serialterminal vs. hyperterminal - 411 and MC7710 GPS

RouterOS General
1

Hello,

I came across an interesting problem. I have an RB411 (but tried a 912, too, no difference) and an MC7710 3G card.
I would like to forward GPS positions via 3G.

And it’s almost working :slight_smile: but there is a little problem.

The MC card is set to output NMEA data continuously (AT!GPSAUTOSTART). When I connect to it with serial-terminal (ch2) in ROS nothing happens and gps monitor doesn’t work.
Whether its’ in a mPCI or an external mPCI with USB it’s the same thing.

But! When using an external mPCI connected to a PC I connect via hyperterminal (any port config, same as /port settings) and it dumps NMEA data (COM18).

At this point I can reconnect the USB cable to the RB, connect to it with serial terminal (ch2) and see all the NMEA data just fine, and /system gps monitor starts workign as well (enabled and ch2) and GPS data is coming!!!

So what is it that the ROS doesn’t do and hyperterminal does??!?!?!?

2

Drivers, windows detect and opens the “second” serialport with gps data automaticly, linux (and ROS) does not.

http://opencpn.org/ocpn/setting_up_gps

We solved this by using 3g card with the mpci-express slot and a separate gps module on the usb. Now the mobile device is reporting back home every day.

3

Thanks. We go to this way. But this solution generated one problem, the RB912 series dosen’t support in same time the USB and the mPCI! :frowning:

This way possible only with old RB411 series.

Do you have idea, who develops the driver? Who should report this bug? Mikrotik or other?

4

I am having the same problem too. I have already sent an email to mikrotik support and they replied with this:

we have seen such problems and we don’t know why the GPS isn’t sending anything
(no nmea data) on that channel. We are using the same linux driver that sierra
provided and we don’t know why there is no gps output.
Mayeb you need to enable the GPS output somehow with some custom AT command.

I also sent an email to sierra wireless support, but they haven’t replied yet.

The problem is that with the new RB912 you can’t use the mini-pcie and the usb interface at the same time, so the GPS usb module doesn’t works.

5

Has anyone got GPS working on the MC7710 yet?

6

It should be working if the lte interface is enabled and connected - usb port should be listed under ports menu.

7

Thanks!

I’ll give this a try next time I’ve got a GPS antenna to hand.

8

Not working…

[admin@timmay2_1] > system gps
edit export get monitor print set
[admin@timmay2_1] > system gps set enabled=yes port=usb1
[admin@timmay2_1] > system gps print
enabled: yes
port: usb1
channel: 0
set-system-time: yes
[admin@timmay2_1] > system gps monitor
date-and-time: nov/30/1999 00:00:00
latitude: none
longitude: none
altitude: none
speed: none
destination-bearing: none
true-bearing: none
magnetic-bearing: none
valid: no
satellites: 0

[admin@timmay2_1] > interface lte info lte1
failure: Configuration running, please wait!

When you said connected did you mean that the 3G connection needs to be working?

9

I have checked and I am able to get a GPS fix using the same MC7710 in a USB adapter connected to my PC. So nothing wrong with the modem or GPS antenna … so this still doesn’t work on the Mikrotik :frowning:

10

I’ve now ordered a separate USB GPS receiver to see if that’ll work with the Mikrotik. As there are no GPS devices listed on the supported hardware page I just picked a random one on ebay. Fingers crossed that it’ll work when it arrives.

11

So the USB GPS receive I ordered arrived some time ago… only recently had a chance to have a look.

It almost works BUT there is an issue with “system gps monitor” not showing the longitude.

system gps monitor                        
        date-and-time: sep/10/2014 22:36:36
             latitude: N 51 **' **.***''
            longitude: none
             altitude: 13.100000m
                speed: 0.383364 km/h
  destination-bearing: none
         true-bearing: 0.000000 deg. True
     magnetic-bearing: 0.000000 deg. Mag
                valid: yes
           satellites: 9

Checking the RAW serial output from the GPS module it is getting a fix and showing the longitude.

$GPTXT,01,01,02,u-blox ag - www.u-blox.com*50
$GPTXT,01,01,02,HW  UBX-G60xx  00040007 FFF9FFFFp*5D
$GPTXT,01,01,02,ROM CORE 7.03 (45969) Mar 17 2011 16:18:34*59
$GPTXT,01,01,02,ANTSUPERV=AC SD PDoS SR*20
$GPTXT,01,01,02,ANTSTATUS=OK*3B
$GPRMC,223352.00,A,51**.*****,N,001**,*****E,0.017,,100914,,,D*72
$GPVTG,,T,,M,0.017,N,0.032,K,D*21
$GPGGA,223352.00,51**.*****,N,001**,*****E,2,09,1.43,12.4,M,45.6,M,,0000*6C
$GPGSA,A,3,06,16,08,07,23,02,13,10,30,,,,2.47,1.43,2.02*08
$GPGSV,4,1,16,02,47,258,27,03,05,018,,05,33,297,21,06,36,203,44*77
$GPGSV,4,2,16,07,60,137,39,08,58,118,43,09,55,069,40,10,86,219,27*7E
$GPGSV,4,3,16,13,48,065,42,16,15,043,13,23,23,071,38,26,02,248,*71
$GPGSV,4,4,16,29,09,327,,30,37,176,37,33,29,200,38,39,27,150,*70
$GPGLL,51**.*****,N,001**,*****E,223352.00,A,D*60

***I’ve stared out my location but it is there and working in the raw output!

Can anyone help?

I’m in the process of looking at how I can send the location to a server using scheduler, fetch and php. This will insert the location and date stamp into a mysql database once working.

Then to work out how I get this displaying on google maps…

12

How have you been able to make work GPS? can you put the settings you used?

Please look at this post:
http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/sierra-wireless-mc7710-gps-with-routeros-6-5/71308/3

13

Hi gerardnorton

I never got the GPS working with the MC7710… didn’t see the post you liked to before.

I’ll test again this weekend if I get a chance.

14

I had the same problem with MC7700 on RB953, seems to me that gps package doesn’t issue $GPS_START command and that’s why NMEA port stays silent.
However, there is a workaround to send the command manually: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Sending_text_out_over_a_serial_port

I use this script, scheduled to run at startup:

/system gps set enabled=no
/interface ppp-client add name="scripttemp" dial-on-demand=no port=usb2 data-channel=0 modem-init="\$GPS_START" null-modem=yes disabled=no
:delay 1
/interface ppp-client remove [/interface ppp-client find name="scripttemp"]
/system gps set enabled=yes

On the MC7700 itself, I enabled the NMEA port with:

AT!CUSTOM="GPSENABLE",4
OK

I believe that should work for MC7710 too, as it’s just European LTE version of MC7700.

15

Hi mrle

I did get the GPS to output from the MC7710 working however I’ve had problems with no longitude “longitude: none” and incorrect location. As I have the “longitude: none” issue with another USB GPS receiver which works fine connected to my laptop I suspect something is up with the GPS package.

See this thread for more details:- http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/sierra-wireless-mc7710-gps-with-routeros-6-5/71308/15