July 22, 2009
Plate Boundary Observatory P475 Point Loma is online via HPWREN
By Chris Walls Plate Boundary Observatory - EarthScope -
UNAVCO, Inc.
The HPWREN cyberinfrastructure has enhanced the science and public
service applications of an EarthScope GPS station at Point Loma,
San Diego, California. The Plate Boundary Observatory GPS station
P475 is a strategic site to the earthquake science community due
to its position relative to the Rose Canyon fault and the offshore
borderlands fault system. It is also an important survey control
point for City, County and State engineers. The Plate Boundary
Observatory (PBO) received multiple requests from both the earthquake
and survey communities for high rate, high completeness and low
latency data to facilitate a variety of uses such as earthquake
early warning prototype testing and real-time kinematic surveying.
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P475 Plate Boundary Observatory GPS station near the new
lighthouse at Point Loma
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Since it was clear the GPS site fulfilled a unique role to multiple
users PBO attempted to accommodate the requests using standardized
cellular communication equipment. However, cellular communications
were inadequate for effectively streaming data due to local
topography and episodic radio frequency interference. Installing
alternative communication equipment such as a VSat system or
autonomous telemetry nodes would have added substantial cost and
involved further permitting.
The PBO station is in close proximity to the HPWREN site at
Zone3 of the NPS Cabrillo National Monument.
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With P475 on the HPWREN data latency is <<1 second and data
completeness is at 100% which is fully adequate for end user needs.
Furthermore, PBO will save substantial communications costs in the
forthcoming years; a double benefit. Our thanks goes to HPWREN.
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After installing a radio, the PBO station began to immediately
communicate via the same microwave tower facility that the rest of the
Cabrillo National Monument installations use for communications via
HPWREN, and which is described at
http://hpwren.ucsd.edu/news/20070511/.
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