Need Help Finding a Survey Pin

[gmccool]

I need help finding a survey pin. I had a farm surveyed into thirds 15 months ago. I marked the fence with a flag and painted the barb wire orange by all the pins. I need to find one certain pin and the flag and the orange paint are GONE. Yes I could call the surveyer back and have him flag the one pin that I need but he is real busy and I really don't want to bother the guy. I have the written survey results and have the GPS coordinates. Is there a free app that I could put on my I Phone that would be accurate enough that I could just walk right to it and I mean right to it or will I still have to look around for it. I thought about burning the brome off of the area & see if I could see any evidence of a 15 month old dig. I've also thought about buying a metal detector because I've been wanting one anyway. But I would like to try the I Phone first. Thanks Gerald

 

[Mr. Kane]

The phone will get you close , but you will probably still need a metal detector. Survey grade ones only detect steel. I cheap fiberglass tape and a point to measure from is probably better. A retired Ohio surveyor.

 

[DoubleO7]

@gmccool
How far is it to a known pin?
Maybe you can use a known length of rope or string from the known towards the missing until you get the written footage?
Might have to leap frog the string to get far enough with the string you have.

 

[gmccool]

@gmccool
How far is it to a known pin?
Maybe you can use a known length of rope or string from the known towards the missing until you get the written footage?
Might have to leap frog the string to get far enough with the string you have.

The closest known pin is about 1/2 to 5/8 of a mile

 

[DoubleO7]

The closest known pin is about 1/2 to 5/8 of a mile

I use regular, free Google Maps on my android phone for everyday navigation.

When you are looking at it and it shows your "blue dot" on the map, put your finger on it and at the search window at the top, it will show you your coordinates. It is shown in decimals, so you will likely need to convert your survey coordinates to decimal coordinates. No big deal.

It is within 3 feet of where my phone is located.

 

[TomIn]

I need help finding a survey pin. I had a farm surveyed into thirds 15 months ago. I marked the fence with a flag and painted the barb wire orange by all the pins. I need to find one certain pin and the flag and the orange paint are GONE. Yes I could call the surveyer back and have him flag the one pin that I need but he is real busy and I really don't want to bother the guy. I have the written survey results and have the GPS coordinates. Is there a free app that I could put on my I Phone that would be accurate enough that I could just walk right to it and I mean right to it or will I still have to look around for it. I thought about burning the brome off of the area & see if I could see any evidence of a 15 month old dig. I've also thought about buying a metal detector because I've been wanting one anyway. But I would like to try the I Phone first. Thanks Gerald

I recently posted a similar question about buying a metal detector to locate survey pins and buried wires. The answers I received suggested that a cheapie metal detector would be of limited value. Professional surveyors would use a $1,000 to $3,000 detector that is only useful for detecting steel or iron. Folks who are hunting treasure can spend as much as they want for a detector, but a good detector for finding gold won't be much good for finding steel.

I don't know about phone apps. I doubt that any could get you within inches of the survey pin. I have very limited experience with survey pins, but have never encountered "any evidence of a dig". I assume that the pins are just pounded into the ground and wouldn't leave much evidence of a "dig".

When you mention "fence", I am guessing that the survey pin is likely to have been set either under the fence or at least within several inches of the fence. I wouldn't imagine that the pin was set very deep in the ground. A phone app using GPS coordinates should be able to get you within 20' of the pin. If it is under or very near a fence line, you should be able to use a narrow shovel or hoe to scrape off the top several inches of soil until you hit the metal pin (unless your soil is mostly hard pan and rocks like my rural property.)

 

[37chief]

I need help finding a survey pin. I had a farm surveyed into thirds 15 months ago. I marked the fence with a flag and painted the barb wire orange by all the pins. I need to find one certain pin and the flag and the orange paint are GONE. Yes I could call the surveyer back and have him flag the one pin that I need but he is real busy and I really don't want to bother the guy. I have the written survey results and have the GPS coordinates. Is there a free app that I could put on my I Phone that would be accurate enough that I could just walk right to it and I mean right to it or will I still have to look around for it. I thought about burning the brome off of the area & see if I could see any evidence of a 15 month old dig. I've also thought about buying a metal detector because I've been wanting one anyway. But I would like to try the I Phone first. Thanks Gerald

Maybe use a string trimmer, and start cutting close to the ground. Look carefully where the barbs are twisted on, there may be some paint residue. Stan

 

[Mcrafty1]

I would think you could get within 9 feet of a GPS location with something that reads GPS coordinates. knowing its at or very near the fence line it shouldn't be that hard to find, If they surveyor put a steel/ iron rod for a marker and took GPS coordinates he should not have driven the pins below ground. The point of having land surveyed is to know where your property lines are...to hide the pins under the surface kinda mitigates that....and would be a bad practice for the surveyor in my opinion.

 

[sms]

GPS on phone can get you very close. REGRID is a free app that shows property lines and owners for free. More information is available for a fee.

 

[olddavid]

Phone apps might get you within 10 or 15 feet. Not really close enough. If you KNOW it was directly under the fence look for disturbances in the foliage and look again for any trace of the paint and flag. Something may have carried the flag off but there should at least be some sign of the paint on the barbed wire. I am guessing the surveyor drove the spike flush to the ground but they tend to bury themselves. I looked for one of my daughters pins just a few days ago. It was flagged but something broke the flag off at the ground. I finally dragged out my cheapo metal detector and found it (barely) about where I thought it was but I couldn't see it. You might borrow a metal detector or even rent one for a day.

 

[UncleTom]

Some times those phone apps are spot on. Need to do it on a clear day so you get as many satellites hooked up for better accuracy.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

A free app that performs the function and has the accuracy of $1000's worth of GPS equipment? Nope.

 

[TerryfromSWIowa]

I would think you could get within 9 feet of a GPS location with something that reads GPS coordinates. knowing its at or very near the fence line it shouldn't be that hard to find, If they surveyor put a steel/ iron rod for a marker and took GPS coordinates he should not have driven the pins below ground. The point of having land surveyed is to know where your property lines are...to hide the pins under the surface kinda mitigates that....and would be a bad practice for the surveyor in my opinion.

Pins are usually driven below the surface, that is why people mark them with a steel post.

 

[olddavid]

Pins are usually driven below the surface, that is why people mark them with a steel post.

Depends on the surveyor. A surveyor I talked to said flush as they tend to get buried over time anyway. One pin on Mom's farm was in a wooded area and was sticking out of the ground maybe a foot. They would likely drive it flush or a bit lower in an open field where mowers etc. might hit them. And yes, steel posts to mark them is a good idea. Just did that for my 5 acres but have one more to go.

 

[DoubleO7]

A free app that performs the function and has the accuracy of $1000's worth of GPS equipment? Nope.

Google Maps free app on my phone is showing me my phones location within 3 feet.

I think it is more accurate when there are several cell towers to ping off of. If there are only one or two for you, it won't be as accurate.

 

[Russ from MN]

We have the same problem, when the DNR sold the timber on the land next to us, they did an accurate survey. The surveyors found the original pipes driven in the ground below grade, over 100 years ago, but then they covered them up again. It's in a road, so there can't be anything permanant above ground. I have the gps coordinated, but that only gets me withing 3-4 feet. In the spring I will start digging. they left some witness marks on some nearby trees, but the loggers destroyed them. The gps coordinated on the survey report are in a strange format, nothing like what's available on my gps. N372220.874 & E414991.009, anyone familiar with that? The other confusing things is we are West of Greenwich, not East, correct?

 

[olddavid]

We have the same problem, when the DNR sold the timber on the land next to us, they did an accurate survey. The surveyors found the original pipes driven in the ground below grade, over 100 years ago, but then they covered them up again. It's in a road, so there can't be anything permanant above ground. I have the gps coordinated, but that only gets me withing 3-4 feet. In the spring I will start digging. they left some witness marks on some nearby trees, but the loggers destroyed them.

We have pins buried in the road here in MO as well but there are also pins offset out of the roadway that we can key off of. Not sure how they do it in MN.

 

[TomIn]

We have the same problem, when the DNR sold the timber on the land next to us, they did an accurate survey. The surveyors found the original pipes driven in the ground below grade, over 100 years ago, but then they covered them up again. It's in a road, so there can't be anything permanant above ground. I have the gps coordinated, but that only gets me withing 3-4 feet. In the spring I will start digging. they left some witness marks on some nearby trees, but the loggers destroyed them. The gps coordinated on the survey report are in a strange format, nothing like what's available on my gps. N372220.874 & E414991.009, anyone familiar with that? The other confusing things is we are West of Greenwich, not East, correct?

I'm an ancient geezer with little knowledge of GPS. However I'm aware that there are two different "numbering systems". I did a Google search and found some websites that seems to offer a coordinates-converters.

GPS coordinate converter

Easiest app to convert GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude) between decimal and Degrees/Minutes/Seconds gps coordinates format.

www.gps-coordinates.net

GPS Coordinates Converter - Latitude and Longitude Converter

GPS Coordinates Converter is a tool to convert gps coordinates to address and convert address to lat long. You can use the lat long converter to locate an address, latitude and longitude on a map for navigation purposely or if your gps navigation system is giving you a lat long and you need to...

gps-coordinates.org

I haven't used any of these websites and am cautious of pressing buttons on websites.

 

[MSD]

My Dad's farm has granite markers buried in each corner. Even one's in the middle of the road.

 

[sms]

A free app that performs the function and has the accuracy of $1000's worth of GPS equipment? Nope.

My understanding is the phone apps are downgraded so they cannot be used for nefarious purposes. If you try to find a pin like the original poster you can stand still near the spot and watch your location shift on your phone. I found one survey marker using Onx hunting app, it was accurate to several feet.