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GNSS / GPS Installations is a Highly Specialised Skill
GNSS installations is a highly specialised skill and Chronos’ experienced team of engineers has installed over 1500 GNSS systems in more than 50 countries during the past 30 years. Our specialist team has considerable experience in conducting site inspections and installations, even in the most challenging of environments. Whether you require a single site or 200 sites worldwide, we have the skills and expertise to successfully implement and manage your project throughout to meet your requirements, timescale and budget.
Poor GNSS installations cause systematic performance degradation or malfunction, potentially leading to failure of nearby systems by the introduction of RF interference. Optimal, reliable and durable GNSS infrastructure requires installation by engineers with a high level of understanding of GNSS signal architectures, RF engineering and knowledge of official standards associated with GNSS installation operations. When customers contact Chronos requiring support for their timing equipment, our team has increasingly noticed that equipment which has been installed in-house or by third party cable contractors is not always up to the high quality standard which is required for precise timing to run a high-performance network.
GPS Antenna Location
Since the 32 GPS satellites are approx. 12,000 miles away in space it seems obvious that GPS antennas should be mounted with a clear 360°sky view and well away form each other. However this simple requirement is often ignored resulting in degraded performance.
GPS Signal Degradation
Over time, the antenna housing or cables and connectors may degrade which can affect the way the antenna behaves. The antenna receives the native GNSS signal from the sky, it is then amplified and passed to the receiver somewhere in the building. Sometimes, weather extremes will degrade the electronics resulting in the amplified signal being reflected back through the antenna and impacting other GNSS antennas in close proximity. Nearby timing receivers may now start to exhibit relatively large time changes. These time variations could be many hundreds of nanoseconds. This can be avoided with careful placement of antennas.
Busy Roof Space
Busy roof space can also create problems with other systems such as line-of-sight radio links and electrical installations including air conditioning equipment radiating relatively high power or wideband interference.
GNSS Antenna Cable Runs
Cable runs up to a few 100m have been successfully deployed by Chronos installers. Many companies have their own 17th Edition electrical installers, however, this qualification is neither suitable, nor relevant to installing low loss RF cabling.
Installations Expertise
The Chronos Installation team has considerable experience in designing and installing GPS equipment throughout the world for both military and civilian applications.
Working closely with our customers, installations are project managed by our team and backed up with a thorough risk assessment and method statement (RAMS). In line with our ISO 9001 philosophy, we ensure each installation is completed to our customers’ entire satisfaction.