Memories from presidential election years in the USA remind me it is a difficult time to be a surveyor. It seems nobody wants to start a new project until they have a plan for the future. With the election process up in the air it is hard for most people to predict the future of our national government.
When it was up to me to be sure the company survived our decision was to hunker down and survive the year by chasing projects outside the normal flow of work. I remember helping to test some robotic equipment on Fort Sill, Oklahoma by providing survey data for the equipment and for targets on the ground they used to test their ability to fly to a specific point and photograph what was there. There were a variety of other odd things for us to do when site planning surveys and construction staking were not plentiful. It is important to expand our horizons and find things to do when the work does not come running to us.
Slow periods are also a good time to invest in the future by taking time out for training with new skills we can turn into cash. I met a surveyor who decided to take a leap of faith and buy a robotic scanner and learn how to use it while he had some time on his hands. The last time I visited with him he owned three of them. He expanded his business to include forensic survey projects using the scanners to map features for presentation in court cases.
We are often limited by our imaginations.
Thoughts
I for one think it is brilliant.. workarounds can produce the best procedures at times..
It seems like a very long time ago that I wrote Poor Man's GPS Network. I was and I am a strong proponent of what is written in a paper called Practical GPS Surveying. But I was often asked if all that work was really necessary. I wrote this paper to show how something could be done to create control points that might be better quality than a single observation using Stop&Go or RTK procedures. I also wanted to refute the notion of leaving a base station set up on a point that will be used to control the survey. Long radial lines are not the best way to make the measurements.
Stumbled across this today from your past and was happy to be able to find it... very inspirational
Yes, Phil. We are often limited by our imagination, our financial situation and the limitations just keep squeezing harder. But with faith all things are possible. thank you for sharing with us!