New-to-me Trimble Thunderbolt under Lady Heather - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: elroy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2019, 07:16:10 am
content: Today I received a 2001-vintage Trimble Thunderbolt, power supply and GPS antenna bought on eBay. I hooked it up to a Windows 7 PC via a USB-to-RS232C cable and started Lady Heather v5. I manually entered my time zone information as well as lat-lon-elevation.I noticed after running it for a bit that the warning "Saved posn BAD" appeared in red. Based on the recommendation here:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/metrology/nortel-trimble-ntgs50aa-08-help-needed/I used the SS command to initiate a self-survey. Although this appeared to execute, the "Saved posn BAD" warning never went away after several hours.I also noticed that generally the unit picked up only 1 or 2 GPS satellites, 3 at the most. There are several large trees outside the window of the room the gear is located in, and even raising the GPS antenna significantly didn't seem to succeed in acquiring any additional satellites.Attached is a screen shot after the unit ran under Heather for a few hours.Some questions:1) Should I consider a new GPS antenna? If so, what is a reasonable maximum of transmission line to use between it and the Trimble? In order to get around the trees, it would be ideal to be able to use a 30- or 40-foot line if this wouldn't present a problem with loss.2) Does anything else of concern jump out to any seasoned eyes?My main interest in the Trimble is to use it eventually as a frequency reference for use with an HF receiver for frequency measurement test events.

author: jpb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2019, 08:16:34 am
content: I don't have a Trimble, but to answer your question on the antenna and cable run, I use a timing antenna with 40dB gain and a 15m plus cable run (more like 16m) and it produces a good signal even after a four way splitter.I tried adding an in-line amplifier to see if it improved things but it didn't. The number of satellites I see is determined by surrounding trees and houses, the ones I do see I get a good signal from in the range 40 to 54dB SN.It depends on the sort of cable you use - I use this one :https://www.digikey.co.uk/product-detail/en/siretta-ltd/ASMZG1500A058L13/ASMZG1500A058L13-ND/6096476which is quite pricey - you can get away with using cheap 75 ohm cable I think from what others have written on this forum as the mismatch isn't critical.

author: bingo600
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2019, 10:31:58 am
content: I have a Tbolt w. 25 meter quality , quad shielded 75ohm sat cable.At first i used a 40dB PC-Tel "ice cone" antenna , worked excellent.Then i mounted a quad channel active antenna splitter (20dB gain) , and got in trouble w. too much signal on one of the GPSDO's (Not the TB).I got a 26dB "ice cone" , and now the (Jackson lite) is happy too.Morale ... You can run very long feeds , if your cable is of a good quality , bot too much gain isn't always the best.I'd definetely go for 75 ohm cable , due to the good pricing , and that trimble states 75ohm in the manual./Bingo

author: texaspyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2019, 02:24:34 am
content: Your screen dump shows that you are connected to John Miles test Thunderbolt that is in Seattle (?) and not your device. I beleiver that the Lady Heather installer includes an icon that connects to his test/demo system.After conneting to your Thunderbolt, use the !h keyboard command to for the unit to do a hard factory reset and clear out any bogus settings. After doing a self survey, use the EE keyboard command to save the computed location.

author: elroy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2019, 05:05:35 am
content: Quote from: texaspyro on April 25, 2019, 02:24:34 amThanks, I see that I inadvertently chose the icon for the test Thunderbolt.Now when I start heather.exe, I see a statement for a couple of seconds, "No com port open." Then it goes to a simple screen with a large clock face, digital time and date. One line reads "Dev: System clock," which makes me suspect the date/time is from the PC system clock and not the Thunderbolt. Below that, it does indicate "COM: 7," which is the com port number for the USB-to-RS232C cable connected to the Thunderbolt.At that point, I executed the command "/7" to set the com port to 7, then "/rx" to auto-detect the receiver. I see it cycle through several baud rates while apparently sending data, then at the end a statement "No receiver" appears, and it returns to the initial screen with what I gather is date/time from the PC system clock. Executing a "!h" command only causes that screen to persist. The results are the same with an "ss" command.I know the USB-to-RS232C cable is good because I've used it recently for a different application. I checked the voltage out from the power supply with a multimeter, and it appears good. Do you have any suggestions on what to check next? (Keeping in mind that I'm starting from zero with GPSDO's and the Lady Heather software.)

author: texaspyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2019, 02:00:26 am
content: Put the /7 on the command line or in the heather.cfg file. Changing the receiver type from within Heather can cause problems.

author: elroy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2019, 03:47:01 am
content: Quote from: texaspyro on April 26, 2019, 02:00:26 amVery odd, in heather.cfg I commented out "-1u" and replaced it with "/7", but I still get a "No com port open" message when Heather starts. I verified that COM 7 is visible in Device Manager, and unplugged the cable, rebooted Windows and plugged it back in before trying again -- no change.

author: texaspyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2019, 04:00:59 pm
content: Then something else has com port 7 open...

author: elroy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2019, 10:40:57 pm
content: Quote from: texaspyro on April 26, 2019, 04:00:59 pmI opened Trimble's Thunderbolt Monitor software, and found it could open com 7 and communicate with the Thunderbolt OK. This was on a Windows 7 system. I then tried both Heather and Thunderbolt Monitor with the Thunderbolt on a Windows 10 machine, where the USB-to-serial cable was recognized as com 8. (I edited heather.cfg to add "/8".) Thunderbolt Monitor again communicated with the Thunderbolt OK, whereas Heather produced the same "No com port open" error. All I can think is that there's some issue between Heather and perhaps the USB-to-serial cable I'm using.I then started Thunderbolt Monitor again, set the Thunderbolt to factory defaults, then let it acquire satellites and run the self-survey. After going through this the display was as shown in the attached screen shot.All of the status buttons are green except for "Stored position," which is yellow. GPS status shows as "(0) Doing fixes," while Disciplining Status activity is shown as "(0) Phase Locking."The lat-lon are correct (but munged in the screen shot). The "Time" section displays UTC time that is almost correct, but ~18 seconds off of actual UTC time. There is an entry "UTC Offset" which shows as 18 seconds. I don't see anywhere I can manually remove the offset. The date is shown as Sept 11, 1999.I don't know if letting the Thunderbolt run longer would fix the above items, or if there's anything more I should do -- comments/suggestions welcome.

author: texaspyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2019, 01:03:02 am
content: You cannot have Thunderbolt Mon and Heather running at the same time. Also, some programs do not properly release the serial port when shut down and will prevent other programs from using that serial port..

author: elroy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2019, 01:07:01 am
content: Quote from: texaspyro on April 28, 2019, 01:03:02 amI figured as much, and took a lot of precaution in that area -- rebooted Windows and power-cycled everything between tests. Also, the Heather tests preceded Thunderbolt Monitor.

author: elroy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 20, 2019, 11:24:36 pm
content: An update on this issue, and a request:I've now tried running Lady Heather with my Trimble Thunderbolt in:-- Windows 7 and 10-- KG7NUX's Mac port of Heather (https://kg7nux.org/2018/01/16/lady-heathers-gps-disciplined-oscillator-control-program/)using two different USB-to-serial cables:-- One based on Prolific's PL2303 chipset (which I hear many users have problems with)-- A Tripp Lite USA-19HS USB-serial cable (which I've heard described as "the gold standard" for USB-serial adapters)In all cases, I continue to get a Heather error "No com port open" and/or an OS port opening error.Serial port conflicts or ports being used by other programs aren't the problem.So here is my request:Could anyone who is successfully using Lady Heather with a Trimble Thunderbolt (in any OS) tell me: (a) what USB-serial cable are you using, and (b) exactly how does the line read in your heather.cfg file to specify the serial port?Thanks for any possible help! Hoping to make this work.

author: texaspyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 02:23:23 am
content: Under Windows, go to the Device Manager. Look at the com port entry. See what com ports are active. Try unlugging the USB cable... one of the ports should disappear. Plug back in the cable. The port should show up again. Say it was COM12... on the Heather command line use the /12 option. Or edit heather.cfg and change (or add) the com port selection line to /12

author: ArthurDent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 03:05:22 am
content: I have a fairly new laptop with WIN10 and am using a USB-RS232 adapter cable with a genuine FTDI chipset. Made sure to locate the correct port as described above.

author: elroy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 03:09:56 am
content: Quote from: texaspyro on May 21, 2019, 02:23:23 amActually, I've already done that, and Heather still comes up with the com port error. The machine is newly rebooted so I know that no other process has control of the port. If the com port selection line just consists of a line by itself with "/12", that also matches what I've done. So if there's no syntax problem with the serial port line in heather.cfg, all I can think of is that Heather isn't liking the usb-to-serial cables I've tried so far.

author: elroy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 03:13:34 am
content: Quote from: ArthurDent on May 21, 2019, 03:05:22 amYes, I'm certain I've verified the correct port in Device Manager. If it's not too difficult to locate, would it be possible to know the make/model of your cable? It would also be helpful to know whether you used a line "/xx" in heather.cfg to identify the port (where xx is the port number), or if you used an alternate syntax.

author: texaspyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 04:41:30 am
content: I usually use computers with genuine hardware serial ports... none of this USB rubbish. I run Heather from the command line and use the /12 (or whatever port) command line option if the port is not COM1.If I use USB cables I use cheap Chinese PL23xx cables or Sabrent CB-FTDI cables. The Chinese cables have gone flakey (on Windows... works fine on Linux) after I installed some program that installed new drivers so I now use the Sabrent cables.

author: elroy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 06:06:08 am
content: Quote from: texaspyro on May 21, 2019, 04:41:30 amThis is an interesting new development.If I go to Windows' command line, change to the heather directory and execute "heather /9" (having verified COM9 as the port for the usb-serial cable), I get a rapid-fire series of messages, after each of which the screen clears quickly. These are different from the message I saw when executing heather.exe from Windows Explorer with the com port specified in heather.cfg.After running the command, first there is a message "Detecting receiver type at 9600:0:N:1" followed by rows of numbers, then the screen quickly clears, then a message "Detecting TSIP," then the screen quickly clears, then a message in red "NO COM9 SERIAL PORT DATA SEEN." Then the screen clears again and a normal-looking Lady Heather display appears.Despite that last statement, I'm pretty sure it's talking to my Thunderbolt at this point, because if I detach the GPS antenna the "Antenna OK" reading changes from green to yellow. If I reattach the antenna, it changes back from yellow to green. So it appears all is well.I thought, as a time-saver, I could edit the properties of the Lady Heather shortcut on the Windows desktop to add "/9" to the command line that it executes when the user double-clicks on the shortcut icon. However, in this case it goes back to the error I was previously seeing, "No com port open," and the display that comes up is just date/time off the PC system clock, not from the GPSDO. So I guess that at least on my computers it really does want to be started from the command line.As a final experiment, on the Mac I went into Terminal, changed to the heather directory where I'd installed KG7NUX's port of Lady Heather, and executed "heather -id=cu.xxxxxx" where "cu.xxxxxx" is the device name that is created under /dev when the usb-serial port is plugged in. Unfortunately this just resulted in the "No com port open" error, and a simple date/time from the system clock is displayed. Perhaps there's something I need to tweak on that syntax.In any event, though, thanks for the help on the Windows command line. I think I can work with this.

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 06:30:34 am
content: Definitely odd behavior. The TBolt was the original GPSDO used during LH development, so it's usually easy to get working. I've used various USB-serial cables with no problem. If you can run TBoltMon successfully, the USB-serial dongle is unlikely to be the issue.Try installing a fresh copy of LH someplace other than the c:\program files or c:\program files (x86) hierarchy? Offhand, I don't remember if we left the .cfg file in the installation directory or not, but if so, you could be editing a different copy of the file than what Heather is loading. Installing it to c:\heather or a similar folder will work around that issue.

author: forrestc
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 06:48:23 am
content: One thing I haven't seen anyone suggest to try is to confirm that windows hasn't installed a serial mouse driver on that port. Windows likes to misinterpret the data from many serial devices as a serial ballport mouse.You'll want to check to see if there are any serial mice lsited in device manager and if so disable them. You can also disable serial mouse detection with a registery edit if it becomes an ongoing issue.

author: texaspyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 01:58:27 pm
content: Quote from: forrestc on May 21, 2019, 06:48:23 amYes, Windows is very prone tp thinking that a Thunderbolt is a serial mouse if the Tbolt is connected when Windows start up. The only solution is to disconnect the Tbolt when starting up Windows. ALL the supposed fixes for the Windows serial mouse problem (which has existed since Windows 95) either don't work or are temporary and eventually get reset. Maybe in Win10 the registry hack will work.

author: texaspyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2019, 02:03:47 pm
content: Under Linux and macOS you have to give the user permission to access the serial port. In the heatherx11 package check the readme.txt file for details. On my macOS system, the -1u command selects my serial port USB cable.