[time-nuts] Dan Quigley N7HQ TSIP Library - any help?

[Adam Maurer]

Hi all

I’ve been playing around with the TSIP library for Arduino by Dan Quigley (N7HQ) recently.

https://github.com/mgi2212/Thunderbolt/tree/master

I’m receiving and displaying all the fields from the 8F-AB and 8F-AC timing packets.
Once you figure it out, the library makes it easy to this.

My MCU is a Teensy 4.0, chosen for it’s hardware FPU.
Displaying the lat/lng/alt (double floats, in radians) is effortless.

I’m also sending command packets to my Thunderbolt (an original, not the later ‘E’) using the provided commands:

tbolt.beginCommand();
tbolt.writeDataBytes();
tbolt.endCommand();

This all works very well.


I have hit a brick wall in trying to display the number of satellites being used in the solution.
This information is in packet 6D.
(Obviously, the broadcast mask has been set to receive 6D along with 8F-AB and 8F-AC packets.)

Dan does have a variable called:  s.n_satellites, but only ever returns a zero.
This could be a variable that was allowed for, but never fully implemented?

I would love to be able to use the satellite count.


Dan also provides this subroutine:

// Use handy built-in serial event (hardware serial only), NOT interrupt driven, called once each loop when serial data is available
void serialEvent2() {
  tbolt.readSerial();  // Thunderbolt class serial in
}


But I cannot work out how to use that, and there is no documentation.
Perhaps that is part of the trick to get data from other TSIP packets being sent, such as 6D?

Unfortunately, I cannot get a reply from Dan.
Perhaps he has simply lost interest in this project, admittedly many years old now, although curiously he did add the TSIP manual to his github page only last week.

I’ve been banging my head against the wall for a few weeks now, and it’s beginning to hurt!

Can anyone please help in trying to get the s.n_satellites variable to return the number of sats and/or an example of how to actually use the tbolt.readSerial() routine?

Cheers,
Adam, VK4GHZ