[GeoStL] Re: Benchmarks
- From: Roger Barnes <rogbarn@xxxxxx>
- To: geocaching@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 17:54:00 -0500
My poor GPS budget just got taken by my un-employed 24 1/2 year old son
in Seattle. But benchmarks, now that's something I know something
about..... :)
Success rate will certainly vary in many ways. In suburban St. Louis,
the Mo Dept of Natural Resources came thru in the early 1990s and set
many of the survey disks that I find. Always with a azimuth disk but no
reference disks which is unusual because disks of this type usually have
two reference disks in addition to an azimuth disk. There are also a
fair number of benchmarks along the railroads, that seems to true
throughout the country. Of course, some are gone and some are difficult
to get to, both physically and legally.
I suggest that you read the description carefully and if it mentions
reference disk and/or azimuth disks, try to find them too. Sometimes
these disks will have their own entry in the database, but typically
not. And without their own entry, you won't have coordinates, so the
GPS will really be useless then. Any disk set for vertical control only
(that is, elevation and this means real "benchmarks") may not have
dependable coordinates and again reading the description carefully
becomes necessary. The database on geocaching is from the National
Geodetic Survey (NGS), a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), not the USGS. Markers in the database may have
been placed by any of numerous qualified agencies, including the USGS
and, as I indicated above, MODNR. There are several queries on
geocaching about what to do if you find a marker that is not in the
database and the short answer is "not much". Many people have searched
the net for additional databases, but they don't seem to be there.
Anyway, if you are interested in submitting "recovery" reports to the
NGS, go to www.ngs.noaa.gov/datasheet.html and go to "Submit Recovery"
at the bottom. You can also search their database from here in several
different ways. Note that "recovery" to the NGS means only that you
have found the marker(s). The form gives you the opportunity to enter
text, but if it's pretty much the same, just leave it blank and it will
go in as "found as described".
Well, I think I just organized my talk for the picnic, now I have to
think up some additional stuff to make it interesting again....
Have fun!
Roger
p.s. the most fun I've had finding a benchmark in St. Louis is this one:
http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.asp?PID=JC0215
another one I had fun with is in Ohio when we went out to pick up my
daughter. You can read about it on the geocaching forum on benchmark
hunting at:
http://opentopic.groundspeak.com/0/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=1750973553&f=5790959854&m=6310953135
I hope the url goes thru ok, it's topic is "Fun finding a benchmark"
started by RogBarn (me).
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