South Pole GPS Base Station - Base Equipment
Description:
This station is operated remotely by UNAVCO as part of general GPS support provided to the NSF-OPP Antarctic program. The geodetic quality GPS base station at South Pole Station consists of a Trimble NetR8 GPS receiver, an Ashtech choke ring antenna, a rubidium oscillator frequency standard, and a frequency doubler. With proper roving equipment, the system can be used as a base for centimeter-level post-processed surveys up to a 100 km radius.
The antenna is mounted to the roof of the elevated station. Its position moves approximately 10m per year along with the ice sheet. The system is considered a permanent base station, and is not intended to be moved or disconnected.
- Trimble NetR8 user guide [pdf]
Access to Base Station data:
Online access to the base station is available from the South Pole network, as well as the entire USAP network according to the South Pole satellite schedule.
This will bring up the receiver's web interface. The receiver is programmed to allow anonymous access for data download, however if prompted, the username and password are:
Username: amu2
Password: gps
The web interface also allows you to see how many satellites the receiver is tracking, what data files are being logged, and other configuration information. However, you can only download data using this user account and cannot change any of these parameters. Configuration changes are done remotely by UNAVCO using a separate account; contact UNAVCO for any changes or requests.
To download data, click on the Data Logging tab, then Data Files. Click on the Internal directory then navigate to the directory where the desired files are stored. When you locate the file(s) you want, click on the filename to download. Note that you cannot download any files that are currently being written to. The receiver records data at several logging rates, in Trimble .T01 format, stored in the following locations on the receiver:
24-hour 15-second datafiles
/Internal/YYYYMM/24hr15sc/AMU2YYYYMMDD0000A.T01
60-minute 2-Hz datafiles
/Internal/YYYYMM/DD/1hr2hz/AMU2YYYYMMDDHH00B.T01
60-minute 10-Hz datafiles
/Internal/YYYYMM/DD/1hr10hz/AMU2YYYYMMDDHH00C.T01
Each of these file types is allocated a certain portion of the NetR8 memory. When this section of memory is full, the oldest files are deleted. The NetR8 stores approximately 800 days of 15-second data, 40 days of 2Hz data, and 8 days of 10Hz data.
The 15-second data are also available from the UNAVCO data archive
(site AMU2). Each summer season, from late October through mid February, high-rate data files are downloaded and archived by UNAVCO.
However in general the higher sample rate data are recorded on the receiver only and are not archived. Due to the limited
storage space for high-rate data on the receiver, any group requiring high-rate GPS data from this station should make a formal request
as soon as possible by emailing archive-gps
unavco.org.
Base Station Components:
An SOP for the GPS station is maintained on the Support page, and includes and inventory of GPS components.Last modified: 2019-12-24 02:12:46 America/Denver