UNAVCO experiences from large instrumentation initiatives, operation of a
multi-agency technical support facility, and multi-disciplinary support to the
U.S. Antarctic Program.

Chuck Meertens, Mike Jackson, Bjorn Johns, Chuck Kurnik
UNAVCO
3340 Mitchell Lane
Boulder, CO 80301

UNAVCO, Inc. and in particular the UNAVCO Facility have considerable experience 
in large network installations, instrumentation initiatives, and collocation of
geophysical sensors. Large instrumentation initiatives include the Plate Boundary 
Observatory portion of EarthScope, operations and maintenance of the NASA GPS 
Global Network, installation and operations of the SuomiNet atmospheric GPS network,
and numerous heterogeneous PI based GPS networks worldwide. The multi-agency 
sponsored UNAVCO Facility exists solely to provide instrumentation, engineering 
services, data management, and archiving support to the geodetic research community. 
As part of this support, the Facility has assisted in over 150 Antarctic research projects 
over the past decade.  Our experience in Antarctica has shown there are considerable 
technical and logistical challenges that must be addressed to achieve desired research 
objectives.