Base & Rover radio technology
Does anyone know what model internal radio Trimble uses for the R10 receiver? Also, do the newer R10’s share the same radio the old R10’s used when first announced?
In recent years it seems some manufacturers have moved to faster radio technology.
From Leica:
In June of 2016, Leica SmartWorx Viva v6.00 Release Notes explained Leica’s reasoning for moving to a new (Satel M3-TR4) radio. “This radio employs new technology which allows a greater amount of RTK data to be transferred between the RTK base and RTK rover. This becomes increasingly important with the ever increasing number of GNSS satellites and signals available to be used.“
This could/would be a negative for having only internal radios if they can not be changed out or upgraded. You would be stuck with what was in there when you bought it. The Leica GS15 has slot radios with the newer technology which can be used to replace the older slot radios. What about other manufacturers?
Thanks,
ubenhavin
- 6 Replies
I would bet my last dollar the Trimble gear is using Pacific Crest radios since they own them!
Older Leica gear you could swap radios, yes! Newer, not so sure, almost everything is being made with the modem, radio, GNSS engine in the head in a sealed unit. I like the older way better, BUT do realize not quite as compact.
Leica says blah blah blah, yeah maybe, BUT I suspect the real reason is Pacific Crest is a a Trimble company and they no longer wanted to support Trimble, but maybe I am just being cynical? Surely Pacific Crest has figured out how to move the bigger data messages too?
I am glad there are radio options and Satel is good from all reports. Javad has their own radios too, having acquired ArWest Communications Corporation in 2007 and I assume the products work with other receivers than Javad too.
I moved to 900 MHz spread spectrum from UHF and use the Intuicom products, so far I haven’t regretted saying bye to Pacific Crest radios.
SHG
Apparently with Satel radios all models are not created the same with regard to moving amounts of data. Is this likely the same with Pacific Crest? If so, I would be interested in knowing which Pac Crest model the R10 employs.
What’s the range like with the 900MHz compared to 430-450MHz?
Moving data faster means a different modem function. That may or may not require changes to the radio to accommodate the new waveform, and if it uses a new bandwidth it may or may not be allowed in a specific frequency band.
Generally moving data faster at the same power means some reduction in reliable range. That may not be serious if the range limitation is principally due to line of sight, which cuts off rather sharply. Range reduction will be more significant if the limitation is noise and interference.
.What’s the range like with the 900MHz compared to 430-450MHz?
My experience has been similar to the traditional 4xx Mhz RTK radios. I have reached out 5-6 miles line of sight, but that is probably not typical range, for working typical real time sites, I would think a 1/2 mile to mile should be doable easily, of course like all higher frequency radio waves it is pretty much line of sight so in hills same issues as UHF frequencies.
SHG
More data can be accommodated with more bandwidth or faster rates (or I suppose more compact data), lots goes into figuring this out, spectrum is a finite quantity! Faster data rates end up with data collisions of the packets as more satellites come on line for instance, etc. I know Leica and Trimble (and I would guess others) have proprietary data formats that are more compact over say RTCM and one of the reasons is moving that every increasing data packet size.
SHG
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