Hello, Instrumentation is a pretty straight forward, but not super cheap. We use a laser rangefinder, a clinometer, and a tape. Most of us use a Nikon Prostaff Laser Rangefinder, model 440. That is out of production right now, but has been replaces by a Nikon Prostaff Laser Rangefinder model 550. ($180 to 200 range) I don't have one, but others have reported that it does well.
For a clinometer almost everyone uses a Suunto Clinometer PM-5, with the readings in degrees and percentage. There are several different scales, but the one you need is one with degrees. There is one made by Brunton, but nobody I know has tried one. They make good compasses, but I don't know about the clinometers. They should be OK. http://www.benmeadows.com/store/Navigation/Clinometers/Manual_Clinometers/1304/?noredirect=true 102200 - SUUNTO Clinometer PM5/360PC-Percent & Degrees 1 EA 1-2 $128.00 3+ $120.00 http://www.benmeadows.com/store/Navigation/Clinometers/Manual_Clinometers/1304/102200/?noredirect=true The third item you need is a tape. I have one that is fifty feet in length from a hardware store that measures in feet and inches. ($25) Others have one that measures in feet and tenths. It is straightforward to convert from one to the other, or even from one that measures in meters and centimeters. We measure the girth of the tree rather than the diameter for various reasons outlined on the website, but most D-tapes also measure in simple length units as well. Basically the conversion from girth to diameter includes the built in assumption that the tree is perfectly round, while the girth measurement is a simple measurement with no hidden assumptions. For volume calculations we do convert to a diameter, but that is with our eyes open.) There is another instrument, the Nikon Forestry 550 rangefinder that has both a clinometer and a rangefinder built into a single unit along with a height calculation routine. I have not tried it yet, but others have reported that it works fine but has some quirks. It can be purchased on eBay for about $290 to $350. I use a regular survey field notebook to write down my measurements and a $5 calculator to do the trig needed to calculate the tree heights. Any decent notebook would be fine. I also have a surveying GPS unit to get my specific locations. Not everyone has one. On the less expensive end they run maybe $120. Some people use the one built into their iPhone with a $10 MotionGPS app. The instructions for measurement may be downloaded from our website as a pdf document http://www.nativetreesociety.org/measure/Tree_Measuring_Guidelines-revised.pdf You obviously have read some of the discussions in our measurement section. Ed Frank "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science." - Albert Einstein ----- Original Message ----- From: merlin924 To: ENTSTrees Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 11:14 AM Subject: [ENTS] What measuring devices do you use? G'day; I'm new to the group and have just started finding and Identifying big trees in New Jersey. the question I have is, what measuring devices do you use? I've search the group and found a lot of "How To's" but nothing on equipment. Thanks in advance Lou http://louisdallara.com/wordpress2/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
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