[time-nuts] Crude Survey Technique

Poul-Henning Kamp phk at phk.freebsd.dk
Thu Nov 21 14:11:51 EST 2013


In message <8D0B5020292D91E-CC0-4B0E1 at webmail-vm026.sysops.aol.com>, johncroos@
aol.com writes:

> I wish to establish a north south line on my property to an
>accuracy of +/- 2 degrees.

First of all, at that level of precision you will have to decide what
you mean by "north south" ?

Magnetic ?  Geodetic ?  (if so: Which Datum ?)  Meridian ?

> The base line would be 300 ft

So your east-west precision needs to be tan(2)*300ft = 10.5 ft.

I don't think you can do that with a single band GPS.

If you can locate suitable landmarks, you may be able to do with
the arial photograph on maps.google.com (or similar servce) but
you need to get coordinates figured out (not trivial!)

I would raise a pole or other marker at one end (N or S), calculate
when a suitable celestial object crosses your designated line and
that to triangulate the opposite end.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.


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