RTK Radios

From what I can tell, the major players (that I know of anyway) are Pacific Crest and Satel for UHF and Intuicom for spread spectrum.

I think cost wise, they are all going to be similar.

Personally, I am considering spread spectrum (have to do something before 01-Jan-2013), the ONLY drawback might be the range. I say might, because line of sight, they claim 60 miles, we all know that is rare, but if they will reach out a couple of miles, I think they might just work OK. Other benefits, less jamming, low power, and no FCC license required.

Talked to the Intuicom rep at the Oregon conference earlier this year, antenna type AND height above ground will go a long way towards improving ANY type of radio signal, I think often we just crank up our UHF radios to 35W with less than ideal antenna situations and hope for the best, often that doesn't work either.

Anyway my $0.02

SHG

Yes, Satel radios are what I’d recommend. They seem to be the most reliable and most configurable. But Shelby if someone is telling us 60 miles is something that is a usable spec... id start ROTFLMAO!!!!! SSR radios are 1 miles tops in rugged terrain. I've even seen them only go a half mile, anybody in the industry who would quote us 60 miles for a field radio on a GPS system has just lost their credibility even if they work for intuicom. 60 miles is most likely on a 500’ tower to anther 500’ tower on a clear day with no interference. Wide open best we would get is about 2 miles maybe 3 in absolute ideal conditions with no ground cover.

The other option is to simply use Cellular and a VRS Network in your area and save the expense of radios all together. Check out www.field2finish.net for RTK bridges, they have bridges that are WAY better than the Intuicom units (theirs will run both AT&T and Verizon and become a Wi-Fi hotspots or can run off a hot spot. They even include 900 MHz and can be configured via a web browser compare at $2500 complete.

You're right about the antenna. I think with the right antenna, you should be able to push a couple miles with SS. It makes a difference. I've pushed 8k feet through a big hill and lots of trees with SS. It was shaky, but worked. No hill probably could have pushed a lot further. With 12" antennas, 5000' was a good range, sometimes down to half mile in crap, like Andre suggests.

I am not saying 60 miles would be normal, but just quoting the manufacturer. The well respected late Ellis Veatch did some testing with the Intuicom radios before his passing and got out to around 20 miles if I remember correctly someplace around where he lived in Colorado. That may not be normal either, BUT 5-6 miles is the maximum I have ever got with Pacific Crest radios too (and isn't normal), so, I think if I could get 5-6 miles with ANY RTK radio of any brand consistently that would be about all that is needed.

Will definitely do my own testing with SS radios before buying a pair.

Edited to add, I do use a RTN when I can, HOWEVER, there are still plenty of areas in the western USA where there is no cell phone service close enough to "bridge", operating out here in real time mode without the ability to run your own base station isn't always possible. Thanks for the tip on the bridge, another option to look at. Is there any literature available on that? Can that piece of hardware be used as a SS radio OR a bridge or is it a bridge device only?

Sometimes static is a viable solution too 🙂

SHG

The hot ticket with radios is a repeater. Mount the repeater to the hood of the truck with a magnet so that you can watch the signal lights as you are driving to the next point. If you loose signal reverse course and find a high spot to leave the repeater. Then continue on to the point and make the measurement. Worked good with uhf radios and I would think it would work fine with spread spectrum too! My 2 cents, Jp