I’ve been running an RTK GPS Base station and feeding the data to rtk2go.com since early 2018.  I was initially using a UBlox Neo-M8T which only worked on L1 frequencies, but earlier this year I upgraded it to a UBlox ZED-F9P receiver which receives L1 and L2 frequencies which allows for far quicker and more accurate RTK fixes.

My base station was on the roof of my house.  It has a clear view of the sky, but the roof is getting old and we plan to replace the roof within a year.  I decided it was time to move the base station to a new location.

I decided the best location was a corner of a permanently located shipping container we use for storage.  It’s solid, and unlikely to move any time soon.

The location was a little bit rusty, but it was easily fixed up with a wire brush, rust killer, cold galvanise paint and a top coat of matching paint.

Most Survey/RTK GPS antennas have an imperial 5/8 UNC thread.  After a little bit of investigation, I was able to find suitable stainless steel bolts, nuts and washers at a specialist engineering shop.

I used two pieces of steel angle to make a custom clamp/bracket and installed it.

I needed the antenna connector (TNC female) to line up with the hole when it was screwed in tight. This was achieved using a thin piece of copper (from stripped wire) as a crush washer/spacer. I also used a small amount of loctite to make sure the antenna was firmly attached.

I now need to survey this new location by averaging 2-3 days worth of data against other base stations in the area.

I’ll report back once I’ve calculated an accurate position for this base station