OK, i know i might get a rash of crap for asking this, but i can't figure out why my unit is only picking up 6-8 sats when it should be getting much more compared to the "planning" software. my mask is set at 13 and in a wide open field, still minimal sats. Am i missing a check box somewhere in my style? We have a TSC3 controller and use FDOT's GPS network with a cellular connection (this works great). Any ideas?
Just a guess, but do you have the elevation mask set the same in both the planning software and the TSC3? Are all satellites enabled in the TSC3?
the masks are set the same. I believe i have all the sats on, but i don't know if there are multiple places in the controller where you can turn them off and on. Oh, and i have it to pick up l1 and l2...
For the past 3 or 4 weeks I have been getting 6 or 7 satellites when the planning software says I should have 10. I have been using the same Trimble setup for 5 years and have never had such problems. May be related to the solar flare activity that has been higher than normal. Here is an interesting site that talks about the sun: http://www.spaceweather.com/. It does not take much to mess with a weak signal from a satellite that is so far away.
Is FDOT set to use GNSS or just GPS? A lot of state ran net systems only use GPS.
A cohort who runs Trimble has been experiencing similar issues this week, and cannot attribute it to anything in particular. He is blaming the loss of productivity on 'solar flares'. His troubles came on a job where the client was interested in learning more about GPS (National Surveyor's Week) and insisted on tagging along. Needless to say he got to explain a lot about GPS while standing there waiting for it to lock for an hour.
I doubt this is a R8 related it is most likely network corrections
i always use my own base = no cell coverage = third party base
With my own base there is a proper order to get the base to do its task
uhf modems 1 watt satels
but once the base is providing corrections (RTK) the float to fix is about
5 to 20 seconds
This leads one to suspect that cell phone corections are the cause
Best of luck = get your own base
PK
peter, had our own base. had it stolen 3 times, with a crew member (different one) at the site. We are getting decent results, ie: 0.05' from NGS calcs, so i don't think its a base station issue, just a setting to let my rover see the sats....
i'm also not in Canada. I'm in Florida. So.........
I don't see how the base connection and the rover "seeing" the sats could be the issue. the rover isn't seeing them. i fire it up and it shows 10 - 12 sats and as soon as it obtains "lock", it drops to 6 or 8 at the best.... Just because the base isn't sending corrections for some sats, it shoult still see them. I'm calling FDOT in a couple hours to see. Thanks for the thoughts!
To my understanding, FDOT's network is GPS only. Once the receiver applies the correction, the satellite count reflects the common satellites between base and rover used in the solution.
Sounds like when you "begin your survey", and after you start the base, that you've chosen "RTK & Infill" instead of "RTK". The way I understand it, RTK only will use the NavStar and Glonass while RTK & Infill will only use NavStar (6 to 10 birds tops).
Hope it helps.
I also noticed this problemn a while back, I updated the almanac on the tgo planning software and the problemn was sorted.
