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AT&T 2G Sunset and Leica 1200 GFU Modems
Posted by shelby-h-griggs-pls on November 22, 2016 at 3:08 amAT&T is set to turn 2G off on 31-Dec and T-Mobile will follow suite in 2020 making all of the GSM Leica GFU housings sold pre last 2-3 years with System 1200’s obsolete. I am thinking the GFU29 housings sold for the newer Viva GS10 may be a plug and play upgrade? Anybody tried this? The guts are actually a Cinterion PXS8 modem board, it may even be possible to source that board and just swap the innards into my current housings?
Just wondering if there is a way to keep my old 1200’s going with a “Leica” or their supplier solution without using a 3rd party modem and adding another thing to forgot to the toolbox?
SHG
dc-kelley replied 6 years, 9 months ago 8 Members · 20 Replies -
20 Replies
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I still use one 1200 with a AT&T card in a GFU housing and was wondering the same thing. I have an old “Raven” but hate to go back to that configuration. We use the 1200 with a Carlson Surveyor 2 and I need to check to see if it would work to put a sim card in the DC.
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I *almost* bought an R8-2 with internal modem earlier this year, it was about 15% cheaper than one with an internal radio. I fortunately found out before I bought it that it had a 2G modem and would soon be obsolete. So beware of deals on units with internal modems.
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Today’s research is pretty conclusively showing that the GFU29 should just be plug and play (maybe I should say PAY, local dealer is quoting $2000 per each). I see online I can buy them brand new in England for about $1200 each.
This is NOT a Leica modem inside the housing, instead it is made by Cinterion and is a PXS8 board, what I haven’t found out is if that is user swappable into my old housings without a bunch of bracket fabrication and wiring harness building? It appears those boards are sub $150 a piece on the web, so may be worth rolling my own, just unsure if it is more than swapping boards or not?
Stay tuned!
SHG
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I just ordered an external cell modem with wifi, serial, etc from microhard (canadian company). I will post an update once I receive it.
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John Hamilton, post: 400742, member: 640 wrote: I just ordered an external cell modem with wifi, serial, etc from microhard (canadian company). I will post an update once I receive it.
John, are you going to use that to get RTN data for a rover? I was looking at something very similar recently thinking of just using my wireless carrier to serve the house, unfortunately, the new T-Mobile unlimited data plans are really only 26Gb/mo once you read the fine print, so I abandoned the idea!
SHG
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The GFU19’s are still working with Verizon, so that’s another option.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Eventually every carrier will drop 2G, and then again in a few years 3G. It is about getting the most use out of their towers.
Paul in PA
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Shelby,
It looks like the PXS8 is a bare chip The PH8 may be the full board.
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Precision-geo-inc, post: 400763, member: 9801 wrote: The GFU19’s are still working with Verizon, so that’s another option.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
For now, but Verizon has plans to phase out the slower speeds too. I have a whole bunch of other phones, RTK Bridge, etc. all on GSM, big commitment to change teams now.
SHG
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Shelby H. Griggs PLS, post: 400745, member: 335 wrote: John, are you going to use that to get RTN data for a rover? I was looking at something very similar recently thinking of just using my wireless carrier to serve the house, unfortunately, the new T-Mobile unlimited data plans are really only 26Gb/mo once you read the fine print, so I abandoned the idea!
SHG
Going to use it to stream RTK data from an R7 (temporary base locations), straight CMR+, no NTRIP, no server in between.
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John Hamilton, post: 400742, member: 640 wrote: I just ordered an external cell modem with wifi, serial, etc from microhard (canadian company). I will post an update once I receive it.
That Looks interesting, should be able to use my old Airlink Raven serial cable.
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This maybe an option.
http://www.getwirelessllc.com/products/sierra-wireless-airlink/es450
List price is $499.00
http://www.barcodesavings.com/Sierra-Wireless-AirLink-ES450-4G-Gateway-LTE-HSPA-p/1102384.htm
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Robert Ellis, post: 400859, member: 1183 wrote: That Looks interesting, should be able to use my old Airlink Raven serial cable.
John how did the modem work out.
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It works fine, BUT I have not been able to get a static IP from AT&T. I would not need one IF I could find software for my PC that will receive the CMR+ (or RTCM) stream and then serve it up as an NTrip server. Actually, that would be preferable to the static IP. I found SNIP (https://www.use-snip.com/) but as far as I can tell it will only do that for a LOCAL serial stream. I am going to contact them to see if it will work as I want it. I will gladly pay for a reasonable price for software that will do that. Or, I wonder if anyone offers a service that will do that (i.e. host a stream and allow users to login using NTrip)?
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John,
Have a look at no-ip.com
Dynamic DNS points an easy to remember hostname to your dynamic IP address.
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leegreen, post: 407173, member: 2332 wrote: John,
Have a look at no-ip.com
Dynamic DNS points an easy to remember hostname to your dynamic IP address.
I tried that, I use several of no-ip.com’s apps, including a dynamic IP service. I am not sure if AT&T blocks some things or what the problem is.
I think I have found a solution, just need to get it setup and test it.
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John Hamilton, post: 407177, member: 640 wrote: I tried that, I use several of no-ip.com’s apps, including a dynamic IP service. I am not sure if AT&T blocks some things or what the problem is.
I think I have found a solution, just need to get it setup and test it.
If AT&T operates as T-Mobile, the only way in is with an IP address that they issued.
SHG
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John Hamilton, post: 407166, member: 640 wrote: It works fine, BUT I have not been able to get a static IP from AT&T. I would not need one IF I could find software for my PC that will receive the CMR+ (or RTCM) stream and then serve it up as an NTrip server. Actually, that would be preferable to the static IP. I found SNIP (https://www.use-snip.com/) but as far as I can tell it will only do that for a LOCAL serial stream. I am going to contact them to see if it will work as I want it. I will gladly pay for a reasonable price for software that will do that. Or, I wonder if anyone offers a service that will do that (i.e. host a stream and allow users to login using NTrip)?
I think what you are looking for is a Lefebure Caster with a built in server. http://lefebure.com/software/ntripcaster/ I have the software installed on an old PC at my office connected to the internet with a static IP from Comcast. I have a Leica 1200Pro connected by a serial cable to the pc. I then have the Lebeure client software on another old PC hooked up to a router without a static IP with a serial connection to a Trimble 4000 setup at a permanent site. The software on the PC with the 4000 send correction to the office PC and rovers connect to the office and can select the base they want to get corrections from. I also have a Javad that has a built-in caster program that I can use as a temporary base to send corrections to the office base or as a rover to receive corrections. I found that the viewer program from Remote Utilities was very helpful when trying to get it all connected, selecting the best baud rates, and message formats.
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I finally got all the connections working. My R10 started working again, I think AT&T fixed whatever it was they did. Trimble says it is definitely a 3.5G modem, but I believe it is lacking in frequency bands, hence the problems. The new modem I bought for the other end (R7) from microhard was easy to setup, but I could not get it to connect to serial. I finally figured out that I needed a null modem adapter in between, as both the modem and the R7 are functioning as DCE (data communication equipment, as opposed to DTE, Date Terminal Equipment). Hence, both were transmitting on pin3 and receiving on pin2. The null modem adapter swaps these so that one transmits on 2 and the other transmits on 3, etc. I can connect to that data stream using an IP address and a port number.
I am able to transmit the CMR out of the R7 to the modem. I can connect to it from my PC (IP:PORT) using a program called TCP-Com that emulates a serial port, so it looks to the PC like com5. Works fine. But if I connect to that IP:port with the R10, it connects OK, but I don’t see any data flow, so I still need to do some configuring. I assumed I could just connect the R10 and “see” the CMR data flow, but so far, no.
I have a copy of SNIP (“the Simple NTRIP Caster”) that I still need to figure out how to configure. I believe that only uses RTCM rather than CMR.
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John and others. Just a quick correction / reply to the above – I saw that this older thread had produced a ‘hit’ on the SNIP knowledge base support web pages. The SNIP NTRIP Caster will re-broadcast anything you send to it. So CMR (and its various flavors) all work as well as RTCM. It operates in a “bent pipe” mode for any data formats its does not understand. For RTCM 3.x message SNIP fully decodes and understands the messages. So it parses them out to provides some basic monitoring services, an auto setup of the Caster table entry, some plotting, a NEARest connection point, etc etc. In recent releases this is largely automatic, but you can set is as well. Several menu items allow you to look at any suspect data stream when there is a need
Basic to the original thread; many people use a copy of SNIP by the base to take the GNSS serial stream and forward it to another copy (in this case it is acting as an NTRIP Server) where they run the ‘real’ Caster. That is a common configuration. Other people are using our free RTK2go.com service to send their connections streams to the public Caster we run there. I now see a number of RTK2go users who will setup and connect during a field campaign for several hours when they need arises. That seems to fill a need for folks that do not want a Caster of their own.
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