****************************************************************************** dorismail 06-Oct-2006 08:23:41 Message No 0463 ****************************************************************************** Author: "H. Fagard" Subject: New station: Rikitea (French Polynesia) Dear Colleagues, A new DORIS station has been installed in the premises of the Meteo-France station at Rikitea, on Mangareva which is the main island of the Gambier archipelago located 1600 km ESE of Tahiti. The DORIS equipment consists of a third generation beacon and a Starec antenna. The antenna is supported by a 2 meter high, 30 cm sided very rigid metal tower, set on a 60 cm sided concrete block extending 2 m deep into the ground. Transmissions started on September 23, 2006, in the central frequencies mode. The name of the station is "Rikitea" and its acronym in the data files is RIKB. The DOMES number for the antenna reference point is 92301S002. A permanent GPS receiver was installed in 2000 by the Japanese Geographical Survey Institute in the same premises. Its antenna is located 15 m away from the DORIS antenna. The connection between both antenna was measured through 36 h of GPS measurements on the DORIS point, but unfortunately the permanent receiver turned out to be down due a damage to the antenna cable. Therefore the coordinates for the DORIS antenna had to be derived from the analysis of very long baselines between Rikitea and the surrounding IGS stations, using the Bernese software. The resulting ITRF2000 @ 2006.73 coordinates are: X= -4147137.624 m Y= -4152219.354 m Z= -2490024.047 m SigX = 0.015 m SigY = 0.015 m SigZ = 0.010 m The following velocities for this site, derived from GPS time series, were kindly provided by Dr. Hiroshi Munekane (Space Geodesy Research Division, Geographical Survey Institute) : VX = -0.0570 m/y VY = 0.0398 m/y VZ = 0.0283 m/y SigVX = 0.0004 m/y SigVY = 0.0007 m/y SigVZ = 0.0005 m/y This new station will replace the Rapa (RAQB) DORIS station, which has been down since August 2004 and will soon be removed. Best regards, Herve Fagard -- ====================================================================== Herve FAGARD e-mail : herve.fagard@ign.fr Institut Geographique National 94165 SAINT-MANDE CEDEX PHONE : + 33 1 43 98 81 48 FRANCE FAX : + 33 1 43 98 84 50 ====================================================================== Please do not reply directly to this message, but send comments and suggestions to IDS.central.bureau@cls.fr