All posts by Dave Doyle
Search for the Missing Pier
Above: The Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory is now a community park. My tale of locating the latitude pier of the Cincinnati Latitude Observatory, one of six international latitude observatories now defunct but historically significant. It was 1974, and I’d been working at the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) for two years. One afternoon my boss told me...
The Shutdown and Geodetic Services
Editor’s Note: We find ourselves in another government shutdown that has affected services from the National Geodetic Survey (NGS)—like the automated online post-processing user system (OPUS) that surveyors have become increasingly reliant on. Several readers asked us to re-post the following from the retired NGS chief geodetic surveyor Dave Doyle, as relevant as it was...
Fundamentals of Geodesy
Part 1: An Introduction Editor’s note: With this article we start an overview of GeoLearn courses offered by Dave Doyle, former chief geodetic surveyor for the National Geodetic Survey and geodesy editor of xyHt. GeoLearn (geo-learn.com) is an online education business helping professionals reach mandatory continuing education requirements and sort through everyday work issues. Dave’s...
NGA’s Involvement With Our World
Above: The deputy director says that NGA wants to have a bigger role. Editor’s Note: On July 23, xyHt editors Gavin Schrock and Dave Doyle were invited to address an audience of professionals at the headquarters of the federal government’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) in Springfield, Virginia. While this was a closed-door session held to...
Discussion of Senate Bill 804, SB 804
Editor’s Desk: Silent Sea Changes Two events in the past month are possibly among the most important things to happen to this community in a long time. Both have come almost unnoticed. On Friday, March 22, I learned that the governor of Virginia was on the verge of signing Senate Bill 804, SB 804...
Surveyors and Surveying: Fit for Purpose
“Fit for purpose” is a phrase I’m hearing about with increasing frequency. I’d strongly suggest that you, my fellow surveyors, begin to pay attention to it. Here’s why.In the May issue I wrote about a recent situation that occurred in Virginia where two counties had decided to define their common boundary through a “GIS map”...
