A cheap GPS survey system cost me 12 hours of rework on a dredge job in Baton Rouge

I figured I'd save some money and bought a $200 handheld GPS unit instead of renting the fancy RTK gear for a river dredge project last fall. The readings looked fine on shore, but once I was out on the water the thing kept jumping around by 15 feet or more. Ended up dredging in the wrong spot for almost two days before I ran a check line. That little mistake cost me over $800 in fuel and lost time, plus I had to redo a whole section. Has anyone else tried to cheap out on survey gear and regretted it, or did I just pick the wrong brand?

3 comments

3 Comments

thea6029d ago

Oh come on, you can't blame the gear for not knowing how to use it right. GPS units are just tools, same as anything else, and it's on you to run a proper calibration before trusting it on the water. I've used cheap handhelds for years on small jobs and never had more than a half foot of drift once I locked in the WAAS setting and let it sit for 10 minutes to get a solid fix. Maybe the real issue is that you didn't test it under working conditions first, not the price tag.

kai_burns739d ago

Totally feel you on that @thea602, it's rough when tech lets you down lol.

felixm298d ago

Yeah you're probably right @thea602, I'm the one who'd probably forget to calibrate and then blame the fish finder for showing me a sunken shopping cart instead of bass. Last time I rushed out with a new unit I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out why my GPS thought I was parked in a cornfield two miles inland. Turns out I didn't even let it lock onto satellites before I launched, classic operator error right there. So yeah, maybe the real problem is the goober holding the device, not the device itself.