  The AMI Galactic Plane Survey (AMIGPS) is a large area survey of the outer
Galactic plane to provide arcminute resolution images at milli-Jansky
sensitivity in the centimetre-wave band. Here we present the first data release
of the survey, consisting of 868 deg^2 of the Galactic plane, covering the area
76 deg \lessapprox l \lessapprox 170 deg between latitudes of |b| \lessapprox 5
deg, at a central frequency of 15.75 GHz (1.9 cm). We describe in detail the
drift scan observations which have been used to construct the maps, including
the techniques used for observing, mapping and source extraction, and summarise
the properties of the finalized datasets. These observations constitute the
most sensitive Galactic plane survey of large extent at centimetre-wave
frequencies greater than 1.4 GHz.
