Javad Training Event - Hot Springs, Ar, June 8th-9th

[Steve Douty]

I enjoyed the seminar and would like to see more of them. It was especially good to meet other Javad users. Could JAVAD provide a map on this site that would show a dot for where each unit was sold? This would allow us to form user groups.

Thanks to Shawn B. and Matt S.

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

And, the third item, was meeting with, and fellowship with other Javad users.

N

 

[Shawn Billings]

Thank you all for attending. We had a great time. This was our first event and I would consider it a success. We hoped to present enough material that regardless of your experience with the LS, that you would come away with something of value that would impact your daily use of the system. I think we achieved that. There are definitely things I hope to improve upon as we continue to provide these events. For those who were in attendance I hope to get an email out to you in the next week asking for your assessments. I've already received some very helpful and honest comments that will make our next event even better.

I hope to share some photos of the event soon as well. It was great to meet so many wonderful surveyors from all over the Eastern half of the United States who are using Javad's Triumph-LS. I've been to many seminars and had the privilege of teaching one before this. Most participants, myself included, in those seminars were there to meet a statutory requirement for continuing education. Those who attended this seminar were there to truly develop better skills with the LS and it made the atmosphere of the event much better. That wasn't because of me, that was because of the dedication of the participants.

There is a true user community that is developing. Arkansas surveyors have a long history with Javad going back to Ashtech so it's no surprise to see that community really thriving today. I'm sure that there are other communities of surveyors developing across the country (and probably globally as well). As we identify those communities I and the other PLS team members hope to bring these events to them to continue to improve users' knowledge and use of the Triumph-LS.

 

[Phil]

Shawn, maybe some September a field/camp training seminar up the Poudre River that is NW of Denver. Phil

 

[Shawn Billings]

Hi Phil, already working on another seminar around September. Let me work out some details before I share too much, but definitely should be interesting. It was way too much fun in Arkansas to stop there. Thanks for the interest!

 

[Darren Clemons]

The top 3 things I learned, are:
Trajectory. Real cool!
2 epochs, with 185 seconds, is close to 99.9% right, with maybe a bit of slop... +- .2'.

Had this very unusual occurrence today. Up until I saw this, I'd never seen a group with over 185 seconds be wrong either, but now this is the most I've ever seen.

The distance to last you see of 0.68' is to the previous RTK shot I'd stored on this point (it was only a group something like 2,14,1 so definitely didn't have a ton of confidence in it). I did store a PPK on that point and after processed it matched this 4,550,3 group.

When the 7,241,6 group was the lead group the distance to last was around 2.3' so it was up to 3' off the final good coordinate.

The spot I was in on this shot was in canopy, but nothing at all extraordinary compared to what we shoot every day. The only condition that was very noticeable, and I've always seemed to have trouble in it, was heavy fog and a very heavy humidity.

Has anyone else ever had noticeable trouble with heavy atmosphere and fog? It would seem to reason that both radio signals as well as the GPS signals themselves could struggle "getting through" this type of atmosphere.
It had to be the cause/reason for this first I certainly believe....

 

[Matthew D. Sibole]

I had trouble today too. It had to be the fog and humidity.

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

Just one question. 4/550 Were ANY 2 resets over 185 seconds apart?

N

 

[Phillip Lancaster]

is it wrong to pick confidence over time?

 

[Shawn Billings]

Just one question. 4/550 Were ANY 2 resets over 185 seconds apart?

N

They must have been. The 555 is the number of seconds between the first and last fix in the bucket.

 

[Shawn Billings]

is it wrong to pick confidence over time?

From my experience time is better than confidence if time is greater than 180.

Darren demonstrates here that 180 isn't 100.000%. Very grateful he shared this.

 

[Matt Johnson]

Darren demonstrates here that 180 isn't 100.000%. Very grateful he shared this.

I have seen cases too where 180 seconds isn't 100% reliable but this has only been when I collecting points with auto repeat inside my house on top of my bookcase with corrections coming from a RTN while it is raining.

 

[Darren Clemons]

From my experience time is better than confidence if time is greater than 180.

Darren demonstrates here that 180 isn't 100.000%. Very grateful he shared this.

Just to clear things up. The 4,550,3 was CORRECT and verified with a 15 minute PPK within 0.03'.
The one that was incorrect was the 7,241,6 group.
Also, you may notice the very first epoch it took (blue dot at very far left hand portion of the vertical separation box) turned out to be the correct point.
This was very unusual, but as of now I'm just going to note it as an anomaly.....I will still stand on 180 seconds being 99.9% reliable....this just happened to be that 0.01%.
As is the case with ANY type of equipment, not just GPS, there is that small chance something can go wrong. An EDM or data collector can easily have a malfunction and anything preformed with any type of computer is subject to a strange occurrence here and there.
That is why nothing is better than multiple checks and balances to verify things. Thankfully the Javad equipment has more of that built in it than anything else.

 

[Shawn Billings]

I have seen cases too where 180 seconds isn't 100% reliable but this has only been when I collecting points with auto repeat inside my house on top of my bookcase with corrections coming from a RTN while it is raining.

If I recall wasn't your ambiguity resolution set to low when you saw that?

 

[Shawn Billings]

Just to clear things up. The 4,550,3 was CORRECT and verified with a 15 minute PPK within 0.03'.
The one that was incorrect was the 7,241,6 group.
Also, you may notice the very first epoch it took (blue dot at very far left hand portion of the vertical separation box) turned out to be the correct point.
This was very unusual, but as of now I'm just going to note it as an anomaly.....I will still stand on 180 seconds being 99.9% reliable....this just happened to be that 0.01%.
As is the case with ANY type of equipment, not just GPS, there is that small chance something can go wrong. An EDM or data collector can easily have a malfunction and anything preformed with any type of computer is subject to a strange occurrence here and there.
That is why nothing is better than multiple checks and balances to verify things. Thankfully the Javad equipment has more of that built in it than anything else.

That's how I see it too, Darren. It's also note worthy that the good group had over 9 minutes of separation with a confidence of 3 compared to the runner up with 4 minutes and a confidence of 6. Time was the better predictor of success than confidence.

This doesn't make the confidence irrelevant, it just means it doesn't guarantee good fixes. It's use is more for finding a very likely good fix that phase 2 can build from.

 

[Matt Johnson]

If I recall wasn't your ambiguity resolution set to low when you saw that?

I have seen it with it set to Medium too.

 

[Phillip Lancaster]

To make sure that I have this right in my brain. After I have finished my bucket phase in Phase 1 and now graduated to Phase 2: While its gathering data. If I see it with just 2 epochs, 185 time, and whatever confidence. It's safe to say its good. Or are yall talking about in Phase 1. Screenshot from Darren has got me contemplating that I understood this wrong. Or is it 2 epochs, 185 time in Phase 1 which in theory gonna go in to Phase 2 automatically anyway.

 

[Shawn Billings]

Phase 1. It could be that you have two epochs in Phase 2 that are only 10 seconds apart but have 185 seconds in the observation. What we're looking for is 180 seconds between the two fixes. But as Darren has shown and as I have seen recently, the 180 second rule is not 100.00000% reliable, but it's pretty close. I had a group two days ago that was 196 seconds and was eventually beaten by another group that was substantially different.

 

[Phillip Lancaster]

Okay. Got it straight now. Thanks Shawn. This actually helps in stakeout mode in the woods when I'm storing a point or really just walking in the point. Once I see the 185 or more I can pick up and move closer to the computed location and start the process over again.

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

I am sure not the bottom line on this subject... So, this is just thoughts....
In phase 2, it gets to 180", THEN does another reset. (verify on) So, my comment is:

Are we talking 180" WITH or WITHOUT a reset at the end?

N