Generating a single HTML file to download International GNSS Service (IGS) Stations via ftp

The GPS Project

I am part of the GPS-Active Fault Deformation Mapping project in the Philippines. Through GPS we are trying to study the kinematics of the Philippine Fault, the result of which aims to develop  a more comprehensive program on the evaluation of seismic hazards and risks as an essential component of earthquake disaster mitigation projects. 

Our team uses Bernese 5.0 for GPS post-processing. Bernese enables us to utilize nine (9) International GNSS Service (IGS) stations near the Philippines. Addition of these 9 IGS stations to our local campaign or continuous sites increase the accuracy and stability of our network. 

The IGS stations that we have included are the following: 

Mon. Name    Site Name      Lat        Long     Receiver

BAKO            Cibinong        -06 29   106 51   LEICA GRX1200GG

DAEJ             Taejon           36 24    127 22   Trimble NETRS

GUAM            Guam            13 26    144 48   Trimble NETR5

PIMO             Quezon City   14 38    121 05   Ashtech UZ-12

TSKB             Tsukuba         36 06    140 05  AOA BENCHMARK A

USUD            Usuda            36 08    138 22  Ashtech UZ-12

WUHN           Wuhan           30 32    114 21  Ashtech Z-XII3

SHAO            Shanghai        31 06    121 12  Ashtech UZ-12

DARW           Darwin           -12 51    131 08 LEICA GRX1200GG

The GPS Data Downloading

We download the daily GPS data from ftp://cddis.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/gps/data/daily/. For campaign data, which usually lasts for more than 10 days, we are suppose to download 90+ data,the manual downloading is quite a problem because of the mechanical click and save for all the needed sites.

We devised a plethora of schemes to have an efficient downloading routine. We tried the batch download of Flashget. But we still have to manually define the nine stations and their respective interval dates of download and include wild cards(*) for the downloading of their respective dates. Quite tedious still. Next option is to make an HTML file that lists all the dates and all IGS stations in one file and using the DownThemAll add-on of Mozilla. That's more efficient than the first one. But the macros we have created in Notepad++ are still irritating. You have to specify the initial line including the dates, stations and interval before finally coming up to an HTML file.Until I had the time to create a small JAVA program that will output the same  HTML file. 

My JAVA programming project for the day

The getIGS.jar that I have created needs only three user inputs in one Message Dialog : year of observation, start day of the year of campaign and end day of the year of campaign. I have already incorporated the nine(9) IGS stations along with the HTML tags in the program. The program ends after asking for the path where to save the output HTML file. Presto our HTML file is ready for another DownThemAll job but less of the hassle on manual href tags editing and manual input!

Sadly I can't include my codes for now because the HTML tags in the code are jamming with the HTML code of this blog.

For a copy of the source code or the .jar file, just contact me: Its melanie.abuel@gmail.com or maybe I'll upload it in my DropBox some other time.

HAPPY CODING!