Now that the Promark 2 has appeared, will the price of the Locus units come down to the same price?

And now that thse two units are in production together, does one have advantages over the other? Should we buy Locus or Promark?

John,

Don't know much, other than what has been written, about the PM2. One advantage the Locus has is the capability to do Kinematic surveys. from what I understand, the PM2 does not.

An advantage of the PM2 is the capability to use it for recon, etc. with a location shown in your hand. The Locus can't do this.

You need to evaluate your needs and then look for the features that best meet your particular situation. If Ashtech has done some "mixed system" testing and it shows the 2 systems work well together then maybe some combination of units might be best.

A very satisfied Locus(3 units w/Kinematic) user,

Jimbo

I can't answer the pricing question, I am but a lowly non-decision making salesman :)

Regarding Locus vs. ProMark2, here are your considerations:

Locus will run 100 hours on its internal batteries, the ProMark2 8 hours. Locus is capable of kinematic surveying, the ProMark2 is not. Locus has adjustable epoch intervals, PM2 does not. Locus is specd for 2.2 meter pole drop, the PM2 for 1.5 meter drop.

The plusses of the PM2 are of course the price and the navigation capability.

What are the navigation capabilities of the PM2? Can you purchase a beacon receiver for it? Can GIS (submeter with very short obs. times, ...) capabilites (similar to the Reliance system) be added? Does it come with Solutions 2.4, or some other program?

Just wondering ...

-Greg
Modified By Greg Shimp on 9/1/2001 at 6:53 PM

I notice at Hayes Instrument that the price of a 3 Receiver Locus System $8,990.00.

Anyone know what a 3 receiver Promark is?

John Stratton wrote:

Anyone know what a 3 receiver Promark is?

I think the list price is about $6,000; dealer pricing may be less.


Modified By Jim Frame on 9/1/2001 at 10:35 PM

Greg:

Navigation capabilities of the PM2 are autonomous GPS + WAAS only, this should get you 3-5 meters. There is no RTCM In capability to take in any correction source. It is single frequency static ONLY, ie minimum observation time is 20 minutes for under a 5km baseline. It comes with Solutions 2.5, which is really the new 2.4 with the download module tweaked to speak with the ProMark2.

Please note that the navigation capability in the PM2 does NOT include State Plane Coordinates, the coordinate systems are Lat/Long, UTM, a bunch of national grids like Irish and Swiss, etc... plus a User Defined Grid where you can choose from five projections (TransMerc, Lambert Con, Stereograph, OblaMerc and Polyconic), then enter in the Lat of Origin, the Long of Origin, Scale Factor, Units to Meters Conv, False East at Origin, and False North at Origin.

Not being a PLS, I probably shouldn't give you advice on how to navigate, but I think I would CorpsCon your State Plane Points to UTM and go from there. I believe it was Mr. Geodisist who pointed out that the WAAS corrected coordinates are out by a meter anyway, but this is still well within the 3-5m of the unit.

John/Jim:

Three receiver static Locus lists at $11,825. Three receiver ProMark2 system lists at $5695.

since i just bought one, i suspect there is a high probability that the price will come down...that's usually how my luck runs...

With the user defined projections you should be able to set them up for a specific SPC Zone. I have verified this on Garmin handhelds for Mercator Zones, however the Magellan (which Promark appears to be a mod of) seem to support Lambert or conic forms also, so I would suspect this is possible.

If I get my hands on a Magellan I will work out Lambert Zone data and confirm my Garmin TM settings and let you know.

- jlw