Any of you Locus users upgraded from the HP48 to Survey Control II on the Ipaq? If so, what are your thoughts? Is the Kinematic more logical for data collection, etc.? Any disappointments? How does the Ipaq work in cold weather/rain? Thanks much for your input.

Inquiring minds want to know. I still use the HP48 because i don't know anything about the Ipaq. I've been taking 30 second observations so I can get out a fieldbook and record the point number and descriptor. I find this faster than editing the descriptor field in the HP48. Is the Ipaq any better. Thanks.

I recently did a 400 shot topo with the ipaq. As you create point codes they are stored in a pull down menu that you can select without re-typing them. You don't have to deal with the miserable quotes like with the HP, either. I used 2 base receivers with 10 second rover observation and known point initialization. Spot checks with a total station on manhole covers checked elevations within 0.02'. Horizontal was about 0.03' (I was wiggling the pole). The ipaq also has more variations for initialization as well as a true kinematic mode for recording features like walking along a fence line or a gravel road. I don't know how well it holds up in the rain or cold. I don't hold up well myself!
terry

Which is why I always refer to the NAVSTAR system, as the system that works, even when you can't...

TM

I got to use an IPAQ for the first time today on Richard's little parking lot project. It was sunny and warm so I don't know about taking that gadget out in the sand. I thought it was a whole lot easier to figure out than the HP48 which drove me nuts having to remember what to do to put SiteID's in.

I think I would rather have the IPAQ in the shop once a week than deal with the gray hair from trying to get it done with the HP48. But then I always was a TI kind of guy 'cause I never wanted to learn RPN. I grew up in a Polish community. I figured that anybody who wanted to do Polish backwards had to have a screw loose.

Now before I get flamed let me say that Poles are wonderful, warm hearted, people who would give you the shirt off their back. They tell the best ethnic jokes about themselves that I have ever heard. Polish mothers would line us boys up and whip all of us because they figured at least one or two of us deserved it. I was the third son of six kids and my best man was the first of eight kids. Those were the days folks.

I love my HP printers and HP CD writers but their calculators and I see math in different ways.

One thing I liked about the IPAQ was that I could turn it sideways. My ears are not really good and by turning it sideways I could see the screen when it talked with the Locus so I did not have to depend on the sounds. I use a headset when I talk to you guys on the phone so I can turn up the volume. I told Richard that I could not hear the sounds very well so we tested to see what sorts of positions would work with the IPAQ. Right side up, sideways, up side down. The IPAQ seems to be agile.

One thing we learned today... If you want to use a HP48 and an IPAQ with the same receiver you have to use the HP first and then use the IPAQ. The IPAQ com link goes faster and the only way to slow the receiver down to use the HP that we could find was to turn the Locus off and start over.