You don't need a two-person crew for every survey. Here's how a phone paired with an RTK receiver handles most jobs solo.
Not every survey job justifies a full crew. Boundary checks, quick site reconnaissance and routine re-stakes are increasingly a one-person job — as long as the phone-plus-receiver setup is dialed in before you leave the office.
Pair the receiver once, trust it every time
An external RTK receiver paired to your phone over Bluetooth turns consumer-grade GPS into centimeter-level positioning. Confirm the correction source (base station or network RTK) and fix status before recording a single point — a "float" fix that looks close enough is exactly where boundary disputes start.
Build a repeatable point-and-note habit
Recording a coordinate is only half the value; a short note or photo attached to each point is what makes it useful weeks later when someone else opens the file.
What actually saves time solo
- Pre-loading the parcel or plat as a reference layer, so you can see how the fix compares to the recorded boundary in real time.
- Naming points as you go rather than renaming them all back at the office.
- Exporting to your firm's standard format (SHP, KML, GeoJSON) at the end of the visit, not days later.
FieldCalc pairs directly with RTK receivers and keeps points, notes and exports in one workflow — no separate data logger required.
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