gods smile upon you...

I almost always relegate one of my units to nothing more than to give me a good network.

Since I have one at home set up permanently, I really end up using 2 on a site(remember, 1 is set up just for a good configuration).

For in city work(I live in the city, I use the base(which has been tied to the county network) and maybe go to one other "very safe place", in town to set up another one, just for geometry reasons(like a freind's house etc.).

Right now I ask my better clients if I can set up "permanent" stations on their property(one's agreed so far), where all I have to do is screw on the antenna, plug in the unit and go.

I figure this will always leave me more options, better geometry and less chance to "lose" equipment.

Oh yeh . . . I also don't have any orange, red/white, or high-visibility yellow rods either. Give me black, brown or dark blue.

we do 4 max need 3 people at least to guard, usually 2 are close toghether.

I use six (6) units. I work in rural Virginia and generally do not have a concern with security. I also generally operate solo. Six units are all I can keep up with alone. Usually set two units in very good spots (good sky) and move four units around. My work is 95% rural boundary, it is almost always wooded and in mountainous country.

I am considering adding one man/woman and three units. I think two people and nine units will be very productive. +/- 50 points per day depending on logistics, sky etc.

Just wondering - how many L1 units = one RTK ?

In my mind, how many L1 units = one RTK is like asking how many apples = one orange. Both are fruit and both provide the same dietary service......

Different tools. I can go places with L1 that I can't get with RTK. I also can get redundacy and closure with L1. Whan I can't get is real time. 50 points a day doesn't compair to hundreds.

Leave one in the back yard of subject property, one in the front, intervisible points that I do conventional TS work from later. They burn for the entire project. So that's two for the client to watch.

We run static sessions for control points and somebody watches each rover. I usually have a college kid 10 or 15 hours a week and that makes the other three more flexible. I can leave three burning static observations on three separate points. I only do this when One guy can see two points and the other watches the last.

More often, one is burning static and the last pair is set up using the initialization bar. We get the static observation of the point and then use stop and go to locate section corners, property corners, pavement, building offsets, signs, poles and sometimes topo shots. We also set lots of numbered nails for future Total Station surveying in that area.

We also use the Mobile Mapper for dirt roads and drives, ponds, lakes, wetland boundaries and other soft features. I guess that makes 6 units altogether.

The biggest advice I can give is to get insurance on your unit and dont worry about it. We have 2 Leica 5309 units and the insurance runs about $1400 a year for both units. It will replace everything at the value of the equipment when we bought it. We run 2 full time GPS crews and 2 conventianal crews, so worrying about the base being stolen used to be a big problem. We also usually set the base on site and then localize to known monuments to minimize the chance of it being stolen.

Will any insurance policy cover an unattended and unsecured base station? I'm under the impression that loss claims will be denied unless reasonable meaures were taken to secure the equipment.

From what we were told by our insurance agent, was that no matter what happened to it, i.e. dropped, stolen, the insurance would payout. I will double check the policy to make sure. Most people see the base and dotn have a clue as to what it is and keep on their way. I have heard of people stealing the 12v battery and leaving everything else.

I find it logistically difficult to manage more than six effectively on my own, although I guess there is at least one advantage to working in remote wilderness areas... the receivers never disappear. I have had one knocked over by a moose.

There are instances where we set up next to highways or other more frequented thoroughfares, but problems are rare. In more than twenty years it has only happened twice and both times, a good samaritan took the receiver down and called the office, thinking that it had been left behind inadvertently.

I can imagine in more populated areas that I might want to have people assigned to each unit for security.

I do recall one survey in the far north where we set up four receivers about 10km apart along an old abandoned railway line. Just after we took the last receiver down for the day, a train came through. An hour earlier in the day and it would have taken out every GPS receiver and tripod. Apparently, the railway was NOT abandoned after all.

I can laugh about it now.


Modified By Scott Partridge on 1/10/2005 at 5:18 PM