5th May 2010, 09:21 AM
Hand held GPS is fine for this then, as you say, things are determined by the buget anyway. It depends at what scale you're going to plot at anyway; at 1:5K 3-5 metres is not noticable anyway. Although there is inaccuracy, it is still more of less accurate to itself, so points on the screen 10m apart are likely to be 10m apart in reality. So your survey will be internally accurate, rather than precisely fitted to the National Grid. Hand held GPS is a bit more inaccurate with heights than with X and Y co-ords. Though as sheep says, the locational fix will wander over time, as the satellites come in and out of view. There might be a way around this, like using canes to mark out, and then taking points all at once.