Hi all,
It’s been about three years since I was on these forums while I was building a RTK base-rover pair, using ZED-F9P boards and Holybro 915 Telemetry Radios.
That setup worked perfectly for my purposes at the time.
I recently purchased an RTK Torch, and would like to use my old base station to send RTK corrections to the Torch. What Sparkfun LoRa radio board is the best match compatible with the LoRa radio in the RTK Torch, to replace the Holybro 915 Telemetry Radio I used previously?
Thanks in advance!
John
@TS-Russell , It appears that John wants to utilize the Torch’s existing LoRa Radio (STM32WLE) to receive corrections from his local Base.
I’m guessing this becomes a software exercise to create the LoRa packets at the Base to transmit via new LoRa radio, then unpack the LoRa into proper RTCM messages at the Torch/Rover.
Russell,
If two torches can be a base-rover pair, for local RTK independent of any other correction source, then my question is how to send corrections from my existing ZED-F9P base into the Torch’s LoRa radio
It was very simple to pipe RTK corrections: BASE ZED-F9P → Holybro 915 Radio >>>>> Holybro 915 Radio → ROVER ZED-F9P
I am hoping the following is possible: BASE ZED-F9P → [microcontroller if necessary] → LoRa radio TBD >>>>> RTK Torch existing LoRa radio → RTK Torch GPS/GNSS
If the Torch doesn’t suit your purposes because of this, head over to Return Policy - SparkFun Electronics and we can sort you out…it was mostly designed as an all-in-one field device (getting its own corrections over PP)
OK, got it, a bit of a bummer, but understandable.
Thanks for the RTK Everywhere firmware, obviously I need to read the source and study the schematic.
However, frequency hopping and other issues aside, I still have my original question: what LoRa radio board would be compatible when used on a base station (running a ZED-F9P or equiv) to send RTK corrections to a RTK Torch via LoRa?
Do you have a dev board compatible with the STM32WLE / SKY65313-21 in the RTK Torch?
It’s not great news on that front :-/ Here’s the full blurb I got:
“I haven’t been able to interface the Torch LoRa with any other LoRa in testing so far (which from my previous experience, is somewhat common with LoRa). This is likely due to our aggressive frequency hopping scheme (FCC Compliance requirement for 1 Watt TX) and in-house firmware. The only answer right now is “Buy one and see if you can make it work”. I could likely supply them with the firmware binary we use on the Torch LoRa (STM32WLE5CCU6), but it may be very tricky getting it to interface with the STM32WLE on a breakout board”
Hello John!
I run up to the same question as you. I will get my first RTK torch in the next weeks. And my goal was to transport RTCM message via LoRa to this device.
But at the moment it looks like that the LoRa in this device has a “private” and undocumented implementation.
I am also working with other LoRa modems and I am wondering why this has be done this way.
Do you have any solution to bring RTK corrections from other LoRa devices to the torch?
I have to admit that I cheated, and simply bought a second Torch to run as a base-rover pair.
I decided to prioritize (A.) actually surveying with my RTK Torch(es) and (B.) my other existing radio and electronic engineering projects, over (C.) R&D-ing a homebrew LoRa RTK connection for the Torch.
Hello John!
Ok - yesterday after my posting I did a lot of research - and I deciced to check if I can install an own (software written from scratch) LoRa P2P firmware inside the torch. The goal is to deliver RTK messages from any other LoRa P2P devices.
But one question for your solution: how do you calibrate the BASE station? With one time internet RTK corrections?
I let the base station sit for ≈20mins and decide that it’s sufficiently confident that it knows where it is. I forget the name of this process. I know there are fancier ways of homing a base station, but this way is adequate for my use case.
