Feedback On . . . Surveying
(Page 2 of 2)
September/October 1975
By Dave Beiter
If you need to measure vertical angles, you can easily do so without a transit. An Abney level ($9.95 from Surplus Center, 1000—1015 West "V' Street, P.O. Box 82209, Lincoln, Nebraska 68501) will give you accuracy to 20' (10' if you're careful). There's also a Silva Ranger compass (No. 15 TCL with a clinometer, but in my opinion it's not worth the money.
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Distances are best measured with a fiberglass tape. An alternative is a 100-foot steel tape (available from Sears for $11.39). Cloth measures, clotheslines, etc., are OK, but beware of stretchy fabrics and cords.
It's often accurate enough just to pace off a distance (and this has the added advantage of being a one-man show). My own pace is, conveniently, six to the pole . . . the word we hillbillies use instead of "rod" to mean 16-1/2 feet. We also replace chaining pins with pieces of flagging tape or rags tied to handy trees or fenceposts. One nice thing about these markers is that they're still there when we come back the following weak.
Be sure to keep the compass at least 5 feet from the steel tape when you're out in the field, and check other metal items (belt buckles, eyeglass frames, etc.) for their effect on the instrument. The influence of barbed wire or the like can be eliminated if both compass man and target man move two steps away from a fenceline.
I like to survey in short shots (that is, I take a new compass reading every 100 feet or less). This is a personal preference I developed when I mapped a large cave during my first year of "homesteading" . . . back before the word was recoined. In any case, it's a good idea to work in loops to increase your confidence or catch gross errors, and to plot your data with a protractor and rule. Acreage of irregular tracts is most conveniently determined by counting squares on graph paper.
To sum up: A Silva Ranger compass, Abney level, and hardware store tape measure will give me results that are accurate to 1% . . . good enough for any of my purposes. The compass alone—plus my two feet—are the only surveying instruments I really need, though, since I can live with a 5% error. If you don't demand absolute precision and would rather avoid the expense of buying or renting a lot of fancy equipment you may find my methods a useful alternative.
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