As soon as our SPECTRUM Cable recovered I checked on the RTK Torch and PointPerfect and low and behold, RTK-FIX !!! PointPerfect may have suffered from the same Internet problems Spectrum was having… maybe it wasn’t just construction but a Service Provider issue, or the Corrections for my area were impacted by the outage?
I have been watching SW Maps Satellite Status and it did go RTK-FLOAT for a bit , then Back to RTK-FIX.
I probably need to test with the Galileo E6 Corrections turned back on to see if it does or doesn’t impact it but I believe things are looking up!!!
Horizontal Accuracy now says 0.669in to as low as 0.545in so far
Horizontal accuracy has bounced up to 1.142 per SW MAPS but I haven’t had time to get the pole and do a test measurement yet… tomorrow, it’s dark out now…
March 21, 2024 - Clean start to the day…
Fired up Hotspot on iPhone, Fired up RTK Torch which connected to iPhone in about a minute.
Waited a minute after the iPhone was showing the [Link] symbol and started SW Maps on iPhone. Scanned for devices in SW MAPS and picked out the Torch
Showed RTK-Float and after about ~5 minutes RTK-FIX was showing in SW MAPS
Did my 155ft Test run using my new 3 Meter Pole and new bipod (Message me if you want links) using STAKEOUT function in SW MAPS, using 200 Reading averages
Measured 154.989, 154.831m 154.806,154.815 These are all well within the accuracy of me stretching my 330ft fiberglass Milwaukee tape measure the 155ft as it may really be 155.04 or 154.95 of my measuring skills
I still need to try it with E6 HAS Corrections turned on to see if it messes up the PointPerfect corrections, but I think the problem yesterday was localized internet outages and PointPerfects outage. Thanks for your support @rftop and @sparky
Agreed. You’d officially need to perform a Grid-to-Ground conversion to make that comparison also.
Make you a quick monument (pk or magnail,etc). Anything that allows your Pole Point to be repeatable and store the position many times, under different conditions.
That’s how you will gain (or lose) confidence in the precision of the total system.
The RTK Everywhere Firmware does a great job at Correction Priority.
I’ve never personally seen it use HAS E6 unless no other source was available.
Not familiar with Grid-to-Ground conversion but I will ChatGPT X/Grok it to learn.
I have two 6 inch timber nails that have 1/4 inch round head pounded into the ground in the front of the house what I believe to be exactly 155.00ft apart measured with the tape pulled tight (but also taking into account for fiberglass tape probably stretched a 1/4 inch over that distance) I will repeat the measurements occasionally to see how it does. I am going to try it for the first time out on our remote farm tomorrow (hopefully) where I have week but usually constant AT&T Cell coverage… Excited to move beyond my testing phase… thanks for the support
Its not really necessary for such a short distance.
But just for fun:
The Grid-to-Ground context is normally when working in a much smaller (more accurate) system, such as State Plane Coordinate System (SPCS), where we can find the combined scale factor based on our position in that system.
Since your GNSS observations were produced with Point Perfect corrections, you are now in the ITRF system. All GNSS systems use a reference ellipsoid (think curved surface). Your physical measurement “across the ground” does not follow the curve of the reference ellipsoid.
When you apply the appropriate Scale Factor, you can compare the 2 distances with each other.
I’ve oversimplified, but that should get you pointed in the right direction for some “lite-reading”. But the error is fractions of a mm at that distance, I’d guess.
The longest single leg (CALL) distance on my DEED is 2,677.76 ft. Nothing is longer than that. I have a 1,500 and a 1,064 ft CALL, and a lot of 80ft to 200ft calls… a lot, total number of calls going around the borders of the parcels is 137 CALLs. There are a few 500-700ft calls sprinkled in there to keep you guessing…
Fortunately there are a few capped PINS I have found so every once in a while there will be a professional check point
I’ve been playing with the torch this year in my backyard mapping sprinkler heads and I’ve definitely had more failures with pointperfect than successes. There’s marginal cell signal in my backyard, but even then I still seem to get regular sub 12sec corrections.
It seems to me like any time I have less than 34 sats in use, I’m not getting a RTK fix period. Never had one last longer than 15 minutes.
Also having trouble getting assist now and localized distribution features to save in config. I turn them on in Web config p, save exit and reset and then they never stick. Bug?
Which firmware update are you speaking of? I’m running the Jan 20th alpha RC, if memory serves. It had a bugfix that stabilized the web config, if I recall. Pretty sure you told me about it. Has all of that been incorporated to a more recent stable release, to your knowledge?
The original web config issue was related to the web stack shutting down if I remember correctly, which made the whole config menu page shut down. What I’m experiencing is strictly related to saving the assist now and localized distributions settings, but like I said I’m still on the Jan 20 RC so it may have been fixed. I’ll upgrade and report back.
Should I run the latest stable, or the Feb 25th RC?
I just checked my PointPerfect config, and WEB config had not saved my Localized Distribution that I had set via the WEB - it was back to DISABLED
I had set via web to 250x250km High Density
I set it again via serial now this morning
However it still shows an INACTIVE status in Corrections Priorities?
COLD Booted TORCH and the PP settings stayed… very timely POST - testing on the remote farm hopefully this afternoon
SparkFun RTK Torch v2.1
** Bluetooth SPP and BLE broadcasting as: Torch Rover-7CC2 **
Menu: Main
Configure GNSS Receiver
Configure GNSS Messages
Configure Base
Configure Ports
Configure WiFi
Configure TCP/UDP
f) Firmware Update
i) Configure Corrections Priorities
p) Configure PointPerfect
r) Configure Radios
s) Configure System
t) Configure Instrument Setup
u) Configure User Profiles
+) Enter Command line mode
x) Exit
i
Menu: Corrections Priorities
Correction source lifetime in seconds: 30
These are the correction sources in order of decreasing priority
Enter the uppercase letter to increase the correction priority
Enter the lowercase letter to decrease the correction priority
Priority Status Last Seen Source
-------- -------- ------------- ------
H / h) 0 inactive IP (PointPerfect/MQTT)
F / f) 1 inactive TCP (NTRIP)
G / g) 2 inactive L-Band
A / a) 3 inactive External Radio
B / b) 4 inactive ESP-Now
C / c) 5 inactive LoRa Radio
D / d) 6 inactive Bluetooth
E / e) 7 inactive USB Serial
x) Exit
x
SparkFun RTK Torch v2.1
** Bluetooth SPP and BLE broadcasting as: Torch Rover-7CC2 **
Menu: Main
Configure GNSS Receiver
Configure GNSS Messages
Configure Base
Configure Ports
Configure WiFi
Configure TCP/UDP
f) Firmware Update
i) Configure Corrections Priorities
p) Configure PointPerfect
r) Configure Radios
s) Configure System
t) Configure Instrument Setup
u) Configure User Profiles
+) Enter Command line mode
x) Exit
p
Menu: PointPerfect Corrections
Days until keys expire: No RTC
PointPerfect Corrections: Enabled
Toggle Auto Key Renewal: Enabled
Request Key Update: Not requested
Use localized distribution: Enabled
Localized distribution tile level: 5 (250 x 250km high density)
c) Clear the Keys
i) Show device ID
k) Manual Key Entry
g) Geographic Region: US
x) Exit
The WEB config had also not saved the PPP value for Auto Key Renewal
I updated that too…
After restart the CORRECTION PRIORIES still show INACTIVE for all 8 possible sources
PP Config though looks good
Menu: PointPerfect Corrections
Days until keys expire: 38
Most recent localized distribution topic: pp/ip/L5N3625W08375/N3558W08423
PointPerfect Corrections: Enabled
Toggle Auto Key Renewal: Enabled
Request Key Update: Requested
Use localized distribution: Enabled
Localized distribution tile level: 5 (250 x 250km high density)
c) Clear the Keys
i) Show device ID
k) Manual Key Entry
g) Geographic Region: US
x) Exit
Things are working better. I did my first field test, and was able to get RTK FIX with just PointPerfect corrections but it did take a while and occasionally it would lose it and I’d have to wait about 10 minutes. And for some reason SW MAPS kept disconnecting over BlueTooth, so I put my Airpods away, and it seemed to eventually stay connected. Perhaps I should turn off SPP, and only have BLE turned on? A few more tests and I’ll post my beginners summary, beginning to end…
I tried it - Set NTRIP second priority, Point Perfect first, and booted up indoors… the Torch didn’t pickup Point Perfect but did pickup RTK2go.com Caster that is 17 miles away
Menu: Corrections Priorities
Correction source lifetime in seconds: 30
These are the correction sources in order of decreasing priority
Enter the uppercase letter to increase the correction priority
Enter the lowercase letter to decrease the correction priority
Priority Status Last Seen Source
-------- -------- ------------- ------
H / h) 0 inactive IP (PointPerfect/MQTT) F / f) * 1 active 4.050 Sec TCP (NTRIP)
G / g) 2 inactive L-Band
A / a) 3 inactive External Radio
B / b) 4 inactive ESP-Now
C / c) 5 inactive LoRa Radio
D / d) 6 inactive Bluetooth
E / e) 7 inactive USB Serial
And then 30 seconds later… all were INACTIVE again…
