Saturday, January 03, 2009

Using Carlson SurvCE to Survey History

The American Surveyor

Every day as I headed to my job, the theme from Indiana Jones kept running through my head. I even had the hat! The site I was surveying was older than any piece of property I had ever worked on before.

I was working in the dry, barren desert sands of Sudan, surveying for an archeology team from the United States with the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums (NCAMSudan). The site was located at the base of Jebel Barkal, a sandstone table-mountain close to the Nile River, and a one-time sacred site for both the Egyptians and Nubians.

It all started in January of 2007. I had been making plans to go into business with the registered land surveyor who got me interested in surveying. After talking for weeks, we decided that new equipment was needed. I purchased a Topcon robot, a Topcon RTK GPS system and a Carlson Explorer II. Carlson SurvCE worked the best with the instruments I chose.

Later that month, the sales manager from where I purchased the equipment contacted me and asked if I was interested in renting the robot for a month. My original business plans had fallen through, so with a rather large equipment loan hanging over my head, I decided that a rental was not out of the question. This is how I met Tim Kendall, archeologist.

A 5.667Mb PDF of this article as it appeared in the magazine—complete with images—is available by clicking HERE.

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