IGS New Site Checklist

IGS Central Bureau

Jet Propulsion Lab/Caltech

<igscb @ igscb.jpl.nasa.gov>

(Network Coordinator: IGS Central Bureau)

Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply its endorsement by the United States Government or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.

21 December 2006

Carefully review the IGS Station Guidelines at http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/network/guidelines/guidelines.html. The responsible agency must have every expectation that the station will operate for at least 3 years. Confirm that the proposed station meets the requirements and adds value to the IGS network.
Stations located in Europe must generally first apply and be accepted into the EUREF Permanent Network (EPN), the regional densification network for Europe. See http://www.epncb.oma.be. Once the station is in the EPN, you may request that it be considered as an IGS station by emailing igscb @ igscb.jpl.nasa.gov and epncb @ epncb.oma.be. The IGS CB and EPN CB will discuss whether the station should be designated as an IGS station based on location, instrumentation, operational characteristics, and whether it is relevant to any IGS Pilot Project or Working Group. Exception: stations which have an H-Maser, GLONASS capability or L2C capability must apply to the EPN, but may also immediately apply to the IGS without waiting to be accepted into the EPN.
Contact the Central Bureau (igscb @ igscb.jpl.nasa.gov) with a message addressing
1. Where is the station located?
2. Is the station currently operating, or planned? If planned, when is the projected date it will become operational?
3. What agencies are responsible for installing, managing, operating, and maintaining the station?
4. What is the expected operational lifetime of the station? How secure is the funding?
5. Will the station replace an existing IGS station? If so, what is the scheduled date of decommissioning? Does the new station offer more capability than the old one?
6. Does/will the station meet all of the strictly required IGS site guidelines (http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/network/guidelines/guidelines.html)?
7. What is the data delivery schedule?
8. Can you set the receiver for "all in view" tracking (including tracking of satellites set unhealthy)?
9. Are there currently operating IGS stations within 1000km? Approximately how many? Does this site offer any capabilities the others do not?
10. What IGS product or project will this site benefit, based on its location, instrumentation, and latency?
11. Is this station intended to tie a national datum to the ITRF?
12. Is there a web page associated with this site (please specify)? If not, please include a site photo or two with this application.
13. Is data available on a public server (please specify)?
14. Please complete and include a draft site log (http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/igscb/station/general/blank.log) according to the instructions (http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/igscb/station/general/sitelog_instr.txt).
  - The proposed four character identifier should also be included, but it remains proposed only until confirmed by the CB. Allowed characters are A-Z and 1-9 (numerals may not be used in the first character). You may perform an initial check of the availability using http://sopac.ucsd.edu/scripts/checkSiteID.cgi. If the result is "available" it is certainly available. If this web page indicates it "may already be in use," it might be available for permanent stations anyway.
  - A new 4-char ID is required if a site is moved to a new monument. The 4-char ID has a one-to-one relationship with a monument, except in the case that more than one receiver records data from one antenna.
  - Include intended primary and secondary IGS Data Centers (see http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/organization/centers.html), but it is not necessary to confirm arrangements with the DCs at this stage.
Central Bureau will reflect this site on the schedule of future or proposed stations at http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/network/proposed.html.
The IGS analysis community will be notified of the proposal.
If the site requested to be added by an analyst, you will be asked to:
- Visit http://itrf.ensg.ign.fr/domes_request.php to request an IERS DOMES number if the monument has not already been assigned one.
- Contact the primary and secondary Data Centers to confirm that they can accept the data and learn about the transfer mechanisms.
- Revise the site log, if necessary, with confirmed IERS DOMES number, DCs, equipment codes, and 4-character ID. See http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/network/sitelog-submissions.html for instructions on performing an email format check. Logs should then be sent to the Central Bureau as plain ASCII text. Notify the CB where a recent RINEX file may be downloaded, or include a sample RINEX header (header only!) in the email to the CB.
- When the site log becomes available in ftp://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/station/log/, begin transmitting RINEX to the selected Data Center(s). The CB will announce the station on IGSMail.
- Review the instructions (http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/faqs.html) for sending an IGSStation message, to be prepared in case of a station configuration change.
- If the new station is part of a network, the responsible Operational Center must update the center description form (download /igscb/center/oper/'center'.ocn from igscb.jpl.nasa.gov, modify, send via e-mail to igscb @ igscb.jpl.nasa.gov)
- If the station is part of a new network, the new Operational Center must create a center description form (download /igscb/center/oper/BLNKFORM.OCN from igscb.jpl.nasa.gov, modify, and send via e-mail to igscb @ igscb.jpl.nasa.gov)