As a guy who works by himself, I run three Locus receivers, usually setting two receivers on site and roving with one receiver to NGS or Local GPS Control points in the area, taking two observations in succession on all control monuments. Yeah, that's right, the two receivers on site are setting there by themselves high atop a two meter rod. Haven't had much problem. This makes for some ugly looking vector triangles, but they all seem to process well. The net result is that I get two points on site with SPC and Elevation in a minimal amount of time, with two vectors each to all control points. How can I do this better? Suggestions?

M.Willmoth does it by himself placing two recs on site and roves with one to control. Question -- Is this static or RTK? and Why not place two on control references and one to rove to points? I need to know .

John

As most of my projects are boundary related, or local municipal projects, precise "positioning" is really not an issue. One single control point to begin a project is normally sufficient. We will leave a base unit on a known control, set up two units on site and crank the points in. If deemed necessary, maybe do repeat vectors. One of these two points on site will be chosen as the "job base" and the other two receivers can then be moved to other points around the job site.
We have had great success with this, but, we are not doing precise point positioning relative to the world, we are surveying within a local area.

J.D. Billings

I agree with JD ... we use them for local boundary surveys and I rarely tie into any know SPC. We just pick one of the local points and hold it as good.

Steve

Steven,

We are somewhat tied to SPC's from our local control networks. These networks were established from NGS marks originally. We just use the point, or points, from the local networks that are closest to our project. Or, normally use the most secure point that will work. Within 10 miles we will use our on office "base station post".
We just don't worry about closing in or checking in to multiple NGS points. For our work, this would not be necessary. We are concerned with being able to reproduce, and or search for, boundary or controls we tied to this local network.

J.D. Billings

Hi John Rogers

This is static surveying. The fact I run these by myself, I have been setting two receivers on site for two purposes, security and to have a processed azimuth between the two site points. Usually do all site work with a robot instead of RTK. I usually hold the first roved control point as fixed and then check one or two more control points. If I hit the second or third control point within a couple of centimeters of the published values, that is great for what I am doing.

Hi J. D. Billings

I agree with your post. Most of my work also includes existing topography, and not just boundary work. The tie is necessary to get a good GPS differential elevation on site. Another benefit is that digital raster images drop right into the drawing, alowing my clients the define off site drainage areas and the like for engineering analysis, of course this last item would probably be close enough by letting the software just pick the control point.

In general:

The main question I was asking is, "can I do it better?". If you are leaving two receivers alone, you want to get back to them ASAP. I practice mostly in Kentucky, and several communities have local networks, and we are blessed with several NGS stations

Hopefully this arrangement with only last a few more years until CORS densification is complete in our area.
Then we'll all trade in our old stuff for a new age RTK receiver, and have centimeter level points on the fly.

We'll see.

Mark Willmoth