STS's new tracking system

[cablemagne]

Talked to my old sup. this morning and he said they did not do drawings of their locates anymore. Seems they now can get a satelite view of the locate that proves they were their and that he had to verify by computer that they were actually there. Anybody got any exp with this new system or was he yanking my chain?

[beyond help]

What happens if it's cloudy. I wonder how much it costs for a dedicated satelite. I'd say around 50 - 60 um million minimum.

[NINJA]

we were starting to test that system down south before we lost the contracts. It is really cool and scary, talk about "big brother". They did have some problems with sunspots and diffrent gps towers but for the most part the system worked. I prefered taking a picture then down loading them into the computer. no film, to maintain, just click download and go.
P.s. If for some strang reason you think they do not know where you are at all times during the day then you need to wake up. I do not think there isn't a cell phone on earth without some kind of active gps on it. same thing with the company issued lap tops. Dam panisonic tough books are great systems but fully gps capible......it just depends if the co. wants to pay to have the service turned on.............

[cablemagne]

What got me was the sup said that half of his day was spent checking locates by computer to see if they were done correctly. And no clears without actually going out to check it out. Thats okay I geuss if you have a small area. Some of their areas will encompass 2 to 6 counties, some of which has never had underground utilities. When things pick up it will be unmanagable. Ninja, you back in locating now? Starting to wish I was back in the game.

[yahoo]

we have that new tracking system your talking about and it's used in lots of ways but have not heard of it being used in that fashion.....here we are still drawing up the locate on manifests.......

[TheCableVine]

What is the system called?

[RD_Wrangler]

There are very few satellite imaging programs much less satellites themselves accessible by the private sector capable of REAL TIME surface scanning at a low enough level to be able to judge a locate at a particular address.

Even military scanning is limited by the particular trajectory and position of a given sat. at a given time. Sometimes the visiual target just isn't accessible. Then you have to account for weather phenom., sun spot interference, etc.

I'm sorry, I have a hard time believing any company would be able to afford the cost incurred with the simple logistics required for real time, low altitude imaging.

GPS is one thing, triangulation of signals is no big deal, relatively easy and cheap. Real time surface scans at the level required to see a locate? Not so easy and damn sure not so cheap.

[sprayandpray]

Real time tracking is not needed - all they have to do is compare the GPS reading at a certain time with where the computer says you were according to the ticket active at that time. I know that Utiliquest activated a system to where the computer assigned each locator 1 ticket at a time. It only lasted about a week. Ain't all this high-tech computer stuff just great!

[TheCableVine]

I think there are two conversations going on here. One side thinks that when you finish a locate, a satellite takes a picture of the locate for you. And the other side is saying that the system only synchs up your position on the planet with the time that you enter a ticket as cleared. Verifying that you are at the location when you clear that ticket.

Or, is this a third conversation?

[beyond help]

It sounds like the second one Steve

[RD_Wrangler]

You're right Steve. I assumed since he was talking about locate drawings being replaced and about Sups "checking locates" That we were talking about actual pics.

GPS time synching is more than possible to check location vs. time billed.