Raspberry Pi 4B Base Station (ZED-F9P)

GPS/GNSS Development Boards
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If anyone is interested in a Raspberry Pi-based GNSS Base Station, I just completed and tested a completely headless version with the following features:

  1. Battery Backup via PiJuice HAT

  2. Serial Telemetry via RFD900x (I also tested with Holybro Telemetry Radio V3)

  3. NTRIP connection via ethernet

It’s also fairly easy to automate the entire survey process from collecting RAWX, to Processing via RTKLIB convbin, to Uploading to OPUS/CSRS completely headlessly via a Selenium automation. A windows PC running U-Center is only needed during the initial configuration of the F9P and for entering the ECEF coordinates from your PPP solution.

(I did get PyGPSClient running via XFCE and XRDP but I was having issues properly getting TMODE3 properties set so I scrapped that idea. Doing it this way also required connecting the USB of the F9P to the Pi as well)

Tutorial is available here: https://github.com/jacobjhansen/RTCM-Pi

RTCM-Pi.jpg
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NICE! Do you mind if I add a link to your repo from our ‘How to Build a GNSS Reference Station’ tutorial? https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/ho … tation/all

How do you like the range on the RFD900? I haven’t used one myself.

FWIW - Our base went down over the weekend because the GFCI tripped. We may have to get an auto-reset GFCI (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096WTSVK3/ref=emc_b_5_t).

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Yeah no problem, go ahead!

I’ve only used the stock antennas that came with both radios, but the range on the RFD900 is insane. Our target environment is really clear so we had no range issues with the RFD900 at all. It would be interesting to try both with the same larger antenna and compare the ranges.

That’s something I hadn’t really considered! I have a watchdog script that will notify me via AWS SNS if the power goes out to alert me that it’s running on battery, but I could see that cheap GFCI being a point of failure

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Thanks! Added: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/ho … p-option-3

but I could see that cheap GFCI being a point of failure

The GFCI has only tripped once in 2+ years. I suspect it was a lightning strike or other severe power surge event at SparkFun HQ that cause the trip. The downtime is just a pain (and warning to base creators).