Benchmark Recovery Procedures

[+zygote2k]

I am a surveyor in the Northern Virginia metro area and I frequently need BM info. I would like to use this site to help find any BM's I may be looking for, but most of the found logs don't seem to have lat/long info on them. This would be a great help to any surveyor in finding a difficult BM.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

When I started around here, I think few to none of us were onto the idea of logging Lat-Lon on benchmarks. Since then, we've moved on to other areas. Sorry about that. Care to join us in benchmark hunting?

[+PFF]

I'm not in your area. However, I frequently log my GPS reading, along with the displayed accuracy. Perhaps others will begin doing this--especially when the coordinates are scaled.

 

-Paul-

[+Camper1]

Glad your looking at the Geocaching Benchmarking entries for your professional endeavors. I agree with Black Dog that originally our (mine anyway) were intended just to claim the find. It's progressed (by some) to now log Lat & Long coords reguardless how close the original data sheet depicted them. OR no ref being posted due to the original data sheet being so accurate in it's narative and/or it's Lat/Long coords that the submitter felt it would just be redundant. Thanks for viewing and commenting.

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

I generally log the coordinates for "scaled" benchmarks, but not "adjusted". I usually have the GPSr (set to show coordinates in both WGS84 datum and NAD83 datum) in the Picture, also. Using a digital camera allows me to verify that you can read the coordintes on the GPSr, before leaving the area, so I don't Need to go back a second time to do it right.

 

John

[+bicknell]

The effort I go to log in varies with how hard it was to find. I set my GPS to "take me to" the listed coordinates. If I get there, read the description, and can just walk over to it then I don't worry too much about coordinates and the like. If it's hard to find, or if the listed ones are way off (for scaled, adjusted should be right on, I'd log if they were obviously wrong, I suppose) then I'll probably take a GPSr reading and post it. So far I've only logged coordinates for a few scaled ones, and most were were all the descriptive elements were gone (houses, fences, etc).

[evenfall]

Hi All!

 

Sorry for being conspicuously absent for so long and thanks to those who checked in on me. That was really nice.

 

Speaking to the point Zygote is making, BM's which are in essence Vertical Control, in most cases truly do not have accurate horizontal locations. They were never horizontally located.

 

As we all know, Descriptions change over time and "Scaled" Locations are never exact and often not as close as we would like. So you will be almost always be improving the location and the How to Find status of any vertical control by adding the NAD 83 Waypoint Coordinates to your filing either here at Geocaching or with the NGS should you choose to file there. It will help us Surveyors find them in the future be a large margin. Remember it can take us as long to find a hard one as it does you. There is no magic wand that automatically finds the vertical control marks!

 

Some time in the Future when a Young Survey Tech is hacking blackberries for a vertical tie in, they will thank a Geocacher for knowing exactly where to hack! ...Trust Me! This is a practice that will be helpful whenever you find that a datasheet contains no Adjusted Horizontal Control.

 

And Yes, some of us Surveyor types like what has been happening here at the Benchmark group on Geocaching, so thanks for all you do and are doing!

 

Rob

[+PFF]

Good points, EvenFall......

 

Some future survey crew owes me a "tall cool one" when they go after the 70-year-old station on RED MOUNTAIN, using my updated directions, vs. the 30-year-old description of a site accessed by a "dim track road".

 

It's now a residential subdivision!

 

-Paul-

[grannyoldr]

I am a surveyor in the Northern Virginia metro area and I frequently need BM info. I would like to use this site to help find any BM's I may be looking for, but most of the found logs don't seem to have lat/long info on them. This would be a great help to any surveyor in finding a difficult BM.

There's only so many of us out there finding 3/4th of a million benchmarks in the US. ;-)

 

My fiancee' and I have noticed that quite a few BM's just don't seem to exist anymore because of new construction of buildings, especially houses. I never thought I would see the day that Leesburg became part of Northern Virginia, and that people from Winchster, VA or Charlestown, WV would be commuting to the NoVA area.

 

What general vicinity at this moment are you trying to survey, or is it really all around NoVA? My fiancee' and I mostly search for outside of the Beltway BMs in small towns where there hasn't been too much constructions yet.