It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you OmniSTAR’s first digital Newsletter.

With this initiative we respond to many a suggestion to issue regular Newsletters, that will keep you better informed about OmniSTAR’s latest product developments, firmware releases, services improvements, upcoming exhibitions, organisational changes, etc.

We feel that these Newsletters should not be limited to an OmniSTAR monologue. We would like these to become a medium for an exchange of ideas: a forum for all interested parties. So please give us not only your feedback, but also feel free to provide our editorial team with any relevant story or interesting application, that you would like to share with your peers.

On behalf of the OmniSTAR team we thank you all for your proven loyalty. I hope that you will find this Newsletter informative and that we will meet again soon in either our next Newsletter or at one of our upcoming events. Please do stop by!

We wish you all an enjoyful summer season and if your vacation may lead you to travel we hope, that OmniSTAR BV will be there to help you find your accurate position!

Kind greetings,

Erik J. Hammega

On many occasions OmniSTAR customers have approached us with their need to receive our correction signals also in remote areas, there where no Fugro reference stations are available nearby.
Therefore we are now pleased to announce the coming introduction of Fugro’s latest XP (eXtend Positioning) technology. With this latest product improvement OmniSTAR will extend its HP service, with decimetre accuracy, to real worldwide coverage.

The improved OmniSTAR-HP service incorporates two independent
real-time positioning technologies The first (default) derives its corrected position from Fugro’s terrestrial reference station network. Outside Fugro’s network a second technology derives its solution from precise orbit and clock corrections. With the addition of this latest technology the OmniSTAR-HP service will now also be available in remote areas, outside the OmniSTAR network such as Kazakhstan, Siberia, Sahara, the Maldives and many other areas.

Together with our ‘static convergence technology’ this increase in coverage area will bring new opportunities for OmniSTAR-HP. In the coming months the combined technology will be implemented in all OmniSTAR-HP capable hardware.

The OmniSTAR website has recently undergone a real makeover. The new design is in line with the revised styling and layout of the corporate Fugro NV website. The website is more user-friendly: for example our services and downloads are more easily accessible.

Please have a look at the new OmniSTAR website: www.omnistar.nl and do not hesitate to send us your feedback: Virginie Georget

So far one of the limitations of the HP solution has been the time it took to converge from a metre level accuracy to the decimetre level. The system defines converged when the expected accuracy is better than 30 cm horizontal. At that time a quality flag is raised from code 2 (DGPS) to code 5 (RTK Float Novatel) or code 4 (Trimble Ag252). On average that convergence process took 25 minutes or more. With the new feature, called ‘static convergence’ the time it takes to reach convergence has now been decreased to 10 minutes. The requirements include a start in static mode and good satellite geometry.

The HP solution can work without HP correction updates for a period up to 5 minutes. After 5 minutes without further corrections the solution will effectively reduce to 30 cm standard deviation. After reception of a correction message the solution will regain its initial accuracy from before the correction gap.

OmniSTAR BV has reached out to people in need and assisted local relief organizations with the OmniSTAR High Performance (HP) service, The OmniSTAR service greatly eases their operations in areas. where before RTK would have been the only option.

OmniSTAR-HP can be used for marking the location of landmines for easy recovery and defusing.

Normally decimetre accuracy is minimally required while surveying onshore, including applications such as planning a projected trajectory of or checking the status of powerlines, and oil pipelines. Also seismic survey applications require minimally decimetre accuracy.

In all those cases OmniSTAR-HP is the answer.

Another market, in which the OmniSTAR-HP solution is often used, is photogrammetry. The HP solution is used to determine the exact photo center coordinates at the moment of film exposure. These coordinates are then recorded on the 'aerial photograph' when it is taken. The advantage of using OmniSTAR-HP for this type of applications is that it is no longer necessary to use a local base station to gather reference data for later post-processing.

Please give us your feedback and let us know if you are using HP for other interesting applications and if you would like us to publicize an article on that subject.

We have increased this month the coverage area of our AFSat. Coverage will now also include North Africa and the Middle East. Also the baudrate will be increased from 600 to 1200 baud. A consequence of this service upgrade will be also a change in frequency and baudrate of our broadcast to 1535.08 Mhz and 1200 baud.

b. New Delhi station

To improve our coverage over Northern India we will add a VBS and HP reference station in New Delhi in the coming months. This will complete our coverage for both VBS and HP over all of India.

OmniSTAR's QMS⁽¹⁾ has been (recently) reviewed by Lloyd and we are glad to announce that OmniSTAR successfully renewed its ISO license by complying with the "ISO 9001:2000" requirements.
Wondering what this statement of conformity to ISO 9001:2000 means for you?
It simply means that OmniSTAR BV "has established a systematic approach to quality management and is managing its business to ensure that your needs are clearly understood, agreed and fulfilled."

(1) "ISO 9001:2000 is an international standard that gives requirements for an organization's Quality Management System (QMS). It is part of a family of standards published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) often referred to collectively as the 'ISO 9000 series'." Source: www.iso.org

We are pleased to announce that Mr. Tony ten Wolde, previously our Sales and Distribution Manager for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, has been promoted in April 2005 to the post of Commercial Manager Middle East/West Asia. His counterpart for Europe is Mr. Cor de Kuijper (European Commercial Manager).

As a result of Tony’s promotion, Mr. Gert van der Velde, Sales and Distribution Manager, will from now on also be responsible for Germany, Austria and Switzerland in addition to his former responsibilities: the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland.

Contacts: t.tenwolde@omnistar.nl ; c.dekuijper@omnistar.nl; g.vdvelde@omnistar.nl

Do you need some OmniSTAR promotional material, want to discuss your “shared promotion” ideas or meet us at one of our exhibitions?
Our Marketing & Sales Department is there to help.

For the purpose of fairs, conferences, demonstrations, trainings etc. we make available for all of our business partners all kinds of promotional materials: from posters or receivers’ dummies to brochures and ‘give-aways’. This material is available on request.


OmniSTAR BV will be exhibiting at the following fairs either on a shared Fugro stand or on it’s own stand.

• ENC-GNSS, 19-22 July, Munich (Germany), stand nbr.5. www.enc-gnss2005.com
  
• Intergeo, 4-6 Oct. Düsseldorf (Germany), stand nbr. C3.217. www.intergeo2005.de
  
• Agritechnica, 8-12 Nov. Hanover (Germany), stand nbr. 14-C12. www.agritechnica.com
  

For further details please contact Virginie Georget, our Marketing & Sales Assistant or your Sales Manager within OmniSTAR.

OmniSTAR BV
Dillenburgsingel 69 * 2263 HW Leidschendam * The Netherlands
* Phone: +31 70 317 0900 * Fax: +31 70 317 0919