Having been working in the rain with a recently cleaned base station with a fairly flat topped radome I noticed that the rain had gathered in fairly big globules all over the top. Given that the GPS signal is so weak and water is a barrier to radio signals does this have any effect on reception? Signal/noise ratios and number of satellites appeared to be about normal so maybe there's no problem. Couldn't find any references to this on the web.
Snow on a static antenna will definitely reduce signal quality, I never noticed rain drops making much of a difference though.
Hurricane Sandy had no effect on our RTK work on Monday and Tuesday locating wetland flags.
Scott
We put shower caps on our ashtech locus units . No issues.
Couldn't get the Hipers to work on the lower Yukon in January .... called techie dude. He says "They don't work at -40!" OHHHH DER! Great excuse to bag it fo rthe day. Took the TS out the next day, broke the DC cable to the cold making it brittle!
-JD-
my former crew chief would use plastic stop n shop bags over both units
i prefer working when it's not raining
if what you cover your antennas with can affect the behavior of antenna phase center than its calibration will not be valid any longer.
it depends on dielectric characteristics of the material its thickness shape and proximity to the antenna. Plastic bags probably will not have much of an effect but something thicker or with high plastic density might. Not sure about water, how thick it has to be to have an affect. NGS does separate calibrations if an antenna has a radome.
just extra caution
> ... I noticed that the rain had gathered ...
Pacific NW surveyors know that rain means nothing to GPS. I never bothered to put any kind of cover over the receivers.