Land surveys guide estate planning, set boundaries

...“I would say 99 percent of what we do is for a positive purpose,” Fagan says. “People around here get along pretty well.” He says most folks do not think of hiring a licensed surveyor when buying property, adding the lack of an updated survey could create a problem down the line... Click here to read full story

From Property Line Disputes to Natural Disasters: The Role of the Land Surveyor

Within a homeowners association, a key connection to build up from the start is that with a licensed land surveyor. From the initial construction process to future additions, land surveyors provide critical information with regard to regulations surrounding property boundaries. Click here to read full story...

Judge to rule on Nexus pipeline company's suit for access to land for surveys

Thursday the residents told Judge Collier they resented the "heavy-handed tactics" used by the company to convince them to allow surveyors on their land. One woman was so traumatized by the experience she broke down and cried as she testified. Greg Huber, lawyer for the landowners, said the residents each received letters demanding they allow the surveyors on their land. Click here to read the full story...

BLM’s new GNSS Protocols May set Undesirable Precedent

The United States agreed to purchase Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million dollars, or about two cents an acre. In 1959, Alaska, with a land mass larger than Texas, California and Montana combined, became the 49th state in the union. For the professional surveyor, more than 20 million acres of federal government land is scheduled to be measured and divided for conveyance to the state for eventual sale to private individuals. Surveying can be a challenging profession, Click here to read the full story

Mapping the future for GeoPlatform.gov

GeoPlatform.gov, the web portal that provides direct access to the nation’s online geospatial resources, was launched in 2011 by member agencies of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC). In the last 18 months, however, GeoPlatform.gov has shifted into high gear as it works to make its assets more usable with high-performance web services and better tools for managing the data.  Click here to read the full story...

FAA Finalizes Small UAS Rule

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has finalized the first operational rules, part 107, for routine commercial use of small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), also known as drones. The new guidelines open pathways towards fully integrating UAS into the nation’s airspace. The regulations work to safely harness innovation and spur job growth. “We are part of a new era in aviation, and the potential for unmanned aircraft will make it safer and easier to do certain jobs, gather information, and deploy disaster relief,” says U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “We look forward to working with the aviation community to support innovation, while maintaining our standards as the safest and most complex airspace in the world.” According to industry estimates, the rule could generate more than $82 billion for the U.S. economy and create more than 100,000 new jobs over the next 10 years. The new rule, which takes effect in late August, offers...Click here to read full story

USDA Forest Service - Nevada Supervisory Land Surveyor Outreach Announcement

USDA Forest Service - Nevada Supervisory Land Surveyor Outreach Announcement

The Intermountain Region will soon be advertising the Boundary and Title Zone lead for the Nevada Zone, Supervisory Land Surveyor, GS-1373-11/12, position. The position will be located in Sparks, Nevada and is located on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest Supervisor’s Office.

Response deadline is July 1st.

Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) is Not a Design Professional for Certificate of Merit Purposes

Like many states, Nevada has heightened requirements for actions against design professionals for professional negligence. Commonly known in other jurisdictions as a “certificate of merit”, NRS 11.256 – NRS 11.259 require that a complaint filed against a design professional in the nonresidential construction context be accompanied by an attorney affidavit and an expert report which must include, among other information, a statement from the expert that...Click here to read full story

Invention makes 3D mapping more accurate

A new 3D mapping model integrates multi-platform satellite/aerial imagery and laser scanning data to achieve a higher accuracy in mapping products by 26-66% to centimeter level compared to the conventional mapping technologies. Click here to read the full story...

American Surveyor - Vantage Point: "I Should Have Hired a Surveyor..."

It isn't often that we see a line like that in the news, so it certainly grabbed my attention. More frequently I hear moaning about surveying being a dying profession. Here is just one (expensive) example of why I disagree.  Solebury Township in southeastern Pennsylvania still boasts a number of old hardwood trees, and the miscreant in this instance was a property owner who simply wanted a better view from the deck of the country home he had just bought but not yet moved into. He hired an arborist to clear some trees that he thought were on his property. 22 trees later, the landowner (a retired lawyer) realized...Click here to read full story...

Ontario Land Surveyors Lose Class Action Copyright Lawsuit

Teranet Inc., the company that has the rights to distribute Ontario’s real estate and land records online, has defeated a class action lawsuit in which 350 land surveyors claimed the company was breaching their copyright.  Click here to read full story...

GNSS and the Real-time Network: The Surveyor’s Best Friend

A lot of talk is being made about UAVs these days and how this technology is going to revolutionize many industries, with surveying being one of the biggest users. I won’t deny the impact this new tool is going to have on our profession (as written in my last column). But I don’t think it will compare to the use of GNSS technology and how it modernized measuring methods for the surveyor. I’m often asked by young surveyors what I think is the biggest improvement experienced by the surveying profession. Click here to read full story....

FLAIR Act

Senate passes energy bill with FLAIR Act which includes the collection of energy-related "data gathered by geomatics techniques, including tools and techniques used in land surveying, remote sensing, cartography, geographic information systems, global navigation satellite systems, photogrammetry, geophysics, geography, or other remote means." Click here to read full story...

UAS: The Must-Have Survey Tool

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are the newest supplemental tool for many established engineering and surveying firms.
For numerous startup UAS entities, performing engineering and surveying
services represents a clear path to economic feasibility. We spoke with
established engineering and surveying firms and UAS companies to
highlight how each are operating—and benefiting at— their respective
organizations with UAS.  Click the link below to read the full story.



UAS Magazine – The Latest News on Unmanned Aerial Systems - UAS: The Must-Have Survey Tool

Surveying in the News

Surveyor Collecting County's Land History Plat by Plat

Click here to read the full story...

LightSquared Back in the News

“I have seen no data that supports the use of that frequency spectrum other
than the data I saw in 2011” that first raised concerns, Hyten said. “I don’t think that we should infringe on the GPS spectrum,” Hyten said. “That’s a critical capability, not just for the military security of the nation but for” the entire economy, Hyten said. “We can’t allow that to happen.” Click here to read the full story...

Drones

How 3D Robotics' Souped-Up Drone Puts Aerial Surveying on the Map

This week, the California-based, Chris Anderson-helmed drone company announced a souped-up version of its hobbyist Solo drone, complete with a cloud solution for aerial mapping and surveying, one that should make the process of creating 2D renderings and maps of job sites faster and safer. Click here to read the full story...

Great Basin College

50 Best Value Rankings: Best Online Colleges 2016.  

Great Basin College ranked 33.

http://www.bestvalueschools.com/rankings/online-colleges-2016/

Surveying in the News

7 Non-office Jobs That are in High Demand
Tired of being stuck in the office? Turns out there are quite a few jobs with huge amounts of projected growth, and they don’t involve cubicles. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released new data on job growth projections for the decade of 2014-2024, and we’ve rounded up the non-office jobs that topped their list. From trekking across rugged terrain to investigating crime scenes, all of these careers have unique work settings and responsibilities. Best of all, these jobs offer a surprising amount of growth, much higher than the average 7 percent growth of all jobs nationwide, and many are unique, specialized jobs that you may not have expected to grow so much. Click here to read the full story...

After Bankruptcy, LightSquared Changes Name to Ligado Networks

Wireless venture LightSquared said Wednesday it will rebrand itself Ligado Networks LLC, part of a broader plan to turn the page on its failed attempt to launch a broadband service over contested airwaves.

Ligado, a Spanish and Portuguese word the company chose to evoke “being connected and ready to go,” will be the new name for a business seeking to use several blocks of wireless spectrum for a new land-based service.  Click here to read full story...

National Surveyors Week (March 20 – 26, 2016)

NALS will join with surveying associations across the country to celebrate National Surveyors Week March 20-26, 2016.

A proclamation declaring Land Surveyors Week in Nevada has been requested of our Governor and once received will be shared with the membership.

NALS members are encouraged to engage the communities during Land Surveyors week. This could include writing an article for your local paper on the important role Land Surveyors play in the community, providing a presentation to a rotary or chamber group, or visiting a local school. 

In addition, we encourage you to participate in GPS Day. To kick start this event, NGS is providing a free webinar on February 17^th regarding GPS on Benchmarks.

Click here to learn more...

Surveying in the News

Interesting article posted on Realtor.com 

How to Avoid a Turf War, and 5 Other Things Your Surveyor Wishes You Knew
Click here to read the full story...

Surveyor in the News

Once-living Monument Found
When a private surveyor prodded the soil just to the west of Spring Grove a few weeks ago, in search of a buried monument, he got a surprise. Click here to read the full story...

LightSquared Taking Another Run at the FCC

LightSquared is seeking FCC approval for a plan it argues will allow its broadband service to co-exist with GPS. Click here for the full story...

Surveying in the News

Surveying was a Rough Business
Shortly after the end of the Revolutionary War, the leaders of the fledgling United States of America realized that the land west of the original 13 states – ceded to the new government by the Treaty of Paris in 1783 – was, quite literally, uncharted territory. Click here to read full story...

Data is the crop: GNSS used by Surveyors and Farmers

As technology continues to march forward, and storage and data evaluation use grows, the surveyor and the farmer will begin to use each other’s skillsets to increase their own productivity. So how do we get there? First, we must establish how each side uses their prospective GPS tools. Click here to read the full story...