13 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org Featured Article OPUS SHARED SOLUTIONS IN MAINE By David Wellman, PLS, PE [Editor’s Note: David Wellman submitted these photos for the photo contest for the PLSO photo contest in January. We wanted to know the story behind them, so we asked him to tell us more.] The story begins at an Oregon GNSS Users Group (OGUG) meeting in Bend some time ago. Mark Armstrong, who was our NGS Advisor at the time, was giving a presentation on using OPUS and encouraging us to “get out there” and collect some data. What was compelling and piqued my interest was his zeal for the out-of-the-way monuments that are for one, hard to get to and two, ones that nobody had been to for some time. His talk was of a lost highway in eastern Oregon that had been forgotten due to a re-alignment—but hey—the monuments should still be there. His energy and enthusiasm for the mission and adventure was infectious. Okay says I. OPUS for the betterment of the world was indeed a noble cause, yet not as convincing as the thrill of the recovery of the “lost and forgotten.” That in itself is an innate trait we surveyors have. Time passes and work and life get first priority but always in the back of my mind was Mark’s encouragement to measure the marks. Through the years I had acquired a dual frequency X-90 stand-alone GPS unit ready made for OPUS data collection. Continues to work well today. The perfect retirement unit to chase after Mark’s prodding of collecting OPUS Shared Solutions. Now as good surveyors that we are we always have our eyes on the lookout for a brass disc. Upon our notice and exclamation, those we are with usually roll their eyes and continue on. We, meanwhile, rub the dirt off, take a picture, and rush to catch up with the group. This story, and the pictures within, are a bit more planned than those happenstance observations. Knowing of an upcoming vacation to Maine and knowing the specific locales ahead of time allows the diligent surveyor to plan an attack. Having retained my Maine LS I figured I was in good stead to make a few observations now for the betterment of the world. First off was a week along the Maine coast where I grew up as a kid. Little did we know of those brass disc locales on the islands we would explore in our teenage years. Our thoughts were of other things. But today, with NGS Data Explorer, we can poke around for those pesky discs in the comfort of our homes and select continues OPUS deep in Maine woods. Photos courtesy of David Wellman.
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