Is my GPS working?

[ldb20151]

All, I have Indi AllSky up and running locally, which is a huge credit to the work Aaron and the community put into it. I'm no RPI expert and don't speak linux/raspian. Thanks everyone! That said, I know I have work ahead to get it tuned and the functions set up the way I want. Hopefully that will continue to go ok.

At this point, all seems to be working OK, but like I said I'm at the beginning of the activation process. I can visually see the camera is working pretty much as intended; however I'm wondering if I should trust the GPS coordinates displayed on the screen. I installed a GPS hat on my RPI 5. As I understand, Indi Allsky includes the files necessary to activate and use the GPS, but I don't see any tools to specifically check it out and make sure its doing what it should. The displayed values seems about right but could they just be derived from my IP or some other bit of data entered at setup?

Am I correct that Indi Allsky installed GPSd and the GPS is active? How can I test to be certain its working correctly?

v/r,
-Larry

[aaronwmorris]

indi-allsky does not install or setup GPSd by default. I have a separate script to install GPSd.

./misc/setup_gpsd.sh

Once gpsd is working, you can verify it having a lock on satellites with gpsmon

There is also a wiki page to help with time syncing. https://github.com/aaronwmorris/indi-allsky/wiki/GPSd-NTP-Time-Sync

[ldb20151]

I'm glad I asked -- not sure what I read that led me to believe the Indi AllSky scripts did it all. I appreciate the info. I'm really trying to sort this out myself, but not knowing what I don't know, I find its better to be cautious versus experimenting. I don't yet know enough about the software side to fix issues without wiping the Pi and starting over. Which isn't fun!

[aaronwmorris]

It is no big deal. indi-allsky is a huge project which requires specialization across multiple disciplines.

[Aripaule]

hello,

I followed the steps on this page,

https://github.com/aaronwmorris/indi-allsky/wiki/GPSd-NTP-Time-Sync

however when you test the cgps command, no data is received.

any idea what it could be?

[Aripaule]

Check the output of sudo dmesg to see if it mentions the names of the serial ports.

hi,
the command generated a huge checklist.

log.txt

[aaronwmorris]

I think you have configured /dev/ttys0 but I would try /dev/ttyS0 (capital S)

[Aripaule]

I corrected the "S" and now it is pinging for 400 seconds. Did it work?

[aaronwmorris]

It is looking better. You may want to walk the system outside to see if maybe being inside is preventing a full connection.

[Aripaule]

Hi Aaron, I hope I'm not bothering you with so many questions.

But I still haven't gotten a connection. Now the module is in my backyard.

[ldb20151]

Thank you. Great timing as I’m working on this today. 🤞LarrySent from Larry's iPhoneOn Nov 24, 2024, at 11:33 AM, Aaron W Morris ***@***.***> wrote: Check the output of sudo dmesg to see if it mentions the names of the serial ports. —Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[aaronwmorris]

The output from ttyS0 is more of what I would expect. That is what it looks like when you cannot get a GPS lock. If you are testing this inside, you are probably getting a bad signal.

Try moving the antenna around. It can take a few minutes for the GPS to get a good lock.

[Aripaule]

I tested it outside, but I didn't get any improvement, (but I had the baud rate activated).

I will test again as soon as weather permits. Do you think I should keep this serial port or switch to the others?

[aaronwmorris]

I think what you are experiencing is probably kind of normal. Most of these GPS devices are all the same, just sold by different manufacturers.

[ldb20151]

I'm probably not helping but for what it's worth, my new GPS hat serial port was "ttyAMA0" (last character is a zero) which wasn't consistent with their install manual. Not sure what establishes this.
Good Luck!

[Aripaule]

I'm probably not helping but for what it's worth, my new GPS hat serial port was "ttyAMA0" (last character is a zero) which wasn't consistent with their install manual. Not sure what establishes this. Good Luck!

I didn't get any improvement in the problem. I bought another GPS module to ensure that my unit is not defective. As soon as I can test it I'll come back here.

[Aripaule]

ok, no improvement even leaving the antenna exposed, and even far from the pi (I heard that it could be some interference from the Wi-Fi)

The last solution is to buy another sensor, as soon as it arrives I will let you know.