Fixing reliability of RTK Fix

Even when it’s on Float, I’m seeing 23-27 sats. Antenna is on top, there’s maybe a worklight in the way but like I say, # of sats isn’t a problem.

I think I have all the same constellations but I"ll check that, good idea.

I’ve added all constellations in GNSS viewer, and my caster entry is:

STR;BarK3;Mayerthorpe;RTCM 3.2;1005(1),1033(10),1074(1),1084(1),1094(1),1124(1),1230(10);;GPS+GLO+GAL+BDS;SNIP;CAN;53.91;-115.24;1;0;sNTRIP;none;N;N;3780;

I don’t see a place that you configure the rover’s constellations in GNSS Viewer, it just seems to take all of them in normally. I’ve tried just specifying the NTRIP caster in GNSS viewer itself, taking AOG out of the picture and it still jumps in and out of fix. I’ve used both my pushed out stream to rtk2go and a direct connction via vpn to my SNIP caster, no difference.

What antennas are you using? I haven’t had any opportunity to do real testing yet, but my gut feeling was when I switched from a u-blox magnetic antenna to a nice survey antenna (the BT-300S in my case), it seems to work better. I can get a fairly stable RTK fix even with the antenna sitting on the dash of my truck, whereas with the u-blox antenna even on a metal plate I never could. This is just a PX1122 that I use for doing hand surveying so I stick it on the dash when I’m driving out to where I want to do some surveying. I have yet to test it in a tractor though.

I can’t check right now, but as far as I remember, also px1122 have a speed limit if all constellations are used, so somewhere is must be possible to choose constellations.

Well, I tried a field after making those changes, got about 25% through in full RTK fix, then it started flapping to Float and became unusable, had to drive the rest of the field by eye.

I’m really not sure what to try next. Wish I had a F9P to test with to see if this is a module issue or a configuration issue.

Strange. But is the rtk2go map showing your base fairly close to the place where it actually is?
Within 10 m

Well, strange. It shows it about 400m away. I set up the base station as per the navspark instructions, in survey mode, and it’s been running for a few weeks, so I’d have figured it would be zeroed right in. I didn’t even know there was a map you could check.

When it gets an RTK fix, the tractor works perfectly, within a few cm. Not even sure how that would work if the base is locating itself 400m out of place.

Edit: Tried in static mode, no better, still shows it in wrong position.

I once moved my F9P base station about 400 metres to a new location and I assumed it would just survey-in on boot, but the Sparkfun version had a battery backup that kept the last base station position stored. RTK would still be achieved by my roving units but it sometimes took a longer time. And everything was 400 metres off of where they were before, because everything is computed relative to the base station position! So yes things can still work sometimes even if the base station location is a long way off from the survey location.

My base station is within 3 metres of the “real” position on google maps or another survey, but the PX1172rh and 1122 were still having problem holding RTK for me. So I suspect the skytraq units just aren’t as robust as the F9P and their algorithm gives up sooner. Like I said before a survey antenna seemed to make the skytraq work better than the ublox magnetic antenna.

My px1122 base is also within 3 meters.
I discovered the distance problem when I set the coordinates in static mode in gnss viewer.
It was 300 m off, and I could only get float at my f9p. Reason was because I accidentally used the wrong type of coordinates in the setup. And also I first used the , comma to separate the numbers. It must be with a . Dot (European style versus US style)

I’m using the Multi Frequency High Precision Antenna - NavSpark Store multiband antenna.

As for why it’s 400m away, I’ve never done any setup on the base module when it wasn’t within a couple meters of where it sits now, so I have no idea how it got 400m away stuck in it’s memory, though it does have a soldered on backup battery. I can try factory resetting it, but I’m not hopeful since I’m fairly sure it’s been factory reset in its current position a half dozen times already.

I set static position via Google maps waypoint and used decimal version when I tried that. Doesn’t seem to want to change.

I think I’m just going to bite the bullet and order a couple of Ardusimple 2Bs. I already had to contend with an issue on these 1122s where Windows decides that they’re a serial mouse when you plug them in, and the cursor jumps around until you manage to disable the fake mouse in Device Manager (and then it comes back again as a different serial mouse type a couple more times until you disable those vendor IDs as well, crazy). They seem very low quality. Of course, it could be Windows being weird as well, but as much as I dislike Windows, I’ve never seen it do that with any USB modules I’ve connected before.

Edit: well, apparently it’s a known issue with Windows and USB GPS modules for a long time now: Redirecting

Is it advisable to get anything else if I"m upgrading, to stay right current with the development point? I’ve seen reference to $PANDA that I’ve gathered is an IMU fusion device based on a Teensy 4.1 and the BNO085/ardusimple combo. I see I can get Teensy4.0 but not 4.1 easily via Digikey, not sure if that would make a difference.

That looks very similar to the u-blox magnetic mount antenna. I assume you’ve attached it to a metal back plate that’s at least 10cm in diameter? These type of antennas need a metal surface under them.

Here’s the antenna that seems to work the best for me, and I will do more testing with and report back when I can:

Can also get it on AliExpress and probably other sources.

This is also the antenna I plan to use on my base station when I get it permanently mounted. Currently I’m just using the u-blox antenna (with an F9P) on my base station.

Another option is the Survey Grade antenna from NavSpark.

I can’t help but think these perform better, and you don’t need any kind of metal back plane.

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I am using the BT300 for base too it is a great antenna for very low cost, same as @torriem.

On tractor I like helical antennas, they shed dust well, and are better at grabbing low hanging satellites in holes, behind hills and near trees. The tallysman hc 871 packaged with emlid m2’s are great, but spendy at $300cdn. I will be trying out a hx 607 version soon.

“Mark” at “JINYUSHI” store has been great support, they ship fast, and package well.

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Just be aware there are subtle differences between the 300D and the 300S. They are nearly the same in specs, except that the 300D lacks in GPS L5, which isn’t so important now but may become important in the future. Other than that it works great.

That helix antenna looks very interesting. I’ll have to try some. Do they need a metal base plane?

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No base plane needed with a helical, they are meant for drones. The Tallysman 871 is bout the size of my thumb, they are not very big.

On the mower the helical massively outperforms the flat antennas in tight tree cover on two sides, and near buildings. On the Steiger in the field it is much more reliable along the bush line with both the previous ez150 conversion project and now AOG.

On emlid forum they tested the helical, patch and m2, the biggest difference was helical scored poorer on multi path rejection.

The big flat antennas are more accurate overall, in perfectly flat open conditions, but they only see up, tilting them cuts off a portion of the sky.

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So this is what I’m seeing for sats and signal on the base station with the antenna I linked. Is this amount of sats and signal not good? It’s usually 20+ sats and the scatter view doesn’t budge on a .01m scale after it’s locked in.

If I plug those coordinates into google maps, it’s pegged right on the position of my base station. It would look like SNIP is also getting the correct coordinates into the stream

So I was going off the rtk2go map function as per Lars here: Fixing reliability of RTK Fix - #9 by Larsvest and that seems to be way off. So I’m not sure how much I trust the rtk2go map link on the Caster Table Decoder page, which is the only link I’ve seen to a map on RTK2go site.

One thing I notice is on GPS you’re not getting any L2 signal at all, just L1. Actually all your constellations are only picking up one band, not two (white bars, normally if both bands are there these are solid color). Yes you should be seeing way more satellites I’d think, and definitely seeing L2, G2, and E5b on GPS, Glonass, and Galileo. I typically see about 28 here in Alberta. Very odd. Are you using the same model of antenna on the base station as on your rover?

Here’s what it should look like when you get L2, G2, and E5b signals as well as the L1 ones (I got this from navspark’s forum as an example):


Ignore the “RTK fix” status; you should see the same multi-band satellites on your base station as well as the rover. Dual band satellites show up as a solid bar color with a black snr and white snr number on them. Also the red round background under the satellite number means those satellites have too low a signal to noise ratio and are not going to be any good for your rovers to fix from. Looks like all your satellites are red, which isn’t good. Perhaps the antenna is bad or the cable is bad.

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If I do a factory reset, it eventually shows up as solid bars and more sats. Change it to base station mode and then it goes like I had shown.

My base show like yours.

As I mentioned earlier I started with Static mode, and had to type in the correct version of coordinates.
I seem to be degree that is the right type.
This is just to get a hint of how, as I did not find a tutorial for Gnss viewer.

I did the conversion to degree (online) but then at first, got lost in the komma and dot issue.
Maybe you can just use the degree from Rtk2go ?
Right now I just tried typing in the new degree from rtk2go and the map show 10 m off
When I click map it in rtk2go the map places it about 10 meters from where it really is.
Almost same distance as is the scatter view (which say 5 m east and 10 m north) Which show up only when I set to survey in for 60 sec and 30 in deviation AND with Zeroes in the 3 fields in position under static mode.
Which I think, actually means I have set static coordinates a little off.
When I click your BarK3 it is between some buildings in the top of a tree :slight_smile:

Note: in the tutorial (at the bottom) it say the TCXO is temperature sensitive, maybe that is the whole problem (your base or rover get direct sunlight later on the day?
My base is in the office so stable temperature!

On the GNSS Viewer, if you hit the arrow circle above the coordinates, it changes formats. Pulling the dec coordinates that way is pretty easy then :slight_smile:

image

I’m not sure how you’re getting the correct location when you go look (which is what you seem to be describing, the arrow in above pic), this is what I get when I go to NTRIP Caster Table and click Map beside BarK3.

I might have kept some static coordinates in the box that it’s decided to use in the map view for whatever reason. I’d have thought rtk2go would use the coordinates it sends, but maybe the only thing rtk2go gets is the RTCM data and there’s no realtime coordinates sent with it, or they don’t use them. I guess that would make sense, as a privacy thing?

And no, the radio shack is generally cold, no direct sun on the module, though the antenna would get some.

I will check what mine show if I go same way as you.
I can’t do so before tomorrow.
I click on (map it) which I find when I have chosen my basestation in the caster table.
Edit: RGM give us the explanation in next post :slight_smile:

And my base is 300 m off when i click on same map as you did first, so it look like they ar much alike.
But I must ask: are your antenna placed , so it has full open sky view ? @ikidd