Frustration with the totalstation.

As I´ve mentioned earlier, the totalstation is, by far the most important tool on our site. Our whole excavation, and our interpretations depend on the measurments that we take with the totalstation. So we had to quickly replace the totalstation that we lost. We found an old Leica wild, and an even older yellow Topcon at the institution of archaeology in Lund. The Leica was Arnes private one, but it had not been used for a long time.

The Topcon, Patrik and the Leica.

These machines are anchient creationes belonging to a long lost time. We spent monday and tuesday trying to figure them out. Patrik and Arne are a bit more technical than I am, so I was´nt much help, but I kept them company. The main problem was that we could´nt get the totalstation to transfer the measuring data to the computer. We spent many hours reading the instructions and trying to figure out the technical terminology.

Patrik looking a bit confused.

Patrik thinks they have solved the problem.....

...only to look just as confused the second later.

We gave up on the topcon, because the batterys where far past their expiration date. Finally we took the Leica to the boys at Leica geosystems in Malmö. The main problem was that the machines where so ancient that they could not function with a modern computer. We dugg up an old computer and the problems where solved...I hope.

Tomorrow, we will be back at the peatbog, braving the weather, scratching our heads over the totalstation and exploring the mesolithic.