USING THE GPS TO WALK TRANSECTS
by
Robert L. Hafey
This paper will provide specific instructions or suggestions on how to setup the GPS to
facilitate transect walking for field surveys.
Systematic field walking is essential to surveying an area of potential archaeological significance. This means the establishment of specific transects to be walked over a specific area. The area chosen for this paper is 1 sq. km located in Sand Spring Valley. Transects have been established at 20m intervals for pedestrian survey (Hester 1997, p54), the determination of 20 meter spacing was established because of relatively goodsurface visibility. This would permit one to observe and make collections of material approximately 10 meters to either side of the North South transect center.
Materials and equipment used:
1. Garmin ETrex Vista GPS
2. Mapping Program - ALL TOPO MAPS: NEVADA by iGage
3. Poles with flags
4. Walking stick or something to mark position when deviating from transect.
METHODOLOGY
Waypoints or PINS are entered into the mapping program or directly into the GPS along
the 4175 Northing coordinate and along the 4176 coordinate at 20-meter intervals between
the 620,000 and 621,000 Easting coordinate. The naming of each of these pins is based
on their distance from their Easting number along that particular coordinate.
Using the iGage ALL TOPO MAPS program you would place a bookmark close to the
intersection of the 620000E and 4175N quad. Next you would select “Search Annotation
List…” then select “Options”…followed by “Arch-Grid”… then choose: “select
bookmark” and: “Rnd”, then after closing the this window the program will
automatically generate all of the pins and guide markers for a 1 km square area. NOTE:
By default in the “Arch-Grid”, the settings for the “X” axis (north south) and the “Y” axis
(east west) have been set to produce transects for 1 sq. km. You can change these
settings to produce any sized search grid from the “Arch-Grid” menu.
Please click on the PDF link below for the rest of the paper:
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