Satellite leveling is the procedure used to determination orthometric (normal) heights, on the base of ellipsoidal heights derived with GNSS techniques and additional information which make possible geoid (quasi-geoid) undulation determination. Geoid to ellipsoid separations can be get from geoid models, which accuracy in last years has significantly grown. However, for accurate determination of orthometric (normal) heights it is also important exact determination of ellipsoidal heights from GNSS measurements, which accuracy degrades a number of factors. One of the most important in heights determining, is antenna phase center variations problem. It is well known that magnitude of antenna phase center variations (PCV) can reach several centimeters. Unfortunately part of so-called commercial GNSS post-processing software does not include corrections to the antenna PCV. The paper presents results of solutions this problem with help of a subroutine which introduces PCV corrections to code and phase observations. This approach has been tested using GPS data at four measurement points. Three different types of antenna were used in observations. Processing GPS observations ware done with Ashtech Solutions and Topcon Tools software. The heights derived with satellite leveling were compared to heights got from geometrical precise leveling. The results of studies on one hand confirmed significant influence of antenna PCV onto exactitude of heights determination as well as usefulness of proposed procedure to introducing correction to GNSS observations.

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