Meadowlark,
Your exactly right about getting lost. For the life of me, over the last year, I thought the lake was going to be long and thin. It's just what the trail felt like to me. I was totally blown away when I started clearing it and realized how wide and round it was!!!
My lazer is a Spectra L220 I think. Might be a L200. Anyway, I bought it used on Ebay for $100 after about six months of losing out on higher bidders. It's a kit that came with the lazer, tripod, detector and case. I had to buy a rod at Lowes for another $40.
The thing I liked about this is it's all in one case and very portable. Others I've used require several trips to get everything out and set up. I just grab it and go for a walk. Real easy.
To set it up, you have to align the bubble manually, but that's really easy and only takes a few seconds.
Range is around 500 feet in any direction and I believe it's within half a degree of accuracy at the extreme distances. With the detector, it daylight and brightness dont matter. On some cheap lazers that's a big deal.
I use it for foundations and pads mostly, but it's been great for determining the shorline and my dam height.
Eddie
