The Trimble Fairy Dropped By

And barfed on my desk again...

Actually the good folks at NEI in Atlanta are loaning us some equipment to test for a week or so.   For the past 6 years we've been running Trimble R8 receivers and TSC2 data collectors for GIS data collection (I know, I know, that's like hunting mosquitoes with a bazooka, but it's what we found when we hired on with this little operation).  This combo has been spectacularly successful at the airport and has revolutionized GIS and Civil Engineering data collection.

But these systems are getting long in the tooth and we want to move up to a GNSS capable receiver/data collector combo that offers more versatility.  Rather than go the survey equipment route we are taking a look at some of Trimble's centimeter grade GIS/Mapping systems.  I like the idea of a GIS/Mapping data collector that I can run TerraSync, ArcPad or ArcGIS for Windows Mobile on, picking the application based on project and accuracy requirements.

So today NEI dropped off a GeoExplorer 6000 XH, a Zephyr antenna and a one of the new Juno 5 handhelds for us to play with test.

I'll report back in a week or so on how things go.

(By the way, I really like the screen on the Juno 5.  Compared to the screen on the Juno 3D... well, there is no comparison.  And this sucker is fast and the touch screen is responsive.  Almost makes you forget it's running Windoze Embedded Something-or-other 6.5.)