Taken from page 13 of the draft summary report of the twelfth session of the Data Buoy Co-operation Panel, Henley-on-Thames, UK, 22-25 October 1996. . .

6.9 OTHER CO-ORDINATION ACTIVITIES

Proposal for Large Buoy Programmes under the JTA

6.9.1 The panel noted with interest the proposal from the GDP for a special tariff arrangement for programmes deploying large numbers of relatively standard buoys, as well as a modification to this proposal put forward by CLS/Service Argos. The panel was sympathetic to the basic concept behind the proposal, and also very mindful of the financial constraints being experienced by most deployment agencies and the limitations being imposed on programme expansion by data processing costs. At the same time, it recognized that the proposal had much wider implications for the whole JTA, and therefore did not feel competent to make recommendations concerning the general requirements of buoy programmes, which might be taken into consideration in future discussions on the JTA structure. It therefore requested its chairman to convey the following recommendations to JTA-XVI:

A. Operational meteorological and oceanographic requirements are such that a buoy should report full time rather than on a 1/3 duty cycle. The DBCP therfore recommends as a top priority that a new tariff structure be arranged which will encourage full-time data collection with a minimal impact on data collection costs.

B. The DBCP encourages the GDP to coordinate efforts to create common data formats and platform standards, to gain benefits available from economics of scale. The DBCP recommends to the JTA to consider the provision of favourable tariffs for programmes that encompass a large number of platforms with single objectives for well-defined ocean-atmosphere missions, which operate over a long period to provide real-time data for GTS distribution.