[time-nuts] Re: CF cards and the Trimble NetRS

[Bob kb8tq]

Hi

Try it and see …. I certainly was able to get them to act
as servers in the past. I think the basic answer is that there
aren’t any server specific settings for their version of NTP. 

Bob

> On Mar 22, 2022, at 9:02 PM, paul swed <paulswedb at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Quick question.
> I am looking at the netrs and do not believe it can act as a NTP server. I
> do see the ntp client settings.
> Am I missing something?
> Thanks
> Paul
> WB8TSL
> 
> On Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 3:09 PM paul swed <paulswedb at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Did get the "convert to rinex" working. I actually seemed to have a bad
>> exe. I found a newer one on the actual trimble site not unavco and that
>> installed and operated correctly. I can see why a rinex file is useful. Its
>> readable.
>> Regards
>> Paul
>> WB8TSL
>> 
>> On Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 6:25 PM paul swed <paulswedb at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Well Bob
>>> There you go changing the game just a bit. I saw the NTP settings and was
>>> thinking for some reason it might want to access a NTP server. I can see I
>>> have it backwards. Just may add a IP. I would have gotten there given time.
>>> But I will take a short cut any day.
>>> The Net RS is reasonably low power at 12V @ .35A or 4.5W. Its not
>>> apparent in the unit that the power coming in hits an inverter. I think
>>> its a linear regulator. Nothing looked like a choke for conversion.
>>> Did stick the antenna out of the window for a clearer view of the sky and
>>> picked up 8-10 db. The house blocks to the north.
>>> Regards
>>> Paul
>>> WB8TSL
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 5:50 PM Bob kb8tq <kb8tq at n1k.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi
>>>> 
>>>> More NetRS trivia:
>>>> 
>>>> One of the features of the NetRS is that it will act as an NTP server.
>>>> It’s not the most modern device so I very much would not want to
>>>> serve a ton of clients off of one. It also has been a *long* time since
>>>> the OS was patched. If you are looking for “modern” features or
>>>> security patches, maybe not the best thing to use. It certainly isn’t
>>>> going to compete with the Leo Bodnar NTP in terms of size or
>>>> power consumption. You won’t get a steady stream of updates and
>>>> patches like you would on something cool from Meinberg.
>>>> 
>>>> That said, for a “shop for a while” sub $150 sort of price, they would
>>>> be a reasonable deal. Not many packaged NTP products on eBay
>>>> that you “just plug in” and that run multi-band GPS. You would get
>>>> the frequency monitoring and RTK base station stuff “for free”.
>>>> 
>>>> Can you / could you / might you upgrade the OS? Since there really
>>>> isn’t much info on what the hardware looks like, that could be
>>>> exciting. The cards are “locked down” (though not encrypted) as
>>>> received so even poking around to try this or that isn’t trivial. How
>>>> much was done (if anything) to keep the OS “out of the way” of the
>>>> GPS code …. who knows ….
>>>> 
>>>> Fun !!
>>>> 
>>>> Bob
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Mar 21, 2022, at 1:01 PM, John Ackermann N8UR <jra at febo.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> You can stream data out of the receiver via either TCP or serial port
>>>> without storing to disk, so that's probably the best bet to save CF wear
>>>> and tear.  I'm not sure if it's more difficult to turn the
>>>>> 
>>>>> But for now I'm doing as you suggest -- I have one "T00" format
>>>> session logging to disk in 24 hour files, with the "autodelete" function
>>>> turned on to delete oldest files first when the disk gets nearly full.
>>>>> 
>>>>> However, I've been collecting data now for almost 4 months, and have
>>>> used 68.5 MB, with 770 MB still available, so I won't need to delete
>>>> anything for quite a long while.
>>>>> 
>>>>> John
>>>>> ----
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 3/21/22 11:22, Skip Withrow wrote:
>>>>>> Hello Time-Nuts,
>>>>>> Seems like there has been a lot of interest in the NetRS lately
>>>>>> because of their availability at reasonable prices (sometimes).
>>>>>> They use a Compact Flash card to store the operating system and logged
>>>>>> data files.  I'm not very knowledgeable about Linux, but I would guess
>>>>>> that there is no wear leveling implemented in this receiver.
>>>>>> So, when considering how best to use the data logging area it would
>>>>>> seem that instead of collecting some data, downloading it, deleting
>>>>>> file(s), and repeating the best strategy would be to collect data and
>>>>>> let the data logging area fill up before deleting (the files could be
>>>>>> read anytime).
>>>>>> This would minimize the number of writes to any one area of the CF
>>>>>> card I believe (except perhaps the directory structure).
>>>>>> However, even if you were deleting data often, you still may not be
>>>>>> able to get to the life of the CF card.  The good news is that even if
>>>>>> a card does go bad you can reconstruct a new one from the image of
>>>>>> version 1.3-2 of the software that is floating around.  I have tried
>>>>>> it and it works.
>>>>>> If there is better insight into the operation of this receiver, or
>>>>>> best practices strategy I'm all ears.
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> Skip Withrow
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