bg7tbl gpsdo master reference

[K1FPV]

OOOPS...that was supposed to be 6.8 volts p/p into a 50 ? load.

[K1FPV]

HUH the ohm symbol looks fine when I look at the preview, but winds up as a question mark when it is posted. Anyway, it puts 6.8 volts into 50 ohms.

[MattSR]

How does one get the signal strength plot in the bottom right hand corner of the screenshot above to activate?

[K1FPV]

This isn't about the BG7TBL GPSDO, but I managed to buy a Datum Starloc II GPSDO board and the price was right. I hooked it up to 24 volts and it works pretty well. I've no got a rock solid 10 MHz. coming out of it and the Lady Heather GPS program works well with it. It's been hooked up for an hour and it appears to be a 6 channel receiver as I only see the info for 6 satelites, but other than that, I've got good time and frequency lock with it.

Has anyone seen a manual for the Datum Starloc II receivers? Has anyone else managed to work successfully with these receivers?

Bill
K1FPV

[Vgkid]

I was tempted to buy a few when they were around 50.00. Then the prices doubled . 

[texaspyro]

I managed to buy a Datum Starloc II GPSDO board and the price was right. I hooked it up to 24 volts and it works pretty well. I've no got a rock solid 10 MHz. coming out of it and the Lady Heather GPS program works well with it.

Uhhh... that's news to me (unless you have a beta copy of the next release of Lady Heather or a different firmware on the GPSDO than mine). 

The Starloc II firmware that I have is an utter turd!.  They mess up parsing / sending proper TSIP formatted messages (they don't always escape 0x03 bytes).  The satellite positions are all reported as az/el = 0.0/0.0.   The TSIP command that the Thunderbolt uses to configure automatically sent messages will lock up the Starloc II).  I could go on, but my blood's starting to boil...  Oh, the things that I had to do to the Lady Heather code to get that turd half-way working...    Awww crap,  my head just exploded...

[K1FPV]

ROFLMAO..... I'll pick up the pieces of residue from the cranial explosion!    I've got Lady Heather running now. I was away from my computer for over 24 hours....Heather is still monitoring the Starloc II fine receiving 8 satellites, giving my exact position....the same my other GPSDOs provide and the UTC time is right on with my GPS clock!

I'm trying to figure out the firmware in the receiver. I just bought this receiver from Stormin Norman on eBay. Even at the price now they are asking, it isn't a bad price considering all I have to do is find a small case to mount the receiver in. Anybody have an idea how I can manage to read the firmware inside the receiver? OH....by the way, I also have Trimble Studio v1.64.0, a beta version and that too locks to the receiver. I suspect this must be some kind of Trimble clone.

Now if I can just manage to find an instruction book for the receiver, I'll be happy as a clam! I have the Thunderbolt monitor program, and that program won't do anything with this receiver.

Bill
K1FPV

[texaspyro]

I just bought this receiver from Stormin Norman on eBay.

Now if I can just manage to find an instruction book for the receiver, I'll be happy as a clam!

That's where I got mine... oh, the pain it's caused.  I look horrible with a ruptured head.  Gotta spend some time and sponge down the walls pretty soon.

Your best bet for a manual is the Thunderbolt manual.  The Starloc II tries to implement a basic Thunderbolt emulation,  screws quite a bit of it up in various ways,  and does not implement all the Thunderbolt commands.  Mine seems like a pre-alpha firmware release to me that was banged out by a bunch of drunken code monkeys after a week long bender.

What version information is reported by your StarLoc?

[K1FPV]

I'm unable to get data via Lady Heather, but with the Trimble Studio, the only data I'm getting off the receiver is (TC_[ID#]_161204_1802_[TC#].log) which is supposed to be logged by the program from the receiver. I have no idea what that information means.

I've been monitoring the output of the receiver at 10 MHz, and my counter using my Spectracom 8195 Ageless Oscillator is 10.0000000 MHz. The counter reads down to .1 Hz when attached to either of my GPS references. I also have an HP58503A and there is no difference in the frequency readings with either of the references. The counter is a BK Precision 1823A. I just wish I was able to get a monitoring program to see all the data coming from the receiver. With the information I have presently on this receiver, I'd get more by picking my nose! Ooooops....if I did that, my head might cave-in!   

[texaspyro]

I'm unable to get data via Lady Heather, but with the Trimble Studio, the only data I'm getting off the receiver is (TC_[ID#]_161204_1802_[TC#].log) which is supposed to be logged by the program from the receiver.

I just wish I was able to get a monitoring program to see all the data coming from the receiver.

Version 5 of Lady Heather knows about the quirks of this receiver and can work with it (but the auto-detect receiver type function won't work... you have to tell it you have a Starloc II with the -rxd command line option.  Programs that expect a Trimble Thunderbolt probably won't work because one of the commands they send to initialize the device makes the Starloc II shut up.

[K1FPV]

Where did you get the version 5 of Lady Heather? I've found version 4, but that is a beta version. I'm using version 3.10 which isn't a beta.

[texaspyro]

Where did you get the version 5 of Lady Heather? I've found version 4, but that is a beta version. I'm using version 3.10 which isn't a beta.

I wrote Lady Heather...  v5 should be released soon.

[texaspyro]

Forgot to mention v5 runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS (OSX)

[K1FPV]

I just downloaded V4.0 beta, and it logs everything on this puppy, even gives me a sky view of the sats too.

[K1FPV]

I had a brain fart! The one with the sky sat view was the one for the program writer. I realized it when I saw the lat & long as well as altitude were way off. DUH !   

[K1FPV]

I'm about ready to give up on this piece of c#*p !  The Datum Starloc II is for the birds! After about 36 hours, for some unknown reason, it looses lock with Lady Heather as well as with the Trimble Studio. I'll tell ya one thing, the Trimble Studio works works great with my Thunderbolt as well as with a Nortel GPS system I bought that was taken out of service. It obviously uses Trimble inside.

The BG7TBL version 2016-05-31 GPSDO is terrific. It works well with Visual GPS View as well as U-Center 8.23. U-Center has the better information and looks terrific!

Bill
K1FPV

[Bryan]

U-Center has the better information and looks terrific!

U-Center gets my nod, it works very well on non ublox receivers as long as they can output NMEA.

[K1FPV]

Yes, I've got to agree that the U-Blox does a great job as does Visual GPS View but I prefer the format used by U-Blox.

[Dwaine]

Lady Heather v 5.00 is working great!  I only have the USB cabled hooked up to the GPSDO. 

I'll add a shifter to the management pins and try out the full control.  Did you wire the management pins to the existing serial port, or just break them out to a separate connection?

[texaspyro]

Lady Heather v 5.00 is working great!  I only have the USB cabled hooked up to the GPSDO. 

I'll add a shifter to the management pins and try out the full control.  Did you wire the management pins to the existing serial port, or just break them out to a separate connection?

I'm still wired to the Star-4 management port via an external shifter.   I am probably going to wire the management port to his level converter circuit (the signals are those two pins that stick down from his board to the Star-4)  and wire the TOD output port to one of the unused drivers in the level converter and send that output to a pin on the DB-9 so that things like NTP have a time code.

[texaspyro]

Lady Heather version 5.0 is now available for download from:
   http://www.ke5fx.com/heather/readme.htm

Many thanks to John Miles for hosting the distribution and his work on the Windows installer, PDF documentation file, readme file, and bring an all-around good guy.

Heather now has some proper user documentation.  Check the heather.pdf file and/or the comments in the first 3500+ lines of the heather.cpp file.  Heather can be compiled for Linux (including the Raspberry Pi) and macOS.  Download the heatherx11.zip file and check the readme.txt file for compilation instructions.

There are MANY new features in Heather.  One of the main ones is support for many new receiver types.  When Heather is started it defaults to attempting to automatically determine the receiver type.   You can bypass this and force the receiver type using the new "/rx..." command line options.  Some receiver types cannot be auto-detected.  Also many receivers power up speaking NMEA and you can enable their native binary language using the /rx commands.  Native binary mode gives better information and allows controlling the receiver configuration and settings.

Currently-supported receivers include:
Trimble Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt-E
Acron Zeit WWVB receiver
UCCM - Trimble / Symmetricom GPSDOs
DATUM STARLOC II GPSDO
NEC GPSDO (STAR-4 compatible)
GPSD interface
Jupiter-T (aka Zodiac)
Lucent KS24361 REF0/Z3811A (19200:8:N:1)
Motorola binary format
Generic NMEA receiver
Trimble Resolution T family with odd parity
Sirf binary
Generic Trimble TSIP binary
Ublox UBX binary
Venus mixed binary / NMEA
Nortel SCPI-compatible GPSDOs (NTWB, NTPX, etc.)
Z3801A and compatible SCPI GPSDOs
HP 5xxxx-style SCPI
Oscilloquartz STAR-4 (via the management interface)
NVS binary
PC system clock (no receiver)

After installing Heather, you should edit the heather.cfg file (or the PROPERTIES setting for the desktop icon) for your desired configuration.  Everybody should change the "/tz" option for their time zone... it comes set up for the US central time zone.  International uses should add a "/b..." command to set their daylight savings time information.   On Windows, you can press the "n" key and that will bring up NOTEPAD to edit the file.  For the changes to take effect you will need to re-start Heather (or do a "r heather.cfg" keyboard command).

[Dwaine]

Lady Heather v 5.00 is working great!  I only have the USB cabled hooked up to the GPSDO. 

I'll add a shifter to the management pins and try out the full control.  Did you wire the management pins to the existing serial port, or just break them out to a separate connection?

I'm still wired to the Star-4 management port via an external shifter.   I am probably going to wire the management port to his level converter circuit (the signals are those two pins that stick down from his board to the Star-4)  and wire the TOD output port to one of the unused drivers in the level converter and send that output to a pin on the DB-9 so that things like NTP have a time code.

Which level shifter did you use?   I wired my TTL to serial shifter to both RX and TX management pins. But I get constant voltage on both pins. 

[texaspyro]

Which level shifter did you use?   I wired my TTL to serial shifter to both RX and TX management pins. But I get constant voltage on both pins.

It's one that I built.  Has a DB-9 connector,  MAX232A,  3.3 or 5V regulator.  Also several connectors for various GPS receivers.  I wire all my GPS modules to connect to the "CN06" connector.  I'm powering it off the 12VDC output of the DC-DC converter... 3.3V regulator on my converter board.

https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/YPvKgMYa

Did you perhaps swap the TX and RX pins on your level shifter?

[Dwaine]

Which level shifter did you use?   I wired my TTL to serial shifter to both RX and TX management pins. But I get constant voltage on both pins.

It's one that I built.  Has a DB-9 connector,  MAX232A,  3.3 or 5V regulator.  Also several connectors for various GPS receivers.  I wire all my GPS modules to connect to the "CN06" connector.  I'm powering it off the 12VDC output of the DC-DC converter... 3.3V regulator on my converter board.

https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/YPvKgMYa

Did you perhaps swap the TX and RX pins on your level shifter?

I thought the samething, so I swapped them.  I think the problem is powering the level shifter from 12 volts off one of the pins on the 26 pinouts.   I'm probing to see if there is another 3.3volt source I can use.  Almost there.

The star-4 is a very nice box.  I was really surprised.

[DaJMasta]

Finished a little project relating to this GPSDO and figured I'd post it here, I made a 4 output distribution amplifier that fits inside the current revision BG7TBL units - any of them with the single board with the one power heatsink will do, but for sure I know it fits in my 2016-05-31 model.  I've written up some design concerns, a guide to finding signals to tap off on the board, and a full BoM for the mod/project, and the schematic and PCB design are up on CircuitMaker and are free.  The most expensive parts of the mod, by far, are the BNCs.

http://medpants.com/distribution-amplifier

It's basically some schmitt triggers and a little filtering if you want sine output, but it can give you any combination of sine or square wave outputs on the board from either a sine or square wave output model GPSDO, if that is useful to you.  If you're interested in building up one for yourself, I had to order 10 boards when I had it made, so I can mail a few out for the cost of postage.

The finished one looks like this: