Topcon UHF Dozer with RS2 Base?

Reach RS2 / RS2+ Hardware integration
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I am a site contractor that relys heavily on GNSS base and rover setup to layout my projects. Question I have is, we own a komatsu dozer that has topcon machine control - the topcon unit on the dozer is UHF. Is the RS2 (setup as a base station) capable of communicating corrections to the dozer? Looking at the specs, it appears that the RS2 is spread spectrum? Has anyone ever used the RS2 as a base station for machine control?

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Short answer is not out of the box.

Longer answer; firstly, if you wanted to maintain the UHF radio connection on the Topcon rover on the dozer you’d need a matching radio (probably Satel as that’s what Topcon generally use) at the base. That’s quite an expense in itself. Radios lie these usually go for about the same price as an RS2 near enough.

Once the base and rover are speaking the same UHF language then you need to get the correction ‘dialect’ sorted…

Brings me onto the second issue your up against; getting compatible RTCM messages to the Topcon rover. Topcon in my experience won’t work with the default (more modern) MSM4 corrections that the RS2 will output. It will need ‘classic’ RTCM messages.

Now there has just literally a week or so ago been released some new beta firmware for the RS2 that allows it to output the ‘classic’ message types your Topcon would want to see. However it’s not fully proven and needs some testing before it hits production. But hopefully should soon be possible.

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@DirtyHarry summed it up nicely.

but here is a connection flowchart ;
Compatible base -------->rs232 ---------->uhf radio1 -----------> uhfradio2 ----------> rs232 -------->Rover

An easy way to figure out what you need is run the working corrections through a program like SNIP that will show the transmitted corrections you need.

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Thank you both - these were great responses. I even learned a few things too! I definitely have a bit more research/learning to do. Thanks again.

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Go for it. Ask away. The beauty of this forum is the diverse backgrounds and nature of work that folks do. All the better.

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