Regulation 13 Certificates

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Regulation 13 Certificates are a legal document which display a station coordinate and the uncertainty of that coordinate. The Certificates are generally requested by Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) operators as a means of providing their users with an accurate connection to the Australian Datum – the Geocentric Datum of Australia 1994 (GDA94). Geoscience Australia is appointed as a legal metrology authority under the National Measurement Act, 1960, to provide this legal chain of traceability.

Requesting Regulation 13 Certificates

Geoscience Australia provides a free service to obtain Regulation 13 Certificates on your survey marks which are normally Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS).

What you need to provide us:

1. Cover letter (on letterhead) formally requesting a “Certificate of Verification of a Reference Standard of a Position-Measurement in Accordance with Regulation 13 of the National Measurement Regulations 1999” for your stations. The letter should include:

• The number of stations that you require certificates for.
• Clearly indicate who you are, including your address and contact details.
• This letter should be addressed to:
  National Geospatial Reference System Section
  Geoscience Australia
  c/o Nicholas Brown
  GPO Box 378
  Canberra, ACT, 2601

2. A summary file containing all the metadata associated with your sites, including:

• Antenna type and serial number (refer to IGS Central Bureau for IGS standard naming convention ).
• Receiver type and serial number (refer to IGS Central Bureau for IGS standard naming convention ).
• Site photo(s) including a photo that clearly shows the antenna serial and model number.
• Antenna offset measurement, i.e. the vertical distance between the antenna reference point (ARP) and the station mark. A diagram showing the relationship between the ARP and the station mark would also be useful.
  
  View a sample metadata summary file and submission checklist

3. CD or DVD of GPS RINEX files (RINEX version 2.11). Each station should have: 

• One full GPS week of dual-frequency data, Sunday to Saturday, inclusive,
• Ideally been observed at a 30 second observation interval, and
• The RINEX headers should be fully consistent with the summary metadata file.
  
  View a sample dataset

What we will provide you with after our analysis is:

• A Certificate of Verification of a Reference Standard of a Position-Measurement in Accordance with Regulation 13 of the National Measurement Regulations 1999 for each station.  The certificates will be valid for 5 years and will apply to the station mark, but only have validity if you continue to operate the station with the identical equipment. Critically, this means the same antenna as that on the certificate, and
• A NATA certified analysis report.