It was time to test some of the equipment i would be using and to set up methods to survey if the normal RTK methods failed in the low temperature.

To survey the ice field it will be necessary to cover a lot of ground quickly. We plan to  use skidoos. Obviously I can’t test skidoos on a November afternoon in Wales, so I improvised by mounting the Topcon GNSS on my cross bike.

With the FC-5000 mounted on the bars to keep me on a defined grid pattern I set off well to record some local fields in Real Time Kinematic and also Post Processed Kinematic. This Grid feature worked surprising well I was happy that the preferred method of surveying should work well in Antartica.