[time-nuts] Datum Starloc II GPSDO issues

Mark Sims holrum at hotmail.com
Mon Jun 27 21:32:18 EDT 2016


Recently some Datum Startloc II GPSDO's appeared on Ebay (originally around $50,  now $100).  The main seller appears to be in Canada.  These are a telco type GPSDO that appears to be an attempt at a replacement  for Trimble Thunderbolts.  I recently got one in and did some playing with it (Lady Heather can now tolerate the beastie).  They run on 24V,  speak TSIP,  use a Motorola 8 channel UT receiver, the RS-232 connector is a male and needs a null modem cable to connect to a computer.  Serial protocol is 9600:8N1

Ok, it's wart time:

They do an unstoppable survey when powered on.  They say it will be a 14400 sample / 4 hour survey, but (thankfully)  it is closer to 30 minutes. It does not appear to save the surveyed position in EEPROM... probably doesn't even have an EEPROM.

It won't let you enter a surveyed position or work in a position hold mode or let you change the receiver mode (2D/3D/position hold, etc).   When it enters overdetermined clock mode,  the lat and lon data appear fixed but the altitude changes.  

The satellite info message reports the signal level, BUT THE AZIMUTH AND ELEVATION FIELDS ARE 0... BASTARDS!  No antenna signal level map for you!

It always reports a temperature of 30C.

It does not report actual antenna open/short/OK status.  It says everything is always OK... nothing to worry about... move along.  

The manufacturing date message reports the month as 0.  The hardware and firmware version months are OK.

You can't change the antenna elevation mask angle or signal level mask value or motion filter settings or oscillator disciplining settings or pretty much any fun / useful stuff.   The values it sends back for the elevation and signal level masks are random garbage.  You can set the cable delay (but loses it when powered off, seems to default to around 150 feet of coax). 

It seems to send back requested data whenever it wants (if ever).

There are probably other warts,  these are just the few that raised their ugly little heads first.





 		 	   		  


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