June 6, 2014
Teqc Tutorial
Basics of Teqc Use and Teqc Products
Teqc Tutorial: Basics of Teqc Use and Teqc Products
by Lou Estey and Stuart Wier
June 6, 2014
Cover illustration: UNAVCO
Teqc is developed and supported by UNAVCO, and funded by NSF and NASA.
Copyright © 2012, 2013, 2014 UNAVCO Inc.
UNAVCO
6350 Nautilus Drive
Boulder, Colorado U.S.A.
www.unavco.org
Teqc Tutorial 1
Table of Contents
1 Introduction..............................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Introduction to Teqc and the Tutorial...............................................................................................3
1.2 Topics in this Teqc Tutorial..............................................................................................................4
2 Installing Teqc ........................................................................................................................................5
3 Quick Start ..............................................................................................................................................7
3.1 Common Teqc Commands...............................................................................................................7
3.1.1 Metadata....................................................................................................................................7
3.1.2 Quality Checking.......................................................................................................................7
3.1.3 Decimating Data........................................................................................................................9
3.1.4 Splicing....................................................................................................................................10
3.1.5 Translation...............................................................................................................................10
3.1.6 Time binning with -tbin Option...............................................................................................11
3.1.7 Using real-time input data streams..........................................................................................13
4 Working with Teqc................................................................................................................................15
4.1 Running Teqc.................................................................................................................................15
4.2 Running Teqc on Windows............................................................................................................15
4.3 The Teqc Command Line...............................................................................................................15
4.4 Options...........................................................................................................................................16
4.5 Input and Output, Files, and Redirection.......................................................................................17
5 Getting Started with Teqc Translation...................................................................................................19
5.1 Basic translation command line.....................................................................................................19
5.2 Teqc input file format specification and auto-identification .........................................................20
5.3 Typical translation options and arguments ...................................................................................21
5.4 RINEX navigation message and meteorological files ..................................................................23
5.5 Translation examples ....................................................................................................................24
5.6 Common failures in translation......................................................................................................26
6 Getting Started with Teqc Editing.........................................................................................................27
7 Getting Started with Teqc QC................................................................................................................29
7.1 QC commands................................................................................................................................29
7.2 Interpreting QC results...................................................................................................................33
The QC Screen Output: the ASCII Time Plot and the Short Summary...........................................33
The QC Summary Report.................................................................................................................38
The QC Full Report..........................................................................................................................42
The QC Plot Files.............................................................................................................................42
Azimuth and Elevation Plot Files..................................................................................................43
Teqc Tutorial 2
Ionospheric Delay Plot Files.........................................................................................................44
MP Plot Files.................................................................................................................................45
SN1, SN2, and SN5 Plot Files.......................................................................................................45
8 Finding Help..........................................................................................................................................47
The UNAVCO Teqc Email Forum.......................................................................................................47
Email to UNAVCO teqc staff...............................................................................................................47
Appendix A: Teqc Translation Receiver Types and Formats....................................................................48
Appendix B: Teqc QC ASCII Time Plot Symbols and the Symbol Hierarchy.........................................50
Appendix C: Teqc QC Full Report Description........................................................................................51
Appendix D: Some Frequently Asked Questions......................................................................................56
Appendix E COMPACT and COMPACT2 File Formats..........................................................................58
Teqc Tutorial 3
1 Introduction
1.1 Introduction to Teqc and the Tutorial
Teqc is a comprehensive toolkit for solving many problems when preprocessing GNSS data:
translation: read GNSS native receiver files and translate the data to other formats
editing: metadata extraction, editing, and/or correction of RINEX header metadata or BINEX
metadata records; as well as cutting/splicing of RINEX files or BINEX files
quality checking of GPS and/or GLONASS data (native binary, BINEX, or RINEX observation
files, with or without navigation files with ephemerides)
The three functions from which teqc gets its name, translation, editing, and quality checking, can be
performed separately, in pairs, or all together in a single run.
This tutorial is intended to help you learn to use teqc, by showing examples of teqc use in common
situations. This tutorial describes basic teqc processing and teqc output, emphasizing the basic teqc
commands, with complete details about the products generated. New teqc users should, at the
minimum, review sections 1 through 4, and other sections which describe the particular processing you
need. Many practical and common uses of teqc are described by this Tutorial.
You can use teqc to
• translate (convert) certain native binary formats (e.g., Trimble *.dat) to RINEX obs and/or nav
files
• check a RINEX file or files for compliance with the RINEX version 2 specification; for example,
missing non-optional header fields are identified.
• modify (edit) any existing RINEX header fields in a RINEX file and output the resulting edited
RINEX file.
• quality check a valid RINEX obs file or files, but without a RINEX nav file or binary ephemerides
(this is qc-lite; teqc has no satellite position information).
• quality check a valid RINEX obs file or files using ephemerides data in a valid RINEX nav file or
files (this is qc-full; teqc has satellite position information).
• window, cut (specify a sub-window of time), or splice two or more RINEX files.
• create a new RINEX file with a longer sample interval, say from 1 second to 30 seconds.
These modes of operation work alone or in concert with one another. Teqc uses a command line
interface, speeding execution of routine or repeated processing, allowing use of teqc in scripts, and
avoiding the repetitive menu clicking required by a graphical user interface.
The most common data format used with teqc is RINEX. Short names for the three basic kinds of
RINEX formats are used throughout this document: obs file for a RINEX observation data file, nav file
for a RINEX navigation message file, and met file for a RINEX meteorological data file. Teqc currently
handles RINEX versions through version 2.11. The capabilities of teqc extend beyond using RINEX
files, as you will see in this tutorial.
