Loosing RTK mid afternoon

[cosmagedon]

I've just moved from Rangepoint to RTK Ntrip but I seem to be loosing signal mid afternoon, it works flawlessly up until that point. I still didn't have it when I left the field at 7 last night but the night before it came back about 9pm.

I changed back to Rangepoint when I lost it and that worked fine.

Any pointers what I should be looking for whilst trying to diagnose the issue?

 

[Stuart J]

What service are you using for your ntrip?

RTK2Go is a bit wobbly just now.

 

[cosmagedon]

It's though a company Vector RTK.

 

[andyinv]

How positive are you it's not your mobile signal that's the issue?

 

[cosmagedon]

How positive are you it's not your mobile signal that's the issue?

I'm using a spare O2 data sim until my roaming sim comes, first day I was convinced it was network issues as I was in a bad area and couldn't make a phone call. The last 2 days though have been in close proximity to the O2 mast and I've had full phone signal, so I'm not so sure now.

 

[Boysground]

Every time I have had rtk issues it has been the SIM card. I’ve always used a roaming sim.
It’s only a coincidence but I had no 02 connection in any way yesterday afternoon. Tractor was working fine but I never checked which signal it was using

Bg

 

[andyinv]

v12.co.uk do a 4-network non-steered SIM card pretty cheap. Charles there has been working with a couple of my guys to work out how much data a typical month's worth of always-on tractor will use, so he can offer an appropriately sized data package. The card roams to the strongest signal automatically, and from what my friends have said, it's pretty decent.

 

[Northern farmer]

Latency of 7 seconds does not sound good although RTK should still work at that point. Anyway indicates issues with cellular throughput.

Google did not help me decipher the constellation screen. Is the G referring to GPS satellites? Only four in the screen capture? Depends on the receiver but it may want minimum 5 good SNR satellites from a single constellation to obtain fix. Are the rest Glonass? Unlikely that many more Glonass, perhaps a 4 constellation receiver?

 

[Trying]

It's though a company Vector RTK.

Gary is sorting ours too.

 

[Daniel]

We have this on our Deutz all the time, Ntrip through RTK Farming. Any time from 3-4pm it will start dropping signal.

It’s a 2017 tractor, apparently more modern receivers can see more satellites and don’t do it? In any case, we basically have to put up with it.

 

[clbarclay]

v12.co.uk do a 4-network non-steered SIM card pretty cheap. Charles there has been working with a couple of my guys to work out how much data a typical month's worth of always-on tractor will use, so he can offer an appropriately sized data package. The card roams to the strongest signal automatically, and from what my friends have said, it's pretty decent.

What do their data sims cost? The last time I looked for data only sims they were all either much more expensive than a regular mobile sim or price on applicatrion.

 

[PSQ]

Charles there has been working with a couple of my guys to work out how much data a typical month's worth of always-on tractor will use, so he can offer an appropriately sized data package.

Using the 'data received' count on the NTRIP checker app it's showing about 1GB of data for a month of 24/7 connection.

 

[Northern farmer]

We have this on our Deutz all the time, Ntrip through RTK Farming. Any time from 3-4pm it will start dropping signal.

It’s a 2017 tractor, apparently more modern receivers can see more satellites and don’t do it? In any case, we basically have to put up with it.

Since I'm not familiar with Deutz, who makes the GNSS receiver for their 2017 tractor?

 

[Daniel]

Since I'm not familiar with Deutz, who makes the GNSS receiver for their 2017 tractor?

Topcon, it’s an AGI 4 with an x35 screen (original x30 screen delaminated the touch pad) but with Deutz software over the top.

 

[cosmagedon]

v12.co.uk do a 4-network non-steered SIM card pretty cheap. Charles there has been working with a couple of my guys to work out how much data a typical month's worth of always-on tractor will use, so he can offer an appropriately sized data package. The card roams to the strongest signal automatically, and from what my friends have said, it's pretty decent.

Funny enough that's who's supplying the sim I'm waiting for

Latency of 7 seconds does not sound good although RTK should still work at that point. Anyway indicates issues with cellular throughput.

Google did not help me decipher the constellation screen. Is the G referring to GPS satellites? Only four in the screen capture? Depends on the receiver but it may want minimum 5 good SNR satellites from a single constellation to obtain fix. Are the rest Glonass? Unlikely that many more Glonass, perhaps a 4 constellation receiver?

I don't really know what I'm looking at there to be honest, the latency was normally running at 1 or 2 seconds, the 7 seconds was after I lost rtk and it was running on xfill.

Gary is sorting ours too.

Gary has been brilliant in helping me get this up and running, cant recommend Vector enough.

We have this on our Deutz all the time, Ntrip through RTK Farming. Any time from 3-4pm it will start dropping signal.

It’s a 2017 tractor, apparently more modern receivers can see more satellites and don’t do it? In any case, we basically have to put up with it.

This is a 2017 tractor but the receiver is a bit older, I cant see in this day and age how it wont work!

What do their data sims cost? The last time I looked for data only sims they were all either much more expensive than a regular mobile sim or price on applicatrion.

Roughly £9pm for 1GB of data

 

[cosmagedon]

I was out drilling again today just after 1pm and lost RTK, to make it worse my RTX sub has finished now

I only had between 5 and 8 sats whilst it wasn't working (although there were about 19 visible on the constellation map), Egnos worked ok when I switched back, CMR was up around 90% and age was 0.8s, this was constantly changing whilst I still didn't have RTK, so I was assuming my modem and network side was working ok? I was in a good signal area.

After I finished I switched the tractor off and on then it got RTK straight away. I don't know if rebooting the antenna or modem did the trick? Next time I will try dropping the power off the modem with everything else still running and see what happens.

One thought I had whist angry driving was, mine is currently setup to use the modem's own GPS antenna to generate the GGA messages, my understanding is I need to see a certain amount of sats that the base station sees, could it be the antenna on the modem not being up to the job? Is it normal to use the modem antenna over the tractors antenna?

 

[farmer steve]

We have this on our Deutz all the time, Ntrip through RTK Farming. Any time from 3-4pm it will start dropping signal.

It’s a 2017 tractor, apparently more modern receivers can see more satellites and don’t do it? In any case, we basically have to put up with it.

Currently having the same issue with topcon rtk ntrip on our sprayer.. the last 2 afternoons its lost rtk at around 3 to 4 pm. Worked fine all day upto then. Never seems to come back till the next day! Bloody annoying as we don't tramline with the drill anymore and get the sprayer to do it on rtk. Did you ever get the problem sorted?

 

[andyinv]

I was out drilling again today just after 1pm and lost RTK, to make it worse my RTX sub has finished now

I only had between 5 and 8 sats whilst it wasn't working (although there were about 19 visible on the constellation map), Egnos worked ok when I switched back, CMR was up around 90% and age was 0.8s, this was constantly changing whilst I still didn't have RTK, so I was assuming my modem and network side was working ok? I was in a good signal area.

After I finished I switched the tractor off and on then it got RTK straight away. I don't know if rebooting the antenna or modem did the trick? Next time I will try dropping the power off the modem with everything else still running and see what happens.

One thought I had whist angry driving was, mine is currently setup to use the modem's own GPS antenna to generate the GGA messages, my understanding is I need to see a certain amount of sats that the base station sees, could it be the antenna on the modem not being up to the job? Is it normal to use the modem antenna over the tractors antenna?

Modem = internet, GPS antennas need to be seeing the same sats as the base you're on. Look on the rtk2go map, might be a free one nearby

 

[Chae1]

I've literally never had any problems with Trimble RTK up until yesterday. Both times it jumped about 80cm. I had changed from square headland to interior mode both times.

Wondered if Putin to blame.

Ran up and down all day long with no issues.

 

[L P]

I'm using a spare O2 data sim until my roaming sim comes, first day I was convinced it was network issues as I was in a bad area and couldn't make a phone call. The last 2 days though have been in close proximity to the O2 mast and I've had full phone signal, so I'm not so sure now.

I don't have GPS, but my o2 signal has been all over the place the past week or so, no signal across the whole farm one minute, full signal in the cow shed the next which never had signal before