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Posted by Dave Patton on February 28, 2005, 6:04 am
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[top posting fixed - please don't top-post]
> wrote:
>
>>
>>> Hello. Just for the heck of it, I want to see if I can find the
>>> general area of the corners of my property with my GPS unit. It seems
>>> however that the map datum, position format, units, and maybe even
>>> north reference are all different. Could someone please tell me what
>>> to set my GPS unit to so that the coordinates come out right?
>>
>>Not with the (lack of) information you have provided :-)
>>
>>You might be best to take a look at the Google Groups archives
>>of the two GPS-related newsgroups, sci.geo.satellite-nav and
>>alt.satelliet.gps because the subject of 'surveying my property'
>>has come up many times.
>>
>>Nobody can guess at what you are working from, so any
>>further questions here, or in those newsgroups should
>>include some information about your property information.
> Thank you for all the tips guys. I do have the legal discription as
> well as a nice diagram. Also, luckily, the property is very near to
> the southeast corner of our section. Maybe if I got a topo map it
> would even say the approximate coordinates of the SE corner. I seem
> to remember having one somewhere.
Well, you say you have a GPS, so you can easily get the
coordinates yourself, although I don't see the point.
>>Also, it sounds like you are just doing this for your
>>own interest, but don't call it "surveying" - in some
>>jurisdictions a "survey" can only be legally done by a
>>licenced professional. If your property may have some
>
> Yhea. I said approximate because I know it could never count for
> making a fence or anything like that. Plus the resolution of my
> Garmin eTrex is pretty abysmal at like 12ft at the very best.
Really? I'd say that using an inexpensive electronic device
to tell you, based on signals from satellites, your location
on the earth's surface to an approximate value within 12 feet
is closer to "amazing" than "abysmal".
> The legal description starts out at the southeast corner of the
> property and goes around it counter clockwise giving distances and
> bearings
Sounds like a metes and bounds survey.
>, like N 89º 27'32" W 267.31ft would mean go northwest 267.31
> feet with a bearing of 89º 27'32" relative to a north reference. I'm
> thinking maybe true north since this is a property.
Or maybe magnetic north. Or maybe relative to a state plane
grid system. The survey 'diagram'(plat?) may have notes that
tell you how it's referenced, or else your local 'county
records office' that keeps such surveys may be able to tell you.
> I'm not really sure how I would proceed.
Hire a surveyor. Take a survey course. Ask nicely for
help in a surveying-related newsgroup.
> Then it would have to be converted somehow into GPS coordinates which
> are all in metric.
What are you talking about?
"GPS coordinates" is a pretty ambiguous term. Perhaps you
are referring to latitude and longitude? On the other
hand, my GPS can display the coordinates of it's current
location in a number of formats(e.g. lat/lon, UTM, MGRS,
etc.), each of which could be called 'GPS coordinates'.
Regardless, they certainly aren't "all in metric".
--
Dave Patton
Canadian Coordinator, Degree Confluence Project
http://www.confluence.org/
My website: http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/
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