Base station or Sim

Adeptandy · Sep 23, 2022

Pro's and cons of both please.
Currently on Sim cards but getting drop outs quite frequently.
Not sure if its the equipment or the area I'm in.
About to replace the current systems so have a chance to do either going forward.

Your thoughts TFF collective please.

Vantage ASC - Richard · Sep 23, 2022

If your in a ring fence of about 15K from the base, I'd say Basestation every time.

Boysground · Sep 23, 2022

I’m on SIM cards. Never tried a base station but have 20 miles between farms. I am on a roving sim, generally it has worked fine but there have been issues, always this has been down to the networks. Twice they have changed and the card has been searching for a signal and got confused and it has led to dropouts. Perhaps having a single provider would be better.

Bg

Adeptandy · Sep 23, 2022

Vantage ASC - Richard said:
If your in a ring fence of about 15K from the base, I'd say Basestation every time.

Base would be max 3km radius to edge of farm

Northern farmer · Sep 23, 2022

If the cellular coverage is poor, SIM (or NTRIP) is not the best option.

I guess you are referring to RTK via radio with "Base", radio would limit the selection of brands unless you accept the cost from several radios at the base. Radio needs decent visibility between the rover and base.

matttargett4 · Sep 24, 2022

Keep your current equipment and buy your own base, cast your own ntrip signal from your own base, I’ve had sims from the manufacturers and now run my own sims from my own base and I get far less drop outs.

im not an expert but as I understand it because my base is closer to the river than that of a base network I have more satellites common to both base and rover so the signal is more reliable

Adeptandy · Sep 24, 2022

matttargett4 said:
Keep your current equipment and buy your own base, cast your own ntrip signal from your own base, I’ve had sims from the manufacturers and now run my own sims from my own base and I get far less drop outs.

im not an expert but as I understand it because my base is closer to the river than that of a base network I have more satellites common to both base and rover so the signal is more reliable

Existing equipment is either not working or heading that way, it’s being returned to the supplier.

matttargett4 · Sep 24, 2022

Fair enough, n trip kit is often cheaper than radio rtk anyway

Richard Smyth · Sep 24, 2022

For you a base station would work being close by. For me I’ve had a base station which I got fed up moving all the time. Now have the base mounted on the house and uploading position via rtk2go and use ntrip on my rovers. Would never go back to using the base via radio.

Lofty · Sep 24, 2022

Adeptandy said:
Currently on Sim cards but getting drop outs quite frequently.

In my experience, it depends what you mean by 'drop outs'.
Are they cellular (where your signal drops back to RTK float or DGPS), GPS (where you loose differetial all together) or is the base station going off line?
For cellular, 4G is the way to go. If your modem is only 2 or 3G, random dropouts are a symptom of the the way the cellular system works no matter what network your on from what I can see. Also, 3G is being phased out. If your modem is only running 3G or constantly flipping from 3G to 2G this will drop your connection.
What receiver are you running?

Radio base station needs line of sight between the base and the rover so if you've got hills and valley, your better off with cellular.

Adeptandy · Sep 24, 2022

Lofty said:
In my experience, it depends what you mean by 'drop outs'.
Are they cellular (where your signal drops back to RTK float or DGPS), GPS (where you loose differetial all together) or is the base station going off line?
For cellular, 4G is the way to go. If your modem is only 2 or 3G, random dropouts are a symptom of the the way the cellular system works no matter what network your on from what I can see. Also, 3G is being phased out. If your modem is only running 3G or constantly flipping from 3G to 2G this will drop your connection.
What receiver are you running?

Radio base station needs line of sight between the base and the rover so if you've got hills and valley, your better off with cellular.

Drop outs = losing satellites so no auto steering
No hills or valleys, but a small area of trees might shade 2 fields

Lofty · Sep 24, 2022

Adeptandy said:
Drop outs = losing satellites so no auto steering

Loosing satilites is absolutely nothing to do with your RTK correction service and how you recieve it whether via a sim card or radio.
What receiver have you got on the roof?

Badshot · Sep 24, 2022

The best thing I done was put up my own base.

Covers all my farm, plus anywhere I go help out as I stay local.

Incredibly I got it all second hand or direct from antennae supplier which kept the cost down a lot.

But it is all Trimble so limiting in future possibly.

Adeptandy · Sep 24, 2022

Lofty said:
Loosing satilites is absolutely nothing to do with your RTK correction service and how you recieve it whether via a sim card or radio.
What receiver have you got on the roof?

2 mini dishes and an aerial

Badshot · Sep 24, 2022

Should perhaps add mine puts out radio and ntrip if I so wish.

Daniel · Sep 24, 2022

Good thread @Adeptandy. We have 2 tractors on ntrip RTK that will be up for renewal at the end of the year.

Which ntrip RTK base station would people recommend so we can save the cost of the subcriptions?

We have a 3rd tractor which is currently on omnistar, I presume this would be a bit more involved and require modems and unlock codes to get it onto an ntrip system?

Lofty · Sep 24, 2022

Adeptandy said:
2 mini dishes and an aerial

Sorry, what I meant was, what system are you running. I ask because this season we are suffering from 5G interference with a JD SF3000 receiver. Maybe you should talk to your dealer regard your system dropping satellites.

Steevo · Sep 24, 2022

What are you on at the moment?

clbarclay · Sep 25, 2022

Daniel said:
Good thread @Adeptandy. We have 2 tractors on ntrip RTK that will be up for renewal at the end of the year.

Which ntrip RTK base station would people recommend so we can save the cost of the subcriptions?

We have a 3rd tractor which is currently on omnistar, I presume this would be a bit more involved and require modems and unlock codes to get it onto an ntrip system?

About the easiest solution I have heard of, but have no further experience of, is using an emlid reach unit which lets you broadcast the corrections via their own server. It's a commercial offering rather than DIY. I haven't seen a definitive price, but the figures I have heard are a lot cheaper than what I've heard of for a trimble base station.

For my base station I use an ardusimple F9P reciever, connected to a raspberry pi computer running RTKBase and currently broadcasting the corrections via rtk2go. My Trimble steering system lacks the modem and unlock for RTK, so I have tried my using my base station with that, but others have used RTKBase to generate the required RTCM correction messages to suit most commercial steering systems. Hardware cost is about £300, but that buys you a DIY project.

Adeptandy · Sep 25, 2022

Lofty said:
Sorry, what I meant was, what system are you running. I ask because this season we are suffering from 5G interference with a JD SF3000 receiver. Maybe you should talk to your dealer regard your system dropping satellites.

Exhausted that one

Base station or Sim

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