Where can I go to find information on RTK GPS in Illinois I don’t believe we have public access to base stations here… I am in the infant stages of building a setup and want to make sure it is even feasible where I am located. Just curious if I will have to setup my own Base Station or if this is even possible. I know there are guys using RTK here but I believe they pay an ungodly amount for the service. Thank You for the help !
I think you can build your own base station very easily.
You can also team up with neighbors
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Perfect …Do you have any recommendations on affordable brands of equipment and Im assuming I would need an IP connection ?
You can find some stations here on their interactive map:
https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/CORS_Map/
FYI though an RTK base station is very easy to set up these days and you can buy a base and rover pair for only about $300 more than you would pay for an annual correction service subscription from companies whose name rhymes with “thimble”.
Ardusimple or Emlid are two great affordable options for RTK. Honestly I think it might be easier to set up your own base station than configuring NTRIP from a CORS station. Either is about the same degree of difficulty though. Lots of help around here to help you out too.
Awesome ! So basically I need 2 receivers, antennas etc…1 as a base station and 1 as the rover unit…Our Farms are only 12 mi apart as the crow flies so I could theoretically setup a base at one of them for our whole operation ?
12 miles would be a little too far for typical 900Mhz LoRa radio. So now you are into NTRIP territory, You would have the option of sending your Base station corrections through snip caster and then use your phone as a mobile hotspot to get the NTRIP data into AgOpenGPS.
You could also use a CORS station if you had one close enough to your farm (within say 50 miles) and then set up NTRIP using that CORS station as your base station. Then you could get away with using only one Receiver/Antenna as a Rover.
I think I am going to try and put a permanent mount base station at one farm for testing purposes in the beginning. Using two Ardusimple Units with the 900mhz radios for RTK. The closest CORS station is roughly 50 miles away so that is another option as well! In the end I’d be willing to spend the extra money to put up a base station at each farm if I can get the system to work. I’m just now starting to gather parts for the PCB/Tractor Controls portion so GPS is still a little ways off… Thanks again !
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50 miles sounds too high for a single base correction signal. If it was a virtual base from a network like https://digifarm.com/ it should work. But digifarm costs more per year than a several F9P private base installations.