ENGINEERING INFORMATION

BULLETIN

January 2001

E & M provides technical support services to engineers and architects in Western New York and Pennsylvania. These services include our newest: closed circuit television inspection of pipelines and global positioning system surveying.

Closed Circuit Televising - we currently have equipment and trained technicians for the inspection, by color television camera, of sanitary and storm sewers as well as service laterals to check for obstructions, leakage and breaks. If your Client has infiltration and / or inflow problems we can help you, help them find the sources.

    
        TV Equipment and Van                             Root Intrusion on Left Side

We can also provide videotape logs for future reference or use in confronting sewer ordinance violators. Logs are captioned and have date, time and footage. On-tape narration can be provided if desired.

Using our sonde locator, we can physically mark the ground surface to show location of and depth to pipe defects.  The equipment is capable of inspecting pipe from 4 inches to 36 inches in diameter. In certain cases we can also check interior piping down to 2 inches in size.

Our equipment is very compact and can be removed from our truck to a remote off-road project site if necessary. Other conduits (electrical, telephone) and even chimneys can also be inspected.

Sewer Smoke Testing - Complementing our televising equipment is our smoke testing machine. Our technicians can help locate improperly constructed sewer connections, inflow and infiltration sources using the machine to pressurize smoke into the pipelines.

Digital photographic documentation is furnished along with location sketches.

"The Sky is Now Ours!@
What is this guy doing?            
      Your final answer is . . . ?

a. measuring depth of a well

b. playing etcha-sketch

c. escaped gas detection

d. ET Call Home

          Yes! d is correct.

 E&M is now GPS capable! At right is our new Leica GPS Rover Receiver (ET) with a radio antenna mounted on it. The Rover is communicating with our GPS Base Station (home) to obtain adjustments to data from satellites for the Geographic location of a capped oil well.

E&M is now very proud to announce that we can add to our list of professional services the term GPS (Global Positioning System). We have purchased and have trained our Land Survey personnel in the use of a ALeica System 530", real Time Kinematic, Dual Frequency units and a 35-watt radio communication system.

This system allows us to obtain millimeter accuracy with the proper satellite constellation, known point to start from, correct range of atmospheric/static conditions and communications links. The faint radio signals from the four or more satellites in a constellation are received by the base station GPS receiver and the rover. These radio signals are analyzed, clock times compared, ambiguities resolved and the resulting geographic location compared with the known point position. This is called RTK, the Real Time Kinematic method.

The photograph on the right shows the GPS Rover receiver mounted on a two-meter pole for mobility. It is being held over a highway bounds iron stake at our office property on Route 219, Springville, NY. It will receive the satellite=s radio signals and apply the correction factors, giving the correct location coordinates.

This results in a fine-tuned correction factor which is transmitted to the GPS Rover Receiver. The GPS Rover has also received and analyzed the radio signals from the satellites at the same exact time and now applies the correction factor that it received from the GPS Base Station and down loads the corrected Geographic coordinate data of the unknown point to our electronic data collector. All of this in a matter of seconds.

Without the radio link the data can still be obtained and recorded. Then it is "Post processed@ in the office using programs on our personal computers. This method is called "static@ and as with RTK it also requires that the two receivers are receiving radio signals from the same group of satellites at the same exact time.

Using GPS at the appropriate times when a good satellite constellation is visible we can obtain data for the completion of a large acreage boundary survey faster than can be done with a Total Station field traverse with no reduction in accuracy.

These units can be used to produce a thousand point topographic/planimetric map faster and at less cost than conventional methods.

The above photograph shows the GPS base station and radio transmitter being set up over a USGS horizontal control monument whose NY State Plane coordinates are known. It will receive the radio signals from the satellites and radio the measurement adjustments to the Rover receiver. This base station remains on this point throughout the GPS survey.

The photo on the right shows our GPS unit being used to obtain the Geographic location of a producing oil well.

The use of GPS units is very well suited in obtaining the geographic location of oil and/or gas wells for inventory or Government reports or permits. The results can be stated in a latitude/longitude or other geographic grid.

Horizontal and Vertical control surveys for aerial photography is a very cost-effective use of GPS, eliminating the need for time-consuming field traverses between distant points. Delineated wetland boundaries can be located and mapped quickly and accurately using GPS and walking the flagged wetland boundary.