Fixing the same point multiple times on different dates

[Tarquin Wilton-Jones]

Hi folks,

Imagine you are surveying a cave. You use a GPS to average the
coordinates for a surface feature, which will be used as a prime survey
station. Your team repeats that 4 times on different days, with
different GPS devices, and different personnel.

You want to keep a record of who did what and when, and with what tools.

Ideally, you create a separate *begin and *end, with the right *team,
the right *device and the right *date, the right *sd to say your
confidence in each measurement, then you *fix pss x y z.

Survex refuses (unless I am mistaken) to allow multiple fixes per
station. You have to do a weighted average manually, and fudge the
metadata, most of which gets lost.

So how can it be done?

I can see something like this:

*begin
 *begin fix1
  *metadata goes here
  *fix 1 x y z
  *begin
   ;first leg from surface survey
   *metadata goes here
   1 2 23.4 123 12
  *end
 *end fix1
 *begin fix2
  *metadata goes here
  *fix 1 x y z
  *begin
   ;repeat first leg
   *metadata goes here
   1 2 23.4 123 12
  *end
 *end fix2
 ...
 *equate fix1.2 fix2.2 fix3.2 fix4.2
*end

By equating the second station, you force the first leg(s) to do all the
error distribution of the fixes (and you can use *sd to control it).

But this solution is *hideous*...
Does anyone have a better one, or did I miss something obvious?

Cheers,

Tarquin