DM Civil is a mid-sized civil construction company in Western Australia, Australia that has a reputation for being early adopters of technology. Mark McGurdy, Survey Manager at DM Civil makes sure he’s abreast of any new developments hitting the market and this made him a natural fit to test MiRTK.

“Karl O’Toole from Aptella approached me and asked if we’d be interested in testing MiRTK, to evaluate it and report on how it went. We gave it a go and we’ve been testing it now for a few months and like I say: Where you need it, it’s perfect! It works every time,” said Mr McGurdy.

MiRTK integrates seamlessly with existing GNSS on site

Mr McGurdy has a wide range of existing GNSS and machine control equipment on site and has found that MiRTK has integrated seamlessly.

“All the GNSS gear we have is Topcon. We do have a few different models but the ones we’ve been mainly using are the Hiper V’s and the GR-5. Both of those have worked perfectly with MiRTK. We use MAGNET Field and Carlson SurvPC software on our field tablet,” said Mr McGurdy.

“We also have a bit of Topcon machine control equipment. On one job we actually had planned to use a trencher with machine control to dig about a 2km trench and typically we’d just use the UHF radios, but very soon after we started that job it became apparent that the UHF radios just weren’t getting reliable signal and it was dropping out quite a lot.”

“We tried to persevere but in the end we had to switch to MiRTK and change the machine control over to that option and when we did that, it was seamless!”

Mr McGurdy was surprised at how easy it was to get MiRTK up and running. Importantly, this seamless integration meant that there was no time lost on site.

What benefits has DM Civil seen since implementing MiRTK from Aptella?

The main benefit that Mr McGurdy experienced after implementing MiRTK onto his sites was the reliability it offered. When DM Civil initially began using UHF radio, there were very few licensed UHF users, but as the amount of licensed UHF users increases, Mr McGurdy has found UHF interference has also increased: MiRTK has been able to solve that problem for him.

“I’d say, in ideal conditions, UHF and MiRTK are probably the same, the only problem is, we don’t work in ideal conditions and often there’s interference on the UHF and you just don’t get any of those problems on MiRTK. So long as you’ve got phone signal, I’d say it’s a much safer solution,” said Mr McGurdy.

The importance of service and support

The service and support a company offers is one of the core things that Mr McGurdy looks for when making a technology or equipment purchasing decision, noting that he wouldn’t pursue new technology that didn’t come with support.

“Basically, you look at the ‘what if’ scenarios and nine times out of 10 you need that follow up support. If something goes wrong, if you lose something, something doesn’t work – what do you do? Even just to have that sounding board of the Aptella team to get some advice,” said Mr McGurdy.

“Aptella are the experts in that side of things, the support. So, we know how to operate it but if something goes wrong we need to be able to call upon Aptella to sort out the finer points.”

“MiRTK ticks a lot of boxes for us, to be able to guarantee that you’ll be able to get the work done on time, every time,” said Mr McGurdy.

About DM Civil

DM Civil is a mid-sized civil construction company, specialising in all types of civil work: road works, sub-divisions, earthworks and water infrastructure projects. DM Civil has been providing tailored, sustainable civil contracting solutions to many of Australia’s leading companies since 1976.