With what appears to be a high probability of a Federal government shutdown looming at the end of the month, folks may want to take a little preventative action. During the extended shutdown several years, we never found an alternate method to accessing current NGS datasheets with the NGS website shut down. All the datasheets can be downloaded as either text or shape files here:
https://geodesy.noaa.gov/datasheets/
Text files are quite user unfriendly, so we prefer shape files. You can get all of them for your state, or just select counties in the areas where you work.
For RINEX files, remember that NGS owns very few CORS and the data files are often available directly from the station owner for post-processing. For example, the majority of CORS on the west coast are operated by the EarthScope Consortium (formerly UNAVCO) and the data can be accessed here:
https://www.unavco.org/data/gps-gnss/gps-gnss.html
Don't let the Fed shutdown shut you down.
I have spent some late nights down loading and processing network rtk stations in my area and using the NGS CORS data to determine a tie to published ngs data. So i now have part of my rain gear settled and know i can get on datum without the NGS. Now i love the NGS i am married to one lol. But I saw this as a possibility so I took some time and went through the state testing the network stations values vs ngs published. I am also one of those nuts that every time we have a project i make and set up a recon project and download and bring in all data sheets to have just encase. Within a 5 mile radius for survey marks. You have some great pointers for sure. Keeping an umbrella because sooner or later it will rain is a wise thing. I have also been comparing OPUS solutions to the Trimble PPP solutions because it doesn’t really take me anymore time and having a backup plan is always good.
Tell your wife that Scott Martin says "Hello."
She said hello as well. Now do me a favor if the govt shuts down come take her pen and paper away because i can see her making me a bigger honey do list if it does and she has spare time lol. I truthfully cant complain. I am a very lucky man. She has been a blessing for sure. Why she keeps me around who knows. Maybe she feels sorry for me.
Thanks for the reminder, Scott! There's a plan afoot to reobserve the Yolo project, so I just downloaded all the sheets for Yolo, Colusa, Sacramento and Solano.
P.S. Any chance your agency would like to play?
I can inquire. We have been leading a large effort to collect (internally and through partners) observations on passive marks to process and Bluebook via OPUS projects. Most of that has been in the southern part of the state so far, but we have been looking for opportunities up north.
Probably a good time to repost these resources:
https://www.gpsworld.com/7-free-alternatives-opus-post-processing-in-government-shutdown/
We're lucky here in WA, with the WSRN we don't typically worry about this sort of thing...
For those in Oregon, the DOT's VPN will continue uninterrupted, I think. Probably true in most places with VPN coverage. For those in my city - I've been working on a passive network of marks.
AUSPOS and CSRS-PPP perform really well compared to OPUS, but note your returned coordinates will be ITRF in the epoch of data collection. You can download HTDP for windows from the NGS website to transform to NAD83 2011, epoch 2010.
