It's from our friend that came to Lawton at the last shootout, Phil...Doubt you will get a thank you card from him!
I'll try and not be so hard on him, but hey, after seeing the master at work, he's going to be asked some pretty direct questions..

TM

I'm really most interested in how long it might take to learn new software..
Hardware's easy..Go to some known stuff and work it out till your comfortable with it...

Well, all I can say is keep an open mind, ask the tough questions, and let us know what shakes out. It won't take you long to learn Solutions, just don't expect the interface logic to be similar to TGO.

I might not consider that to be bad...

Since your here..Does Solutions support, Static, RTK and Terrestrial in one package?
TM

Ashtech Solutions is for GPS post processing. The RTK and total station work are handled elsewhere. It's a matter of preference, Deral, but I always wanted to use the software for my data collector that was made for the data collector. Ashtech Solutions is simple enough to have me processing data in a matter of minutes but I keep finding new things to do in the help file after two months.

One of these days I am going to sit still long enough to start at one end of the help file and work to the other.

You already know there are some guys on this board who can help you find some of the bells and whistles.

When you get done with Kevin try to put him back together again so he will at least smile about it when he gets home. We need him to live long enough for the next shootout.

Quite impressed with the Z-Extreme's and Pac Crest radios... Kevin used the Carlson software on a Ranger hand held..

First impressions...The menu's for the most part are very intuitive..Took the thing away from Kevin, and Michael and I just hammered away. Less than 2 minutes to calculate and be ready to stake 50' stations (on a 1.5% grade), between two points...
Accuracy showed less than 0.02' feet on three gps points in our network adjusted points...
Pole is too heavy for me...Would probably put the Z-Extreme in a hip pack to reduce the pole weight.(same complaint with the Trimble 4800)...

Found one bug in the software (Kevin said it was an older version)...Really began to like SurveCE by the end of the session.Seems like a 'surveyor friendly' design. Field calibration was a breeze, if you have need to do this.

Did play the usual survey trick on him..Navigated in stake out to an iron pin from our network..Missed by 0.15' feet...Asked him to just go where the thing said it should go...Moved the grass and found the second pin (this was one of the 'classic' pincushion corners of which I posted a picture of some time ago)...Did give him a small cause for alarm at first...

While Trimble attempts to sell every part for a system, it appears that Ashtech is concerned with the GPS and lets their dealers put the other parts together how ever they like.. This makes pretty good sense to me..Why buy a manufacture's fixed pole for $800, when you can buy the same thing (less the logo) from Seico, et al..

The new design of the Crest radios is much improved, and especially liked being able to change channels on the fly in case of interference..

Better than average re-init on dumping the antenna..Very quick...

Cards for memory to log static, while doing RTK (important to us), and in fact you don't even have to plug in a collector if you just want a static survey...

Didn't like the default 10 degree mask for everything....Appeared no way to change this easily.

Solutions...Didn't have time to go into details, but it needs AutoCAD and Arcview support built in (exporting)...

All in all, a very good and impressive demo...

However, I have a somewhat technical question concerning 'how' an RTK point is stored..
On the Trimble, you begin logging data at a point and sometimes can take several minutes before the TSC1 tells you that you are within tolerance.
The Ashtech would immediately store a point when you hit enter, implying that it wasn't storing the raw measurements, just the coordinate.

While I'm not a seasoned RTK'er, can someone explain the advantages or disadvantage of these differences? When I take a Total Station shot, it just stores the coordinates, so does RTK (with Ashtech) mimic this methodology?

Thanks Phil (and Kevin)...especially when we just took off with the unit and started pushing all the buttons....Learned long ago, you can't learn anything without trying everything..

TM
Final Questions-
Wondering if blue will clash with yellow in the truck...
Wondering what the Z-Extreme would do to my handle (zm,em,TZM)..I think I see an identity crises looming..

I have seen and played with Carlson SurvCE, but don't know it well enough to specifically answer your question.

In TDS RTK, you store the coordinate file and the raw file as well, one has, well, coordinates, and the other has all the localization, PDOP, RMS, etc.. values. You download both to get the whole picture.

In TDS, you have a user definable AutoAccept tolerance, that is to say you tell the Ranger, I want 0.03'H and 0.05'V (or whatever tolerance you want) and it will make you stay on the point until it achieves that tolerance, at which point it will (again, if you choose the option) auto store the point. If you can't get that tolerance, it does show you what you have, and you can choose to either abort the point, or manually accept it even if it's out of tolerance.

You can turn the auto-accept off, and watch the numbers drop, then hit ACCEPT if you wish.

I am pretty sure Carlson has these same basic features that TDS has.

BTW, I think there might be a case of Rolling Rock in it for you if you'd just change your handle to Ashtech Man!

Make it Grolsch and we'll talk...
We'll it was a demo, so I didn't get too much time to play with the settings, but what we did was level the rod, watch the rms (horizontal and vertical) until it was where we wanted it, then pushed enter...Click..The point was stored and you could move the receiver off the point and enter the code...It didn't appear to me that it logged any raw data, but again, this could be in the settings..

TDS sounds just like our Trimble controller..Level the rod and begin reading..It will store the point when it achieve the level of accuracy you defined..With 8 SV's it's usually just a couple of seconds..

Alot of the Carlson windows don't work yet, since it's a work in progress, but their cogo functions are vastly better than others I've seen on GPS..

I did go through the menus and noticed that you select Topcon 3 series, so this was also important to be able to use one collector with our conventional total station and the GPS..

Neat stuff..

TM

Question...So Ashtech doesn't actually have any RTK software, and others such as TDS and Carlson handle the collectors?

TM
I am not certain about Carlson CE. In TDS ce you have lots of options. You can record position only, position and RTK Vector Ofile or trimble terms .SSF file or one can store the position, Ofile and store raw observables. I typically train my customers to store the vector when locating property evidence or other items that will be located from another setup or may have been located multiple times. AS will take the RTK vectors in the file. I do know that earlier versions of the Carlson software allowed the simultaneous recording of vector, raw data and position. I am not 100% certain and Brian will know better and correct if I mis state. This is the way I understand the RTK works. All processing of the RTK solution occurs within the receiver. all that TDS and other software does is that based on the screen function being performed on the handheld simply queries the receiver for whatever info you want. Once that handheld hase that info the handheld rotates the coordinates to the defined system and outputs the results to the screen.

two other great things about ashtech receivers is that they come stocked with lots of options and secondly if firmware modes are made 99.9% of the time they are free.
I just got ride of my last MD Z-12 or Trimble equiv of the 4000sst. Still worked and had firmware available for upgrade free. ask trimble for that. Heres alittle thing. Ashtech duals come with the capability to do better than 1hz and receive all RTCM messageing free. Furthermore if you buy the typical Zxetreme package it comes with those options plus the ability to broadcast RTCM from the base. Therefore if your exisiting trimble does RTCM then you now have multiple rovers that will do RTK.

Have fun
joe allegra
elliptical surveys, inc
joe@esurveysinc.com

I've gotten several e-mails from Ashtech users who said the same thing..If an upgrade happens then usually you'll get it free...As a City, I have to budget carefully each year and have been burned on at least two occasions where adding a new satellite caused the software and hardware to not function...This should in my opinion be a free upgrade...Now if I wanted to add L2 to an L1 receiver, then I would expect to pay the difference.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea that Ashtech has an open market on the RTK software side.. Gives us users more options...Some like Fords, some like Chevys...

I would bet that since our network stuff is about done and we anticipate doing mostly RTK work, then our 4600's will get little work over the next year or two..We might use them in conjunction and process using RINEX from all 5... We really just want some good RTK and the ability to use OPUS when we want to...

We'll set the base up on a different network point each time..Work all day on a survey and document our network point using OPUS..Might take years to get all 690, but it would be easy and free...

TM