The receiver is situated in the Villafranca (VILSPA) ground station, located in Villafranca del Castillo, 30 km west of Madrid, Spain.
This installation was performed on 12 November 1994. The monument is located in the centre of the station, between the ISO building and the transportable station.
The cabling from the monument to the racks of the main building, where the receiver is integrated, is about 150 metres, much longer than the standard setup of the receiver. This made necessary the installation of an additional line amplifier close to the antenna. After a few years the RG-214 RF cable was replaced by another type with lower loss, making unnecessary the use of the amplifier.
The equipment is the standard of the ESA GPS stations.
The receiver is an Ashtech Z-XII that is connected to the frequency standard of the station, a Cesium oscillator.
A computer connected to the ESA WAN performs the hourly receiver downloads and allows the remote control of the system.
A PTU-200 meteorological unit is directly connected to one port of the Ashtech receiver. The data provided by the pressure, temperature and humidity sensors are logged every five minutes and handled along with the rest of the data of the receiver.
The Station Information Form (SIF) summarises the characteristics and development of the GPS site. The last version and more information are available from the IGS Central Bureau
And some photos of the site:
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Contact info. Last Update: July 2002