Monthly Archives: April 2015

So you purchase a product from us and it looks like this:

Keep it for several months and then ask to return it for full credit.

You return this:

We refund your entire purchase price.

Is this reasonable?

Here is the thing about it. We want to provide great service and support. And we want to have fair prices. Is this possible if every customer failure is ‘our fault’ and we replace equipment that has obviously has been abused under warranty without asking any questions?

I don’t know what the solution is.

M

SurvCE version 4.04 has been released on the Carlson Website.

Man, there is a lot of new and updated items (read the update PDF).

As always, I am sure that the fixes and enhancements make the few backtracks worth it.

There is a common issue with VRS networks where something goes wrong and your rover can’t just connect quickly so you can get to work.

When this happens, what do I do?

1. Usually on the hotspot you can see a signal strength and some indication that it has talked to the network. A ‘trick’ that I use is to turn the hotspot off, then turn it back on and watch it log onto the cellular network. After mine logs on, it makes a beep and then on the bottom line it displays the amount of data I have left for the month. If I see the data bar, then there is a good chance that I will be happy because the hotspot was able to connect and get my data usage information.
2. Next, I open internet explorer on my data collector and go to Google. I like to search for ‘food’ or ‘sex’. Most of the time Google shows me a picture of two elephants humping. Now I know that I am connected to the internet and can have, at least, basic needs met.
3. My next step is to test my connection to the actual server. I have this ‘favorite’ on my Internet Explorer this address:
   http://168.179.231.9:2101
   you should click on it and see what it says. If you get a source table, then I am POSITIVE that I can connect to the Utah VRS system. You can build a similar address for your network.
4. Finally I attempt to connect on the data collector. If it works, I am off and running. If it does not work, then I attempt to connect to a Single Baseline mount point (the nearest base).
5. If this fails, then I go to ‘Monitor Skyplot’ and make sure the receiver is tracking satellites. If it is not tracking SV’s, then it can not send my position to the network.
6. A failure at this point makes me suspect that my data collector is not connected by Bluetooth properly to the head. I use the ‘I’ (Info) button under ‘GPS Rover’ to verify that I can read the serial number of the attached collector.
7. At this point, I turn everything off. Take the batteries out, Drink a cup of coffee and then start over.

🙂