Would someone mind giving a dummies guide to setting up an F9P as the base RTK, back at the farm workshop please?
As I understand it, the first thing is to fix the antenna on a horizontal metal plate, with a good view of the horizon. Is there an ideal size of plate and should it be circular? Also, is it ok to use an extension coax cable to be able to be further away (taller) from the laptop in the farm workshop office, or better to use a longer USB cable from the F9P, with the board in a sealed box half way along the route ? Or neither!
On the laptop, I assume it only needs to be a fairly basic computer, running windows 10 ideally? Does this laptop need to run continuously( i.e. through the night ready for the next day so that it doesn’t ‘lose’ its bearings), or is it ok to take away at night ?
Once all hardware setup, then I realise it will need setting up as a base, using the Ublox software, and then be set to send corrections to RTK2go, for example, and then on to the rover(tractor). Would someone mind laying this procedure out as best they could please in detail, to help me, and others whom I’m sure will benefit, to grasp the basics of this part of the project. I think there will be many out there like me, who through doing lots of reading and watching Brian’s’ videos, have learnt so much about the way it all works, but are more than a little daunted by this part of things, and could do with a bit of hand holding !
Also, I am going to need two F9P’s setup at two different farms, as they are 30 miles apart. Hopefully it is ok to switch between the two, taking the laptop with me, once they have both been surveyed in?
Thankyou for any help in advance.
Hi Rikko.
Best solution is your PC or older laptop (win7 minium) near the F9P receiver. Could be anywhere in your house/shed. You can use an extension coax cable for like say 3.00mtr or so.
You need Ublox offcourse to upload the right config file and fill in the fixed coordinates.
Then register at rtk2go and download SNIP Caster.
With this software it’s easy to connect en monitoring your RTK base stream.
i will upload a video soon for an HOW-TO. It will be after new year.
With an extra base station you need manually switch to the other stream at RTK2GO that you’ve created.
Thank you Brofarm and Richard.
I will read through and see if I can make sense of the tutorials, and look forward to the video Richard!
I use a 33ft antenna extension cable without any known issues. used it all summer that way.
Thanks re the extension - that’s good to hear as I would like to get my antenna high up on a building away from everything else.
I just setup my base station with one of these wifi ntrip master from Ardusimple. Very easy setup and eliminates the need to run a computer, as long as you have wifi. Still using www.rtk2go.com.
Thank you wwfarm. I do have wifi at both farms - does it need to be a minimum speed ? Sounds a good option.
My F9P base sends just under 2 MB/hour, so the speed isn’t as important as the up time
I just received my Ardusimple boards my base and rover. I had my BASE board plugged into my computer and ran u-center to see if everything was working correctly and accidently hit the gear with the red arrow on it. After some investigating i found out that this was the reset button for the board. did i loose all my configuration?
And if so how do i get it back?
Any help is greatly appriciated.
Sorry cannot help you. Maybe worth contacting ardusimple. While your at it set your hz to 8 and get rid of the unwanted gps msg’s
Just look at it this way, your about to become our expert on the subject. So welcome to the community.
Hello
No worries, this arrow only deletes the data from the antenna and not the configuration.
But if you ever lose the default configuration you can find it on the Ardusimple website
Are you talking about the RTK antenna or the communication antenna between the base and the rover?
If i deleted data from the antenna how do i get that back? Or does it work without?
This Rockie appreciates the help.
These are the satellite data of the RTK antenna, they are only used by U-center. This does not affect the configuration.
When you press empty database (if we are talking about the same button) this is equivalent to restarting u-center
You do not have access to the radio antenna from u-center.
I attached a picture hope u can see it but its from u center user guide. i circled the button its the last one on the right hand side.
But sounds like I may have not screwed myself as much as what i first thought.
Ha yes I did not speak of this button you have returned the original configuration of the u-blox f9.
But nothing is lost, you have to reload the Ardusimple config!
1: download the files on github ardusimple (Ardusimple) · GitHub
2: Follow this tutorial to reload the config in the f9 Configuration Files - ArduSimple
OK, i followed the instructions but at the bottom of the instruction is a tab that says + BASE when i click on it there is more settings there do i need to do anything with those? or did it configure all that when i uploaded the file in the previous steps in the instructions?
I did try to see where to do these config changes but that is way over this newbie’s head.
Hello
You have to download the config and nothing else.
Then to try:
-Put the base antenna in a clear place
-Power the ublox f9 (base antenna) by plugging it into a usb battery or a computer (be careful it should not go to sleep).
Do not move the antenna any more.
- Connect your computer to the f9 rover and launch U-center.
You should have an RTK fix after about 5 minutes.
…so basically an RTK2B, Wifi NTRIP Master and a registered rtk2go stream and it works?
With some setting up obviously!