Field Note Examples

Field notes are the primary record of the survey and may be the only evidence of the conditions at the time of the survey. Field notes must be recorded at the time the fieldwork is being done. A Land Surveyor’s field notes are not normally in public view; but, when they are, the surveyor’s competency and credibility may be judged by their quality.

• Field Notes Using A Data Collector
• Field Notes Template
• Field Notes with RTK and Conventional

Examples of various posts
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This article is intended to supplement the Manual of Standard Practice and provide an example of field notes to accompany a survey using an electronic data collector. Key elements regarding field notes are as follows:

• Field survey records should not be erased, altered or obliterated. Corrections are made by drawing a line through the error and writing the correct information beside or above it. Any entries made subsequent to the actual survey should be shown in a colour different than the original notes – Red for example
• Field notes should be recorded at the time of the survey. If fair copy notes are produced they do not replace, but only supplement, the original field recorded notes.
• Field notes must contain: the date, the weather conditions, field crew doing the survey, identification of the instruments and data collectors used, a brief legal description of the site and/or the site address and location details, description of monuments found, placed and looked for, condition notes about the state of monuments found, north arrows on all sketches and any other notations which assist in clarification of the field and site conditions.
• Use of a title sheet for much of the preceding information is recommended.
• Standard page numbering is: Title page will be 1, next left page is 2 {usually the obverse of page 1}, next right page is 3 and so on.
• When an incorrect data bit is stored in the data collector, such as the wrong prism height to a side shot, a note correcting this error should be recorded in the field notes as a description identified by the point number needing correction. The field note record is presumed to take precedence over the electronic data.
• Many Land Surveyors prefer to manually record the angles and distances to: Old Posts, traverse points, and posts set; in addition to recording this information in the data collector. This is particularly valuable if the manually recorded information is observed independently of the electronically booked data. If the field note record disagrees with the data collector data, there is no automatic assumption that the field note data takes precedence over the electronic data unless the field note indicates that the data collector data was observed to be incorrect at the time of the measurement.