[time-nuts] ACE-III GPS receivers

[Didier Juges]

Following a post on this list, I bought a set of 3 Trimble ACE-III GPS 
receivers (for $29 total, including shipping) on eBay.

The transaction went well and the receivers appear new, other than 2 of 
them have the ribbon cable connector glued to the PWB. They work a 
little differently from the Jupiter and at first, not getting a PPS 
signal or RS-232 signal at all, I thought they were bad. Apparently, the 
receiver does not output anything until it has acquired some satellites. 
After a few minutes of being hooked up to the Bullet antenna, I started 
getting PPS and serial output.

They only draw 100mA (without antenna) from 5V, so they would be great 
for a battery operated GPSDO. Also, they come with a short 20 pin ribbon 
cable (only 18 pins are used), which is very useful because the cable is 
the less common 2mm spacing, and I could not find such a cable for my 
Jupiter receivers.

The problem is that they are apparently incompatible with the 
Thunderbolt monitor program. Both units are supposed to support the TSIP 
protocol, but the Thunderbolt program does not decode the packets sent 
by the ACE-III.

It may be that the ACE-III have been pre-configured for some other 
protocol (it apparently supports several protocols) and the setting may 
be saved to EEPROM.

Does anyone know of a program to monitor the ACE-III, or do I have to 
roll my own?

Thanks in advance.

Didier KO4BB