ubxtool examples

Warning

This document assumes you are using gpsd from git head, or version 3.27 or higher. Using older gpsd versions will fail in strange ways.

Introduction

The u-blox GNSS receivers have a huge number of configuration options. Most users will be perfectly happy running their receiver in its default configuration, but there are often times when users get the itch to change settings to see what happens. Sometimes even for good reasons.

Important

Feel free to jump around this document to recipes that interest you, but be sure to first read all of this Introduction. Then read,, and comply with, the section on Initial Setup.

Many of the recipes repeat text from other recipes so that recipes can stand alone. Except all recipes require the Initial Setup section.

The u-blox GNSS receivers fall into two broad categories. The "old style" receivers are all those before the Gen9 devices. The "new style" comprises all those after the Gen9 devices. Gen9 devices sit across the transition. Gen9 still supports many of the Gen8 configuration commands, but the differences are explicitly undocumented. Gen9 also supports, and encourages, the "configuration items" method of configuration. From Gen10 onward, only configuration items are supported. These allow you to get, set and delete individual settings in the receiver. Before continuing with Configuration Items the u-blox documentation on Configuration Items, and the ubxtool man page on Configuration Items.

Most of the examples will have a section for Gen8 (and earlier) as well as for Gen10 (and later). Gen9 users may use either method, but results will vary depending on your firmware level. For all examples, you should know your protocol version (protVer) and keep the official u-blox documentation, for your firmware version, close at hand.

Initial Setup

All the examples here assume that gpsd is running on the local host and that cgps is showing current and valid data from the receiver.

If cgps is not showing any data, then do not bother to continue reading this document.

You also need a copy of the "Interface Description" for your exact u-blox device and firmware version. The examples here will refer to a lot of messages and variables that are defined in that document. Keep it open while reading this document and refer to it often.

Sudo? Sudon’t!

For some reason some users persist in using sudo with ubxtool. This is wrong for many reasons:

ubxtool never needs root access, but will run fine as root.
"sudo [command]" is not the same as running [command] as root. Using sudo with some of these examples will break them.
"sudo su" does not get you full root. "sudo su -" does. If you are going to do "sudo su -", then why not just do "su -"?
sudo is "Security Theater". Having sudo enabled on a computer makes it demonstrably less secure.

If you must be root, then become, and stay root. Just sudon’t.

Protocol Version

The examples below require that you know the protocol version of your u-blox receiver.

$ ubxtool -p MON-VER

Buried in the data will be a data block that similar one of these examples.

A u-blox 6, assume protocol version 12

UBX-MON-VER:
  swVersion 6.02 (36023)
  hwVersion 00040007

A u-blox 8, protocol version 15

UBX-MON-VER:
  swVersion 2.01 (75331)
  hwVersion 00080000
  extension PROTVER 15.00
  extension GPS;SBAS;GLO;BDS;QZSS

The shortcut to find the PROTVER for u-blox 8 and up:

$ ubxtool -p MON-VER | fgrep PROT
extension PROTVER=18.00

The above shows the protocol version is 18.00.

The ubxtool program needs to know the protocol version (PROTVER) of the connected receiver to send commands matched to your exact receiver’s needs. Use the "-P XX" option for this, where XX is your version. This is easy to forget, and annoying to type repeatedly, so add it to your environment and ubxtool will use it. For example if you have an early u-blox 8:

$ export UBXOPTS="-P 15"

You can use "-P 18 -v 2" if you have a newer u-blox 8, and desire a little more verbosity. "-v 2" also enables NMEA display.

$ export UBXOPTS="-P 18 -v 2"

Default Configuration

A common problem when dealing with a u-blox GNSS receiver is left over configuration from earlier experiments. The u-blox receivers are very picky about competing configuration options, and may fail to warn the unwary of conflicts. Best to always revert to factory defaults before starting a new configuration.

$ ubxtool -p RESET

Warning

This may not clear configuration stored in Flash memory.

After a few seconds the receiver will only be sending NMEA, you will want to enable u-blox binary messages, and disable NMEA messages. Best to do it in that order so the receiver does not go totally silent. This is one place where the "-P", set in UBXOPTS, is critically important, to get the correct messages for your firmware.

$ ubxtool -e BINARY
$ ubxtool -d NMEA

ACK-ACK

ACK-ACK is the sound of a cat coughing up a hairball. Otherwise it is not of much use to us. The u-blox documentation claims that every well formed CFG message sent to one of their GNSS receivers will receive a UBX-ACK-ACK or UBX-ACK-NAK in response. That is not always true. Valid messages may elicit no ACK-ACK or ACK-NAK. Invalid ones may invoke an ACK-ACK, yet not be executed. The only thing you can count on is that an ACK-NAK meant you sent something invalid.

Always double check that any settings changed stuck.

This text, and these examples, will ignore ACK-ACK responses. If any cause an ACK-NAK for you, then you either found a bug in this document, your receiver does not support the requested operation, or you mistyped something.

The receiver can be a bit more helpful about issues when you enable the UBX-INF- messages. More about that in the next section.

Enabling and Disabling Informational Messages.

Sometimes the receiver will reject a setting with a simple ACK-NAK. If you enable the Information Messages (UBX-INF-) then the receiver may actually tell you why it rejected your setting. The receiver may also alert you to other conditions like buffer overflow. This will save you some aggravation, so be sure to enable them all.

Gen8

To enable all UBX and NMEA messages on all output ports:

$ export UBXOPTS="-P 15 -v 2"
$ ubxtool -e INFMSG

Then to chack that worked:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-INF

Gen9

If the receiver is Gen9, or higher, then you should change receiver settings using Configuration Items. Configuration Items allow you to get, set and delete individual settings in the receiver. In the RAM, BBR, and flash storage areas. Before continuing this section, read the ubxtool man page on Configuration Items, and the u-blox documentation for your receiver model.

To enable all UBX and NMEA messages on all output ports, in the ram, bbr and flash layers:

$ export UBXOPTS="-P 27 -v 2"
$ ubxtool -z CFG-INFMSG-UBX_I2C,15  \
 -z CFG-INFMSG-UBX_UART1,0x0f \
 -z CFG-INFMSG-UBX_UART2,15 \
 -z CFG-INFMSG-UBX_USB,15 \
 -z CFG-INFMSG-UBX_SPI,15 \
 -z CFG-INFMSG-NMEA_I2C,15 \
 -z CFG-INFMSG-NMEA_UART1,15 \
 -z CFG-INFMSG-NMEA_UART2,15 \
 -z CFG-INFMSG-NMEA_USB,15 \
 -z CFG-INFMSG-NMEA_SPI,15

Note that you can specify the value as a decimal, hexadecimal (0x), or binary (0b) number. You may want to only enable them on ports that you know you will be using.

If you know what port you are connected to, you may wish to only enable that port.

Then read back those configuration items to ensure it worked:

$ export UBXOPTS="-P 27 -v 2"
$ ubxtool -v 1 -g CFG-INFMSG
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 0 position 0
  layers (ram)
    item CFG-INFMSG-UBX_I2C/0x20920001 val 15
    item CFG-INFMSG-UBX_UART1/0x20920002 val 15
    item CFG-INFMSG-UBX_UART2/0x20920003 val 15
    item CFG-INFMSG-UBX_USB/0x20920004 val 15
    item CFG-INFMSG-UBX_SPI/0x20920005 val 15
    item CFG-INFMSG-NMEA_I2C/0x20920006 val 15
    item CFG-INFMSG-NMEA_UART1/0x20920007 val 15
    item CFG-INFMSG-NMEA_UART2/0x20920008 val 15
    item CFG-INFMSG-NMEA_USB/0x20920009 val 15
    item CFG-INFMSG-NMEA_SPI/0x2092000a val 15
[...]

There will be a report for the settings in ram (the current settings), and the default settings. Depending on your receiver, you may also get a port on the contents of the BBR and flash storage.

Enabling and Disabling Periodic Messages.

Depending on your receiver model, and your use case, you will likely with to modify the basic gpsd set messages.

Some individual messages, or sets of messages, can be enabled with the "-e ABLE". The same messages can be disabled with the "-d ABLE" option. The available options for ABLE will be see in the verbose help:

$ ubxtool --help -v 2 | less

If you wanted to enable the UBX-NAV-VELNED and UBX-NAV-RELPOSNED messages:

$ ubxtool --enable NED

When you realize that is not what you wanted, disable them:

$ ubxtool --disable NED

The advanced user will want to enable and disable messages that are not in the limited set of ABLE options.

Gen8

You can use the preset command "-p CFG-MSG,class,ID[,rate]" to poll, or set, the message rate for any UBX message.

To poll the rate at which UBX-NAV-SOL is sent from the receiver:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-MSG,1,6
UBX-CFG-MSG:
 Class x01 (NAV) ID x06 (SOL) Rates 0 0 0 0 0 0

UBX-NAV-SOL is Class 1, ID 6. The above shows that UBX-NAV-SOL is not being output on any of the 6 ports.

To send UBX-NAV-SOL, on the current port, on every second navigation solution, and verify the setting:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-MSG,1,6,2
[...]
$ ubxtool -p CFG-MSG,1,6
UBX-CFG-MSG:
 Class x01 (NAV) ID x06 (SOL) Rates 0 0 0 2 0 0

That shows UBX-NAV-SOL is output every second navigation solution on port 3 (USB).

Now we turn it back off, and verify.

$ ubxtool -p CFG-MSG,1,6,0
[...]
$ ubxtool -p CFG-MSG,1,6
UBX-CFG-MSG:
 Class x01 (NAV) ID x06 (SOL) Rates 0 0 0 0 0 0

CFG-MSG is also used to set the rate on NMEA messages. NMEA messages are all Class 0xf0. Refer to the u-blox documentation for the ID’s of specific NMEA messages.

To enable $GNGNS once every nav solution:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-MSG,0xf0,0x0d,1 -v 2

Note the use of "-v 2", otherwise ubxtool does not show the NMEA messages in its output.

We finish the example by turning $GNGNS back off:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-MSG,0xf0,0x0d,0

Gen9

Some Gen9 will accept CFG-MSG commands, like the Gen8, but Gen10 no longer do, and Configuration Items gice you better control. The cost is that finding the proper Item to use can be tedious.

To poll the rate at which UBX-NAV-TIMELS is sent from the receiver you need to know the current port number on the receiver. There is no way that ubxtool can tell you this, so you must either find it from you receiver module documentation, or by trial and error. There is no longer a way to poll all ports, or to set the current port, as with Gen8.

Knowing the port, you can then find the proper configuration item to use from the u-blox documentation, or query the ubxtool database for it.

$ ubxtool -h -v 3 | grep NAV.TIMELS
    NAV-TIMELS    NAV-TIMELS Leap Second message
    NAV-TIMELS    NAV-TIMELS Leap Second message
    CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_NAV_TIMELS_I2C
        Output rate of the UBX-NAV-TIMELS message on port I2C
    CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_NAV_TIMELS_SPI
        Output rate of the UBX-NAV-TIMELS message on port SPI
    CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_NAV_TIMELS_UART1
        Output rate of the UBX-NAV-TIMELS message on port UART1
    CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_NAV_TIMELS_UART2
        Output rate of the UBX-NAV-TIMELS message on port UART2
    CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_NAV_TIMELS_USB
        Output rate of the UBX-NAV-TIMELS message on port USB

Note the "-v 3" to ask ubxtool to output the item database. Also note the [period] between NAV and TIMELS to match both [dash] and {underscore.

To poll the output rate of UBX-NAV-TIMELS on the USB port we do:

$ ubxtool -g CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_NAV_TIMELS_USB -v 2
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 0 position 0
  layers (ram)
    item CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_NAV_TIMELS_USB/0x20910063 val 255
      size one byte(2) type U1 scale 1.000000
      Output rate of the UBX-NAV-TIMELS message on port USB
   count 1
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 7 position 0
  layers (default)
    item CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_NAV_TIMELS_USB/0x20910063 val 0
      size one byte(2) type U1 scale 1.000000
      Output rate of the UBX-NAV-TIMELS message on port USB
   count 1

That shows that UBX-NAV-TIMELS is set in ram to output every 255 epochs. The default setting is never, and nothing is set in any other layers.

To set a rate of 5 in the bbr layer, and verify the change, try this:

$ ubxtool -z CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_NAV_TIMELS_USB,10,2 -v 2
[...]
$ ubxtool -g CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_NAV_TIMELS_USB -v 2
[....]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 0 position 0
  layers (ram)
    item CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_NAV_TIMELS_USB/0x20910063 val 255
      size one byte(2) type U1 scale 1.000000
      Output rate of the UBX-NAV-TIMELS message on port USB
   count 1
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 1 position 0
  layers (bbr)
    item CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_NAV_TIMELS_USB/0x20910063 val 10
      size one byte(2) type U1 scale 1.000000
      Output rate of the UBX-NAV-TIMELS message on port USB
   count 1
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 7 position 0
  layers (default)
    item CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_NAV_TIMELS_USB/0x20910063 val 0
      size one byte(2) type U1 scale 1.000000
      Output rate of the UBX-NAV-TIMELS message on port USB
   count 1

Dynamic Platform Model

The most common variable misconfigured in a u-blox receiver is the Dynamic Platform Model. The receiver uses noisy measurements of satellite signals and attempts to interpret those as single PVT fix. By default the receiver assumes the receiver is "Portable" and not experiencing large accelerations. Place that receiver in a car or airplane, and the smoothing will act perversely on the fix. Take a moment now to read the section on Platform Settings in your u-blox documentation. Different receivers support different models, so no generic recommendations are possible.

Gen8

Check your current Dynamic Platform Model:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-NAV5
UBX-CFG-NAV5:
 mask 0xffff dynModel 0 fixmode 3 fixedAlt 0 FixedAltVar 10000
 minElev 5 drLimit 0 pDop 250 tDop 250 pAcc 100 tAcc 350
 staticHoldThresh 0 dgpsTimeOut 60 cnoThreshNumSVs 0
 cnoThresh 0 res 0 staticHoldMaxDist 0 utcStandard 0
 reserved x0 0
   dynModel (Portable) fixMode (Auto 2D/3D) utcStandard (Default)
   mask (dyn minEl posFixMode drLim posMask timeMask staticHoldMask
         dgpsMask cnoThreshold utc)

That shows the receiver is in the default Portable model.

To change the active model to Automotive (4), and check it again, is simply:

$ ubxtool -p MODEL,4
[...]
$ ubxtool -p CFG-NAV5
UBX-CFG-NAV5:
 mask 0xffff dynModel 4 fixmode 3 fixedAlt 0 FixedAltVar 10000
 minElev 5 drLimit 0 pDop 250 tDop 250 pAcc 100 tAcc 350
 staticHoldThresh 0 dgpsTimeOut 60 cnoThreshNumSVs 0
 cnoThresh 0 res 0 staticHoldMaxDist 0 utcStandard 0
 reserved x0 0
   dynModel (Automotive) fixMode (Auto 2D/3D) utcStandard (Default)
   mask (dyn minEl posFixMode drLim posMask timeMask staticHoldMask
         dgpsMask cnoThreshold utc)

Gen9

If the receiver is a Gen9, or higher, then you can change the model using Configuration Items. These allow you to get, set and delete individual settings in the receiver. Before continuing this section, read the ubxtool man page on Configuration Items.

There is no way to wild card request Configuration Items, but you can get their values by "group". The CFG-NAVSPG Configuration Item group includes the CFG-NAV5 items of interest here. So take a look at them, in the ram layer:

$ ubxtool -g CFG-NAVSPG,0
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 0 position 0
  layers (ram)
    item CFG-NAVSPG-18/0x10110012 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-INIFIX3D/0x10110013 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-20/0x10110014 val 1
    item CFG-NAVSPG-21/0x10110015 val 1
    item CFG-NAVSPG-22/0x10110016 val 1
    item CFG-NAVSPG-24/0x10110018 val 1
    item CFG-NAVSPG-USE_PPP/0x10110019 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-27/0x1011001b val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-ACKAIDING/0x10110025 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-70/0x10110046 val 1
    item CFG-NAVSPG-82/0x10110052 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-83/0x10110053 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-USE_USRDAT/0x10110061 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-129/0x10110081 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-130/0x10110082 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-131/0x10110083 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-FIXMODE/0x20110011 val 3
    item CFG-NAVSPG-26/0x2011001a val 18
    item CFG-NAVSPG-UTCSTANDARD/0x2011001c val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-32/0x20110020 val 100
    item CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL/0x20110021 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-34/0x20110022 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-35/0x20110023 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-36/0x20110024 val 1
    item CFG-NAVSPG-38/0x20110026 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-66/0x20110042 val 2
    item CFG-NAVSPG-67/0x20110043 val 3
    item CFG-NAVSPG-68/0x20110044 val 1
    item CFG-NAVSPG-69/0x20110045 val 1
    item CFG-NAVSPG-81/0x20110051 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-INFIL_MINSVS/0x201100a1 val 3
    item CFG-NAVSPG-INFIL_MAXSVS/0x201100a2 val 32
    item CFG-NAVSPG-INFIL_MINCNO/0x201100a3 val 6
    item CFG-NAVSPG-INFIL_MINELEV/0x201100a4 val 5
    item CFG-NAVSPG-INFIL_NCNOTHRS/0x201100aa val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-INFIL_CNOTHRS/0x201100ab val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-CONSTR_DGNSSTO/0x201100c4 val 60
    item CFG-NAVSPG-213/0x201100d5 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-SIGATTCOMP/0x201100d6 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-WKNROLLOVER/0x30110017 val 2029
    item CFG-NAVSPG-OUTFIL_PDOP/0x301100b1 val 250
    item CFG-NAVSPG-OUTFIL_TDOP/0x301100b2 val 250
    item CFG-NAVSPG-OUTFIL_PACC/0x301100b3 val 100
    item CFG-NAVSPG-OUTFIL_TACC/0x301100b4 val 350
    item CFG-NAVSPG-OUTFIL_FACC/0x301100b5 val 150
    item CFG-NAVSPG-USRDAT_DX/0x40110064 val 0.0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-USRDAT_DY/0x40110065 val 0.0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-USRDAT_DZ/0x40110066 val 0.0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-USRDAT_ROTX/0x40110067 val 0.0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-USRDAT_ROTY/0x40110068 val 0.0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-USRDAT_ROTZ/0x40110069 val 0.0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-USRDAT_SCALE/0x4011006a val 0.0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-CONSTR_ALT/0x401100c1 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-CONSTR_ALTVAR/0x401100c2 val 10000
    item CFG-NAVSPG-209/0x401100d1 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-210/0x401100d2 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-211/0x401100d3 val 0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-USRDAT_MAJA/0x50110062 val 6378137.0
    item CFG-NAVSPG-USRDAT_FLAT/0x50110063 val 298.257223563

CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL is set to the default 4 (Automotive). We can now use CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL to change the model back to 2 (Stationary), and then confirm the setting in all layers:

$ ubxtool -z CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL,2
[...]
$ ubxtool -g CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 0 position 0
  layers (ram)
    item CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL/0x20110021 val 2
      size one byte(2) type E1 scale 1.000000
      Dynamic platform model
   count 1
[....]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 1 position 0
  layers (bbr)
    item CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL/0x20110021 val 2
      size one byte(2) type E1 scale 1.000000
      Dynamic platform model
   count 1
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 2 position 0
  layers (flash)
    item CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL/0x20110021 val 2
      size one byte(2) type E1 scale 1.000000
      Dynamic platform model
   count 1
[....]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 2 position 0
  layers (flash)
    item CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL/0x20110021 val 0
      size one byte(2) type E1 scale 1.000000
      Dynamic platform model
   count 1

Rate Settings

There can be a good need to change the rate at which your receiver takes measurements, or how many measurements it uses to compute its navigation solution (fix). Slow down the measurement rate to save power. Or speed it up in fast moving dynamic environments. Using several measurements sets for each fix computation may remove some noise. No one size fits all.

Note	Not all u-blox can take measurements faster than 1 Hz. Check your documentation.

Gen8

The current configuration can be seen this way:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-RATE
[...]
UBX-CFG-RATE:
 measRate 1000 navRate 1 timeRef 1 (GPS)

To change to a 10 Hz measurement and fix rate, then check your work:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-RATE,100
[...]
$ ubxtool -p CFG-RATE
[...]
UBX-CFG-RATE:
 measRate 100 navRate 1 timeRef 1 (GPS)

The parameter to the RATE command is the number of milliseconds.

Gen9

If the receiver is a Gen9 or later, then you change the rate at which the receiver takes measurements and/or computes the navigation solution (fix) using Configuration Items.

The CFG-NAVSPG Configuration Item group includes the CFG-NAV5 items of interest here. So take a look at them, in the ram layer:

$ ubxtool -g CFG-RATE,0
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 0 position 0
  layers (ram)
    item CFG-RATE-TIMEREF/0x20210003 val 1
    item CFG-RATE-MEAS/0x30210001 val 1000
    item CFG-RATE-NAV/0x30210002 val 1

You can change the measurement rate to 0.1 Hz, and check it, this way:

$ ubxtool -z CFG-RATE-MEAS,10000,1
sent:
UBX-CFG-VALSET:
 version 0 layer 0x1 transaction 0x0 reserved 0
  layers (ram) transaction (Transactionless)
    item CFG-RATE-MEAS/0x30210001 val 10000

UBX-ACK-ACK:
  ACK to Class x06 (CFG) ID x8a (VALSET)
[...]
$ ubxtool -g CFG-RATE-MEAS,1
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 0 position 0
  layers (ram)
    item CFG-RATE-MEAS/0x30210001 val 10000

Logging

Sometimes you want your GNSS receiver to be able to log PVT fixes for later retrieval. This allows the host to go into sleep mode to save power. Logs are stored in external flash memory. Some GNSS receivers, like the NEO-M8B, allow the receiver to go into sleep mode between fixes to save even more power.

Be sure you have performed all the steps in Initial Setup before proceeding to the following logging specific steps.

Logging Prerequisites

For logging, you need:

A GNSS receiver with protocol version greater than, or equal to, 15.
External SQI flash memory with a valid Flash Information Structure (FIS).

Garden variety receivers, like the NEO-M8N do not have fliash.

By default EVK boards and other commercial products with flash will already have a valid FIS. Added or replaced flash will need to have an FIS created. If your receiver has flash, but no valid FIS, you can create a new FIS with u-center.

If you do not meet the above prerequisites, then you can stop reading this section now.

The UBX-LOG- messages are supported on all generations, up to, and including Gen20. So only the Gen8 messages are used in this example. Gen9 and above also supports the Configuration Item methods, not shown here.

The easy way to see if your firmware supports logging, on all generations of receivers, is to ask it:

$ ubxtool -p LOG-INFO

There are three possible results.

One, the receiver does not return ACK-ACK, ACK-NAK, or any UBX-LOG-INFO message. That means your receiver does not support logging. Game over, your receiver does not support logging.

Two, the receiver returns something similar to this:

    UBX-LOG-INFO:
      version 1 reserved1 x0 x0 filestoreCapacity 0 reserved2 x0 x0
      currentMaxLogSize 0 currentLogSize 0 entryCount 0
      oldestYear 0 oldestMonth 0 oldestDay 0
      oldestHour 0 oldestMin 0 oldestSec 0 reserved3 x0
      newestYear 0 newestMonth 0 newestDay 0
      newestHour 0 newestMin 0 newestSec 0 reserved4 x0
      status x10 reserved5 x0 x0

The filestoreCapacity of zero means you have no flash for logging to use. Game over, your receiver does not support logging.

Three, the receiver returns something similar to this:

    UBX-LOG-INFO:
      version 1 reserved1 x0 x0 filestoreCapacity 487680 reserved2 x9600 x24900
      currentMaxLogSize 134400 currentLogSize 61 entryCount 0
      oldestYear 0 oldestMonth 0 oldestDay 0
      oldestHour 0 oldestMin 0 oldestSec 0 reserved3 x0
      newestYear 0 newestMonth 0 newestDay 0
      newestHour 0 newestMin 0 newestSec 0 reserved4 x0
      status x20 reserved5 x0 x0

That means your receiver has almost 500 kB of flash, and about 134 kB is available for logging. Congratulations, your receiver supports logging. Proceed to the next section on configuration.

Logging Configuration

Be sure you have completed the instructions in the section Initial Setup before continuing here.

Erase any exiting log:

$ ubxtool -p LOG-ERASE
[...]
sent:
UBX-LOG-ERASE:
  Erase Logged Data
UBX-ACK-ACK:
  ACK to Class x21 (LOG) ID x03 (ERASE)

Create new log:

$ ubxtool -p LOG-CREATE
[...]
sent:
UBX-LOG-CREATE:
  version 0 logCfg x1 reserved1 x0 logSize 0
  userDefinedSize 0

UBX-ACK-ACK:
  ACK to Class x21 (LOG) ID x07 (CREATE)

Start logging:

$ ubxtool -e LOG
[...]
sent:
UBX-CFG-LOGFILTER:
 version 1 flags x5 minInterval 0 timeThreshold 0
 speedThreshold 0 positionThreshold 0

UBX-ACK-ACK:
  ACK to Class x06 (CFG) ID x47 (LOGFILTER)

Wait, then verify that the receiver is logging data:

$ ubxtool -p LOG-INFO -v 2
UBX-LOG-INFO:
  version 1 reserved1 x0 x0 filestoreCapacity 487680 reserved2 x9600 x24900
  currentMaxLogSize 134400 currentLogSize 88 entryCount 8
  oldestYear 2020 oldestMonth 5 oldestDay 22
  oldestHour 22 oldestMin 33 oldestSec 56 reserved3 x0
  newestYear 2020 newestMonth 5 newestDay 22
  newestHour 22 newestMin 26 newestSec 41 reserved4 x0
  status x28 reserved5 x0 x0
      status (recording circular)

Add a string:

$ ubxtool -p LOG-STRING -v 2
[...]
UBX-ACK-ACK:
  ACK to Class x21 (LOG) ID x04 (STRING)

Wait for a few more fixes to be logged, then turn off logging.

$ ubxtool -d LOG -v 2
[...]
sent:
UBX-CFG-LOGFILTER:
 version 1 flags x0 minInterval 0 timeThreshold 0
 speedThreshold 0 positionThreshold 0
   flags ()

UBX-ACK-ACK:
  ACK to Class x06 (CFG) ID x47 (LOGFILTER)

Verify that logging is indeed off:

$ ubxtool -p LOG-INFO -v 2
[...]
UBX-LOG-INFO:
  version 1 reserved1 x0 x0 filestoreCapacity 487680 reserved2 x9600 x24900
  currentMaxLogSize 134400 currentLogSize 288 entryCount 33
  oldestYear 2020 oldestMonth 5 oldestDay 22
  oldestHour 22 oldestMin 33 oldestSec 56 reserved3 x0
  newestYear 2020 newestMonth 5 newestDay 22
  newestHour 22 newestMin 34 newestSec 11 reserved4 x0
  status x20 reserved5 x0 x0
      status (circular)

Retrieve log data:

$ ubxtool -p LOG-RETRIEVE -v 2
[...]
UBX-LOG-RETRIEVEPOS:
  entryIndex 12 lon -1213142510 lat 440688770 hMSL 1128900 hAcc 7000
  gSpeed 90 heading 28500000 version 0 fixType 3
  year 2020 month 5 day 22 hour 22 min 34 sec 2
  reserved1 x0 numSV 7 reserved2 x0
      fixType (3D Fix)

UBX-LOG-RETRIEVEPOSEXTRA:
  entryIndex 13 version 0 reserved1 x0
  year 2020 month 5 day 22 hour 22 minute 34 seconds 2
  reserved2 x0 0 distance 1252489 reserved3 x0 0 0

UBX-LOG-RETRIEVESTRING:
  entryIndex 14 version 0 reserved2 x0
  year 2020 month 5 day 22 hour 22 min 34 sec 2
  reserved2 x0 byteCount 2
  bytes "Hi"

UBX-LOG-RETRIEVEPOS:
  entryIndex 15 lon -1213142470 lat 440688690 hMSL 1128600 hAcc 7000
  gSpeed 240 heading 26300000 version 0 fixType 3
  year 2020 month 5 day 22 hour 22 min 34 sec 3
  reserved1 x0 numSV 8 reserved2 x0
      fixType (3D Fix)
[...]

Erase and clear existing log, before you can enable log again:

$ ubxtool -p LOG-ERASE
$ ubxtool -p LOG-CREATE

Batching

U-blox batching is like logging, but logging is saved in flash memory, and batching is saved in RAM memory. Not all u-blox receivers have RAM available for batching.

Be sure you have performed all the steps in Initial Setup before proceeding to these batching specific steps.

Batching Prerequisites

For batching, you need:

u-blox Gen8, Gen9, or Gen10 receiver (protocol version 23.01 or greater). Gen20 is not supported.
RAM memory

If you do not meet the above prerequisites, then you can stop reading now.

The easy way to see, on all u-blox models, if your firmware supports batching is to ask it:

$ ubxtool -p MON-BATCH

If the receiver does not ACK, NAK, that request, then it does not support batching. Game over, do not bother to continue with this example.

If your receiver does support batching, you will see something similar to this:

$ ubxtool -p MON-BATCH
ubxtool: poll MON-BATCH

sent:
UBX-MON-BATCH:
  Poll request

UBX-MON-BATCH:
   version 0 reserved1 0 0 0 fillLevel 128
   dropsAll 65535 dropsSinceMon 4 nextMsgCnt 166

Check your u-blox documentation for what UBX-MON-BATCH just told you.

All u-blox models that support the UBX-MON-BATCH and UBX-LOG-NATCH messages. Only Gen8 models support the UBX-CFG-BATCH messages. Gen9 and Gen10 must use the configuration items method.

Batching Configuration Gen8

Be sure you have completed the instructions in the section Initial Setup before continuing here.

Enable batching:

$ ubxtool -e BATCH

Wait, then verify:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-BATCH -p MON-BATCH -v 2
[...]
UBX-CFG-BATCH:
  version 0 flags xd bufsize 128 notifThrs 0
  pioId 0 reserved1 0
      flags (enable extraPvt extraOdo)

UBX-ACK-ACK:
  ACK to CFG-BATCH (x06:x93)

UBX-MON-BATCH:
   version 0 reserved1 0 0 0 fillLevel 128
   dropsAll 321 dropsSinceMon 15 nextMsgCnt 38
[...]

Wait a while, for some fixes to be saved in the BATCH. Then check UBX-MON-BATCH and get all the batch entries:

$ ubxtool -p LOG-RETRIEVEBATCH -v 2
[...]
UBX-MON-BATCH:
   version 0 reserved1 0 0 0 fillLevel 128
   dropsAll 65535 dropsSinceMon 1310 nextMsgCnt 166

UBX-LOG-BATCH:
  version 0 contentValid x3 msgCnt 166 iTow 510334000
  year 2020 month 5 day 22 hour 21 min 45 sec 16 valid x37
  tAcc 30 fracSec 104291 fixType 3 flags x11 flags2 xa numSV 5
  lon -1213142428 lat 440690573 height 1130139 hMSL 1151489
  hAcc 9541 vAcc 11092
  vel N 288 E 111 D -29 gSpeed 274 headMot 2104222 sAcc 786 headAcc 4232547
  pdep 432 reserved1 x0 distance 1249842 totalDistance 1249842
  distanceStd 4880 reserved2 x0
      contentValid (extraPvt extraOdo) valid (validDate validTime)
      fixType (3D Fix)
      flags (gnssFixOK) psmState (Power Optimized Tracking)

There will be a number of UBX-LOG-BATCH with each of the individual batches fixes.

End batching:

$ ubxtool -d BATCH

Batching Configuration Gen9

Gen9 configuration is the same as for Gen8, except that you use CFG-BATCH configuration items instead od UBX-CFG-BATH.

Survey-In and RTCM

Sometimes your GNSS antenna is fixed and instead of having your receiver compute its position, you want it to use the known position to provide a more accurate PPS, or to compute the errors it sees in the signals it measures. Corrections can then be transmitted to a nearby receiver.

The receiver with the fixed antenna is called the base, and the nearby receiver is a rover. The corrections are usually in one of the many RTCM2 or RTCM3 variants.

Some u-blox receivers with protocol versions of 20 or greater output RTCM3 corrections. None output RTCM2 corrections.

Be sure you have completed the instructions in the section Initial Setup before continuing here. To understand the following example you should have read the Survey-in section from the u-blox documentation for your receiver.

Survey-In and RTCM Prerequisites

For base mode, you need a u-blox receiver that supports UBX-CFG-TMODE2 (Gen8, Gen9) or UBX-CFG-TMODE3 (Gen9). This is usually limited to Time & Frequency Sync, Time Sync, or High Precision products.

Your receiver supports the High Precision messages if it answers the UBX-NAV-SVIN message:

$ ubxtool -p NAV-SVIN -P 27.11
ubxtool: poll NAV-SVIN

sent:
UBX-NAV-SVIN:
  Poll request

[...]
UBX-NAV-SVIN:
  version 0 reserved1[0 0 0] iTOW 256297000 dur 100
  meanX -238605675 meanY -392219737 meanZ 441436428
  meanXHP -30 meanYHP 9 meanZHP -14 reserved2 0 meanAcc 199922
  obs 101 valid 1 active 0

Your receiver supports the Timing messages if it answers the UBX-TIM-SVIN message:

$ ubxtool -p TIM-SVIN -P 22
ubxtool: poll TIM-SVIN

sent:
UBX-TIM-SVIN:
  Poll request
[...]
UBX-TIM-SVIN:
  dur 30 meanX -238607642 meanY -392219170 meanZ 441436506 meanV 163464256
  obs 31 valid 0 active 0

If your receiver responds to neither request, then you can not use Survey-in.

Survey-In Configuration Gen8

If your receiver responded to UBX-NAV-SVIN, then you start the default survey this way:

$ ubxtool -e SURVEYIN3 -P 27
ubxtool: enable SURVEYIN3

sent:
UBX-CFG-TMODE3:
  version 0 reserved1 0 flags x1
  ecefXOrLat 0 ecefYOrLon 0 ecefZOrAlt 0
  ecefXOrLatHP 0 ecefYOrLonHP 0 ecefZOrAltHP 0
  reserved2 0 fixedPosAcc 0 svinMinDur 300 svinAccLimit 500000
  reserved3 0 0

UBX-ACK-ACK:
  ACK to CFG-TMODE3 (x06:x71)

For receivers that responded to UBX-TIM-SVIN, simply change SURVEYIN3 to SURVEYIN. You can optionally provide the svinMinDur and svinAccLimit variables on the command line. For example, to survey-in for 60 seconds and 20 meters accuracy:

$ ubxtool -e SURVEYIN3,60,200000  -v 2 -P 27
ubxtool: enable SURVEYIN3,60,200000
[...]

To check the progress of your survey:

$ ubxtool -p NAV-SVIN -P 27
ubxtool: poll NAV-SVIN

sent:
UBX-NAV-SVIN:
  Poll request
[...]
UBX-NAV-SVIN:
  version 0 reserved1[0 0 0] iTOW 257578000 dur 23
  meanX -238605582 meanY -392219750 meanZ 441436474
  meanXHP -46 meanYHP -48 meanZHP -50 reserved2 0 meanAcc 392629
  obs 23 valid 0 active 1

Replace NAV-SVIN with TIM-SVIN above for Timing products. "active 1" tells you a survey-in is in progress, but "valid 0" tells you it is not complete. It may never complete if it cannot reach the position accuracy requested.

Your survey is complete when valid is 1. At that point NAV-PVT will show a fixType of 5 to show you it has entered fixed base mode.

$ ubxtool -p NAV-SVIN -P 27
[...]
UBX-NAV-SVIN:
  version 0 reserved1[0 0 0] iTOW 260515000 dur 300
  meanX -238605429 meanY -392219715 meanZ 441436264
  meanXHP -39 meanYHP 17 meanZHP -14 reserved2 0 meanAcc 328065
  obs 301 valid 1 active 0

UBX-NAV-PVT:
  iTOW 260516000 time 2020/6/3  0:21:38 valid x37
  tAcc 26 nano -29221 fixType 5 flags x1 flags2 xea
  numSV 19 lon -1213140873 lat 440688410 height 1109817
  hMSL 1131166 hAcc 26786 vAcc 18941
  velN 0 velE 0 velD 0 gSpeed 0 headMot 33945561
  sAcc 10 headAcc 16986464 pDOP 9999 reserved1 0 26042 11331
  headVeh 2900837 magDec 0 magAcc 0
    valid (validDate ValidTime fullyResolved) fixType (Surveyed)
    flags (gnssFixOK)
    flags2 (confirmedAvai confirmedDate confirmedTime)
    psmState (Not Active)
    carrSoln (None)

Survey-In Configuration Gen9

For Gen19 and later you should use the Configuration Item method. The settings are all in the CFG-TMODE gouup. See the items this way:

$ ubxtool -g CFG-TMODE,0 -v 1

UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 0 position 0
  layers (ram)
    item CFG-TMODE-18/0x10030012 val 1
    item CFG-TMODE-19/0x10030013 val 1
    item CFG-TMODE-MODE/0x20030001 val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-POS_TYPE/0x20030002 val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-ECEF_X_HP/0x20030006 val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-ECEF_Y_HP/0x20030007 val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-ECEF_Z_HP/0x20030008 val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-LAT_HP/0x2003000c val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-LON_HP/0x2003000d val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-HEIGHT_HP/0x2003000e val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-20/0x20030014 val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-ECEF_X/0x40030003 val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-ECEF_Y/0x40030004 val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-ECEF_Z/0x40030005 val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-LAT/0x40030009 val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-LON/0x4003000a val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-HEIGHT/0x4003000b val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-FIXED_POS_ACC/0x4003000f val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-SVIN_MIN_DUR/0x40030010 val 0
    item CFG-TMODE-SVIN_ACC_LIMIT/0x40030011 val 0

Before you can start a survey, you must set the minimum duration and accuracy limit. For quick testing we will set 30 seconds, and 10 meters, and then verify the changes worked.

$ ubxtool -z CFG-TMODE-SVIN_MIN_DUR,30
[...]
UBX-ACK-ACK:
 ACK to CFG-VALSET (x06:x8a)

$ ubxtool -z CFG-TMODE-SVIN_ACC_LIMIT,1000000
[...]
UBX-ACK-ACK:
 ACK to CFG-VALSET (x06:x8a)

$ ubxtool -g CFG-TMODE,0 -v 1
[...]
    item CFG-TMODE-SVIN_MIN_DUR/0x40030010 val 30
    item CFG-TMODE-SVIN_ACC_LIMIT/0x40030011 val 1000000

When that looks good, enable survey-in mode, and watch it converge on the fixed location.

$ ubxtool -z CFG-TMODE-MODE,1
[...]
UBX-ACK-ACK:
 ACK to CFG-VALSET (x06:x8a)

[wait 30 seconds]
$ ubxtool -p TIM-SVIN | less
[...]
UBX-TIM-SVIN:
  dur 30 meanX -238604863 meanY -392219750 meanZ 441435965 meanV 876668992
  obs 31 valid 1 active 0 reserved0 x0
   valid (Valid) active (Inactive)

[...]

That shows the survey is complete and the fixed point mode is active. Oddly, you can not poll CFG-TMODE-LAT_HP for the calculated position. You just look in TIM-SVIN, or NAV-SVIN.

RTCM3 Configuration

This RTCM3 example currently only works on the USB port of a Gen9 Time, Frequency and Time, or High Precision device. It generates a LOT of data.

To enable the RTCM 3 output on the USB port:

$ ubxtool -e RTCM3 -P 27 -v 2
ubxtool: enable RTCM3

sent:
UBX-CFG-PRT:
 PortID 3 (USB) reserved1 0 txReady 0x0
  reserved2 [0 0]
  inProtoMask 0x23 outProtoMask 0x23
  reserved3 0 reserved4 0
    inProtoMask (UBX NMEA RTCM3)
    outProtoMask (UBX NMEA RTCM3)

sent:
UBX-CFG-MSG:
  Rate set RTCM-1005 (xf5:x05) Rate 1
[A lot of RTCM3 messages are enabled ...]
RTCM3 packet: type 1077
[A ton of RTCM3 messages are output ...]

To be able to do anything else, you must disable the RTCM3:

$ ubxtool -d RTCM3 -P 27 -v 2
ubxtool: disable RTCM3
[...]

Exiting Survey-in Gen8

To restore your receiver to normal mode:

$ ubxtool -d SURVEYIN3
ubxtool: disable SURVEYIN3

sent:
UBX-CFG-TMODE3:
  version 0 reserved1 0 flags x0
  ecefXOrLat 0 ecefYOrLon 0 ecefZOrAlt 0
  ecefXOrLatHP 0 ecefYOrLonHP 0 ecefZOrAltHP 0
  reserved2 0 fixedPosAcc 0 svinMinDur 300 svinAccLimit 50000
  reserved3 0 0

UBX-ACK-ACK:
  ACK to CFG-TMODE3 (x06:x71)

Or for a Timing product:

$ ubxtool -d SURVEYIN
ubxtool: disable SURVEYIN
[...]

Exiting Survey-in Gen9

To restore your receiver to normal mode:

To return to normal mode:

$ ubxtool -z CFG-TMODE-MODE,0
[...]
UBX-ACK-ACK:
 ACK to CFG-VALSET (x06:x8a)

Constellations

For unknown reasons, one of the first things new users want to play with is the constellation settings. If you are headed to the polar region, into space, or to Asia, then these settings will be of interest to you. GLONASS works better at high latitudes than GPS. QZSS and NaVIC are useful in Asia. Otherwise, unless you have a Rubidium atomic clock handy, or run 12-hour experiments with gpsprof, it will be hard for you to improve on the defaults. If you still must fiddle, then read on, after completing the above section on Initial Setup.

Newer receivers also have to worry about the correct band for each constellation. You can’t always tell the band from the signal name. A handy reference:

L1 also includes B1, E1
L2 also includes B2I, B3, E5b, E6, L6
L5 also includes B2, E5a, L3, NavIC

Checking Constellations Gen8

First you must understand what your GNSS receiver is capable of. Find this out with the UBX-MON-GNSS message.

$ ubxtool -p MON-GNSS -v 2

If your receiver does not return an ACK-ACK message, then it is Gen7 or earlier, and only receives from GPS satellites. Owners of those older devices can stop reading this section now.

A Gen8 may return something like this:

UBX-MON-GNSS:
   version 0 supported 0x7 defaultGnss 0x3 enabled 0x3
   simultaneous 2 reserved1 0 0 0
     supported (GPS Glonass Beidou)
     defaultGnss (GPS Glonass)
     enabled (GPS Glonass)

That Gen8 can support GPS, GLONASS, and BeiDou, but only two at a time.

A Gen9 might return something like this:

UBX-MON-GNSS:
   version 0 supported 0xf defaultGnss 0xf enabled 0xd
   simultaneous 4 reserved1 0 0 0
     supported (GPS Glonass Beidou Galileo)
     defaultGnss (GPS Glonass Beidou Galileo)
     enabled (GPS Beidou Galileo)

That Gen9 can support GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, and Galileo, and all at the same time. But in that case, GLONASS is turned off.

There are more details to see with UBX-CFG-GNSS. A Gen8 might show:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-GNSS -v 2
[...]
UBX-CFG-GNSS:
 msgVer 0  numTrkChHw 32 numTrkChUse 32 numConfigBlocks 5
  gnssId 0 TrkCh  8 maxTrCh 16 reserved 0 Flags x01010001
   GPS L1C/A enabled
  gnssId 1 TrkCh  1 maxTrCh  3 reserved 0 Flags x01010001
   SBAS L1C/A enabled
  gnssId 3 TrkCh  8 maxTrCh 16 reserved 0 Flags x01010000
   BeiDou B1I
  gnssId 5 TrkCh  0 maxTrCh  3 reserved 0 Flags x01010001
   QZSS L1C/A enabled
  gnssId 6 TrkCh  8 maxTrCh 14 reserved 0 Flags x01010001
   GLONASS L1 enabled

That shows 5 constellations, not 2. Since GPS, SBAS and QZSS all use the same frequency and modulation, they were lumped together by MON-GNSS as simply GPS. Later version of firmware will split them out and support more constellations.

An Gen9 that supports the L2 band may look like this:

UBX-CFG-GNSS:
 msgVer 0  numTrkChHw 60 numTrkChUse 60 numConfigBlocks 5
  gnssId 0 TrkCh  8 maxTrCh 16 reserved 0 Flags x11110001
   GPS L1C/A L2C enabled
  gnssId 2 TrkCh 10 maxTrCh 18 reserved 0 Flags x21210001
   Galileo E1 E5b enabled
  gnssId 3 TrkCh  4 maxTrCh  5 reserved 0 Flags x11010001
   BeiDou B1I enabled
  gnssId 5 TrkCh  0 maxTrCh  3 reserved 0 Flags x11110001
   QZSS L1C/A L2C enabled
  gnssId 6 TrkCh  8 maxTrCh 12 reserved 0 Flags x11110001
   GLONASS L1 L2 enabled

There are several things to note. SBAS is not shown. Outside of FAA requirements, SBAS no longer has any value to the user, and is simply not supported. Multiple signals per constellation are shown, and can be individually enabled.

Checking Constellations Gen9

The Gen9, and later, did not update the UBX-MON-GNSS for the newly added constellations. Support for UBX-CFG-GNSS was eventually dropped entirely. So you must use configuration items.

To check for enabled constellations and signals, get the SIGNALS group. Typical, not default, output from an F9T with L2 disabled and L5 enabled:

$ ubxtool -g CFG-SIGNAL
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 0 position 0
  layers (ram)
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GPS_L1CA_ENA/0x10310001 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GPS_L2C_ENA/0x10310003 val 0
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GPS_L5_ENA/0x10310004 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-SBAS_L1CA_ENA/0x10310005 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GAL_E1_ENA/0x10310007 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GAL_E5A_ENA/0x10310009 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GAL_E5B_ENA/0x1031000a val 0
    item CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_B1_ENA/0x1031000d val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_B2_ENA/0x1031000e val 0
    item CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_B1C_ENA/0x1031000f val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_B2_ENA/0x1031000e val 0
    item CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_B1C_ENA/0x1031000f val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-QZSS_L1CA_ENA/0x10310012 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-QZSS_L2C_ENA/0x10310015 val 0
    item CFG-SIGNAL-QZSS_L5_ENA/0x10310017 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-NAVIC_L5_ENA/0x1031001d val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GPS_ENA/0x1031001f val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-SBAS_ENA/0x10310020 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GAL_ENA/0x10310021 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_ENA/0x10310022 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-QZSS_ENA/0x10310024 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-NAVIC_ENA/0x10310026 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_B2A/0x10310028 val 0
    item CFG-SIGNAL-41/0x10310029 val 0
[...]

You can see that all constellations are enabled, all L1 and L5 signals are enabled, and all L2 signals are disabled.

Changing Constellations Gen8

The Gen8, and some Gen7, are problematic. Many of them can only listen to two out of the three possible constellations: GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou. Most default to GPS and GLONASS, but GPS and Beidou may work better. This is partly because most GPS-only antennas can receive BeiDou, but fail to receive GLONASS. Partly because BeiDou and GLONASS sats cover different regions of the earth.

If we first try to enable BeiDou, that will fail, as that would enable 3 constellations when only 2 are supported. So disable GLONASS, then enable BeiDou, then check. Always check as u-blox does not reliably report errors.

$ ubxtool -d GLONASS
[...]
$ ubxtool -e BEIDOU
[...]
$ ubxtool -p CFG-GNSS
[...]
UBX-CFG-GNSS:
 msgVer 0  numTrkChHw 32 numTrkChUse 32 numConfigBlocks 5
  gnssId 0 TrkCh  8 maxTrCh 16 reserved 0 Flags x01010001
   GPS L1C/A enabled
  gnssId 1 TrkCh  1 maxTrCh  3 reserved 0 Flags x01010001
   SBAS L1C/A enabled
  gnssId 3 TrkCh  2 maxTrCh 16 reserved 0 Flags x01010001
   BeiDou B1I enabled
  gnssId 5 TrkCh  0 maxTrCh  3 reserved 0 Flags x01010001
   QZSS L1C/A enabled
  gnssId 6 TrkCh  8 maxTrCh 14 reserved 0 Flags x01010000
   GLONASS L1

After a few minutes, if you are in a location which BeiDou covers, then you should start to see BeiDou sats in the cgps sat list. The Gen8 has many other constraints on setting CFG-GNSS, the masochistic will need to spend a lot of quality time with the u-blox documentation to lean the many ways to shoot themselves in the foot.

u-blox recently recommended to do a cold boot after changing to some configurations of constellations for some models. Before you reboot, be sure your configurations are stored in BBR and/or FLASH.

$ ubxtool -p COLDBOOT

Changing Constellations Gen9

The astute will have noticed that the canned ubxtool commands, like "-e GLONASS", send one or binary messages that may change a handful or variables at once. The Gen9 avoids this mess with Configuration Items. These allow you to get, set and delete individual settings in the receiver. Before continuing this section, read the ubxtool man page on Configuration Items.

The CFG-SIGNAL Configuration Item group includes the CFG-GNSS items of interest here. So take a look at them, in the ram layer:

$ ubxtool -g CFG-SIGNAL,0
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 0 position 0
  layers (ram)
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GPS_L1CA_ENA/0x10310001 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GPS_L2C_ENA/0x10310003 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GAL_E1_ENA/0x10310007 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GAL_E5B_ENA/0x1031000a val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_B1_ENA/0x1031000d val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_B2_ENA/0x1031000e val 0
    item CFG-SIGNAL-QZSS_L1CA_ENA/0x10310012 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-QZSS_L2C_ENA/0x10310015 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GLO_L1_ENA/0x10310018 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GLO_L2_ENA/0x1031001a val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GPS_ENA/0x1031001f val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GAL_ENA/0x10310021 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_ENA/0x10310022 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-QZSS_ENA/0x10310024 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-GLO_ENA/0x10310025 val 1
    item CFG-SIGNAL-39/0x10310027 val 1
[...]

Notice that the BeiDou B2 signal is not enabled. That might be because when the firmware was written there were not B2 signals from space to test. Or maybe not, who knows, but we want to enable it to see if anything changes. So we will use the "-z" command to enable it, and the "-g" command to check it in layer 0.

$ ubxtool -z CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_B2_ENA,1
[...]
$ ubxtool -g CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_B2_ENA,0
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 0 position 0
  layers (ram)
    item CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_B2_ENA/0x1031000e val 1

The various receviers, can be picky about what signals can be enabled at the same time. In different ways. Illegal combinations may cause an INFMSG to be sent, if enabled. Sometimes it is easier to turn off all L2 and L5, then enable what you want until your get an ACK-NAK.

To disable all L2 and L5 signals at once:

$ ubxtool -P 29  -z CFG-SIGNAL-GPS_L2C_ENA,0 \
  -z CFG-SIGNAL-GPS_L5_ENA,0 \
  -z CFG-SIGNAL-GAL_E5A_ENA,0 \
  -z CFG-SIGNAL-GAL_E5B_ENA,0 \
  -z CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_B2_ENA,0 \
  -z CFG-SIGNAL-QZSS_L2C_ENA,0 \
  -z CFG-SIGNAL-QZSS_L5_ENA,0 \
  -z CFG-SIGNAL-NAVIC_L5_ENA,0 \
  -z CFG-SIGNAL-BDS_B2A,0

Then to turn on all the L5 signals:

$ ubxtool -P 29 -z CFG-SIGNAL-GPS_L5_ENA,1 \
  -z CFG-SIGNAL-GAL_E5A_ENA,1 \
  -z CFG-SIGNAL-GAL_E5B_ENA,1 \
  -z CFG-SIGNAL-QZSS_L5_ENA,1 \
  -z CFG-SIGNAL-NAVIC_L5_ENA,1

u-blox recently recommended to a cold boot after changing to some configurations of constellations. Before you reboot, be sure your configurations are stored in BBR and/or FLASH.

$ ubxtool -p COLDBOOT

ADR and UDR

Some u-blox products have integrated 6-axis Inertial Measurement Units (IMU). The receivers need firmware extensions, that add new messages, to use the IMU. Currently the extensions are called Automotive Dead Reckoning (ADR), and Untethered Dead Reckoning (UDR). ADR is similar to UDR, with the addition of Wheel Tick information for improved performance.

The examples in this section are only for ADR or UDR receivers that have protocol version (protVer) of 19.20 or higher. If your receiver does not meet this requirement, then you can skip this section.

A NEO-M8U, with UDR, looks like this:

$ ubxtool -p MON-VER
UBX-MON-VER:
  swVersion EXT CORE 3.01 (86c0ce)
  hwVersion 00080000
  extension ROM BASE 2.01 (75331)
  extension FWVER=UDR 1.50
  extension PROTVER=19.20
  extension MOD=NEO-M8U-0
  extension FIS=0xEF4015 (200061)
  extension GPS;GLO;GAL;BDS
  extension SBAS;IMES;QZSS
[...]

ADR/UDR add two new messages classes: External Sensor Fusion (UBX-ESF-), amd High Navigation Rate (UBX-HNR-), See the u-blox documentation for all the nitty gritty details.

Gen8

You can poll your receiver for most of the possible UBX-ESF- and UBX-HNR- messages this way:

$ ubxtool -p ESF -v 2
[...]

UBX-CFG-ESFA:
 version 0 reserved1 x50000000 0 0 accelRmsThdl 32 frequency 0
  latency 0 accuracy 0 reserved2 x0

UBX-CFG-ESFALG:
 bitfield x20a88800 aw 0 pitch 0 roll 0
    bitfield () version 0

UBX-CFG-ESFG:
 version 0 reserved1 x10000000 0 0 tcTableSaveRate 1200
  gyroRmsThdl 132 frequency 0 latency 0 accuracy 0
  reserved2 x0
[...]

UBX-ESF-STATUS:
 iTOW 519517000 version 2 reserved1 20 2 0 0 0 0 0
   fusionMode 0 reserved2 0 numSens 6
     fusionMode (Initialization mode)
   sensStatus1 85 sensStatus2 4 freq 10 faults 0
      type (gyro z) used No ready Yes
   sensStatus1 8d sensStatus2 4 freq 10 faults 0
      type (gyro y) used No ready Yes
   sensStatus1 8e sensStatus2 4 freq 10 faults 0
      type (gyro x) used No ready Yes
   sensStatus1 90 sensStatus2 4 freq 10 faults 0
      type (accel x) used No ready Yes
   sensStatus1 91 sensStatus2 4 freq 10 faults 0
      type (accel y) used No ready Yes
   sensStatus1 92 sensStatus2 4 freq 10 faults 0
      type (accel z) used No ready Yes

UBX-ESF-ALG:
 iTOW 519517000 version 1 flags x90 error x0 reserved1 x20
   yaw 0 pitch 0 roll 0
   flags () status (user-defined/fixed angles)
   error ()

UBX-ESF-INS:
 bitfield0 x1 reserved1 x0 iTOW 519517000
   xAngRate 0 yAngRate 0 zAngRate 0
   xAccel 0 yAccel 0 zAccel 0
   bitfield0 (version 1 )
[...]

$ ubxtool -p HNR -v 2
[...]
UBX-CFG-HNR:
 highNavRate 10 reserved 0 0 0

UBX-HNR-PVT:
  iTOW 519523700 time 2021/6/19 00:18:25 valid x37
  nano 700000003 gpsFix 3 flags x1d reserved1 x1b57
  lon -1213140584 lat 440688360 height 1109033 hMSL 1130383
  gSpeed 14 speed 23 headMot 23505708 headVeh 23505708
  hAcc 2057 vAcc 5293 sAcc 277 headAcc 3542198 reserved2 xfffffffe
    valid (validDate ValidTime fullyResolved)
    gpsFix (3D)
    flags (GpsFixOK WKNSET TOWSET headVehValid)

UBX-HNR-ATT:
  iTOW 519523700 version 1 reserved1 x32 35 2e
  roll 0 pitch 7874389 heading 23505708
  accRoll 2000000 accPitch 4337821 accHeading 3542198

UBX-HNR-INS:
  bitfield0 x332c4000 reserved1 x2c38312c iTOW 519523700
  xAngRate 0 yAngRate 0 zAngRate 0
  xAccel 0 zAccel 0 zAccel 0
    version 0
    bitfield0 ()
[...]

Sadly UBX-ESF-MEAS and UBX-ESF-RAW can not be polled.

You paid extra for those messages, so you will want to enable then to be send periodically.

$ ubxtool -e ESF
$ ubxtool -e HNR

That does not enable UBX-ESF-MEAS and UBX-ESF-RAW as they are a flood of raw data, reported in JSON ATT, that is hard to process. To see them, just enable them as you enable any other periodic messages:

$ ubxtool -P 19 -p CFG-MSG,0x10,2,1
$ ubxtool -P 19 -p CFG-MSG,0x10,3,1

The trailing 1 enables the messages. When you tire of the data, replace the 1 with a zero to disable them. Unlike other messages, the message rate can not be changed.

To see the results:

$ ubxtool -v 2
[...]
UBX-ESF-MEAS:
 timetag 273945517 flags x2018 id 0
     dataType  14 dataField    4816
     dataType  13 dataField   -4867
     dataType   5 dataField   -3749
     dataType  12 dataField    3895
   calibTtag 273945517

UBX-ESF-RAW:
 reserved1 x105413ae blocks 70
   data_type  16 data     -619 sTtag 5808411
   data_type  17 data    -4333 sTtag 5808411
   data_type  18 data     8661 sTtag 5808411
   data_type  14 data     5276 sTtag 5808411
   data_type  13 data    -5214 sTtag 5808411
   data_type   5 data    -3435 sTtag 5808411
   data_type  12 data     3895 sTtag 5808411
   data_type  16 data     -599 sTtag 5808663
   data_type  17 data    -4349 sTtag 5808663
   data_type  18 data     8650 sTtag 5808663
   data_type  14 data     5307 sTtag 5808663
   data_type  13 data    -4715 sTtag 5808663
   data_type   5 data    -3435 sTtag 5808663
   data_type  12 data     3898 sTtag 5808663
   data_type  16 data     -613 sTtag 5808918
   data_type  17 data    -4344 sTtag 5808918
   data_type  18 data     8667 sTtag 5808918
   data_type  14 data     4995 sTtag 5808918
   data_type  13 data    -4683 sTtag 5808918
   data_type   5 data    -3809 sTtag 5808918
   data_type  12 data     3894 sTtag 5808918
   data_type  16 data     -621 sTtag 5809171
   data_type  17 data    -4319 sTtag 5809171
   data_type  18 data     8662 sTtag 5809171
   data_type  14 data     4526 sTtag 5809171
   data_type  13 data    -4902 sTtag 5809171
   data_type   5 data    -3778 sTtag 5809171
   data_type  12 data     3895 sTtag 5809171
   data_type  16 data     -623 sTtag 5809423
   data_type  17 data    -4319 sTtag 5809423
   data_type  18 data     8672 sTtag 5809423
   data_type  14 data     4401 sTtag 5809423
   data_type  13 data    -4777 sTtag 5809423
   data_type   5 data    -3965 sTtag 5809423
   data_type  12 data     3894 sTtag 5809423
   data_type  16 data     -630 sTtag 5809677
   data_type  17 data    -4324 sTtag 5809677
   data_type  18 data     8659 sTtag 5809677
   data_type  14 data     4682 sTtag 5809677
   data_type  13 data    -4871 sTtag 5809677
   data_type   5 data    -4059 sTtag 5809677
   data_type  12 data     3895 sTtag 5809677
   data_type  16 data     -618 sTtag 5809930
   data_type  17 data    -4326 sTtag 5809930
   data_type  18 data     8672 sTtag 5809930
   data_type  14 data     4682 sTtag 5809930
   data_type  13 data    -4496 sTtag 5809930
   data_type   5 data    -3497 sTtag 5809930
   data_type  12 data     3896 sTtag 5809930
   data_type  16 data     -608 sTtag 5810204
   data_type  17 data    -4330 sTtag 5810204
   data_type  18 data     8671 sTtag 5810204
   data_type  14 data     4839 sTtag 5810204
   data_type  13 data    -4465 sTtag 5810204
   data_type   5 data    -3622 sTtag 5810204
   data_type  12 data     3894 sTtag 5810204
   data_type  16 data     -615 sTtag 5810457
   data_type  17 data    -4333 sTtag 5810457
   data_type  18 data     8663 sTtag 5810457
   data_type  14 data     4870 sTtag 5810457
   data_type  13 data    -4715 sTtag 5810457
   data_type   5 data    -3528 sTtag 5810457
   data_type  12 data     3895 sTtag 5810457
   data_type  16 data     -607 sTtag 5810711
   data_type  17 data    -4338 sTtag 5810711
   data_type  18 data     8680 sTtag 5810711
   data_type  14 data     4995 sTtag 5810711
   data_type  13 data    -5089 sTtag 5810711
   data_type   5 data    -3372 sTtag 5810711
   data_type  12 data     3889 sTtag 5810711

UBX-ESF-MEAS:
 timetag 273945624 flags x1818 id 0
     dataType  16 dataField    -612
     dataType  17 dataField   -4332
     dataType  18 dataField    8671
   calibTtag 273945624

UBX-ESF-MEAS:
 timetag 273945619 flags x2018 id 0
     dataType  14 dataField    4735
     dataType  13 dataField   -4848
     dataType   5 dataField   -3693
     dataType  12 dataField    3894
   calibTtag 273945619
[...]

Notice the UBX-ESF-MEAS sample time stamp (timeTag) is in arbitrary units, and jumps forward and back! The UBX-ESF-RAW sTtag is in unrelated units, but at least always increases.

The receiver insists on completing an autoconfiguration mode before entering fusion mode. That requires driving the receiver around in a car. You can partially, but not completely, disable this with the doAutoMntAlg flag:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-ESFALG,0

Gen9

The receivers still support the UBX-ESF- messages. See then Gen8 section for how to poll for those. Gen9 does not officially support the UBX-MON-COMMS message, and Gen10 removes it completely. So the presets (-p ESF, -p HNR) do not work. Since ther is no way to determine the "current" port on a Gen9 receiver you must use configure the messages that you wish to be automatically output with the CFG-MSGOUT configure options group.

If you want to see what UBX-ESF messages you can enable, on the USB port, check the ubxtool help output:

$  ubxtool -h -v 3 | grep UBX.ESF.*USB
    CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_ESF_ALG_USB
        Output rate of the UBX_ESF_ALG message on port USB
    CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_ESF_CAL_USB
        Output rate of the UBX_ESF_CAL message on port USB
    CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_ESF_INS_USB
        Output rate of the UBX_ESF_INS message on port USB
    CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_ESF_MEAS_USB
        Output rate of the UBX-ESF-MEAS message on port USB
    CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_ESF_RAW_USB
        Output rate of the UBX-ESF-RAW message on port USB
    CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_ESF_STATUS_USB
        Output rate of the UBX-ESF-STATUS message on port USB

To enable UBX-ESF-MEAS messages on the USB port, in the ram, bbr and flash layers. Then to verify it worked. Do this:

$ export UBXOPTS="-P 27 -v 2"
$ ubxtool -z CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_ESF_MEAS_USB,15
[...]
$ ubxtool g CFG-MSGOUT-UBX_ESF_MEAS_USB
[...]

Timepulse

Some U-blox receivers provide one or more pins delivering a Timepulse (TP) signal. This signal can be configured in terms of pulse period (or frequency), pulse length (or duty cycle) and polarity. It is also possible to define different signal behavior depending on whether the receiver is locked to GPS time.

The period/length is specified in micro seconds. The frequency in Hz, and /duty cycle in fractions (2³²-1).

Let us say you want 1 PPS with 100 ms pulse length in the absence of lock and 4 PPS with 25 ms length in the presence of it in the TIMEPULSE pin. You can specify this either in period/length form.

Gen8

Timepulse signals are configured using the UBX-CFG-TP5 message. This is also the message sent when you enable and disable the TIMEPULSE pin by means of the PPS option. In particular, -d PPS is actually a shortcut for:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-TP5,,,,,,,,,0x76

While -e PPS is a shortcut for:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-TP5,,,,,,,,,0x77

UBX-CFG-TP5 messages can take several forms. For example, to poll the current Timepulse configuration for the TIMEPULSE and TIMEPULSE2 pins respectively:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-TP5,0
[...]
UBX-CFG-TP5:
  tpIdx 0 version 0 reserved1 0
  antCableDelay 2 rfGroupDelay 0 freqPeriod 1000000 freqPeriodLock 1000000
  pulseLenRatio 0 pulseLenRatioLock 100000 userConfigDelay 0
  flags x77
$ ubxtool -p CFG-TP5,1
[...]
UBX-CFG-TP5:
  tpIdx 1 version 0 reserved1 0
  antCableDelay 2 rfGroupDelay 0 freqPeriod 4 freqPeriodLock 1
  pulseLenRatio 125000 pulseLenRatioLock 100000 userConfigDelay 0
  flags xfe

Set them this way in pulse width form:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-TP5,0,,,1000000,250000,100000,25000,,0x77

or in frequency/duty cycle form:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-TP5,0,,,1,4,429496729,429496729,,0x6f

in which 429496729 represents a 10% duty cycle (as it is simply the 10% of 2³²-1 = 4294967295).

Duty cycles can also be specified in hexadecimal form. For example, if you wanted a 50% duty cycle instead, you could do:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-TP5,0,,,1,4,0x80000000,0x80000000,,0x6f

Gen9

Gen9 does not support the UBX-CFG-TP5 message So the Gen8 presets (-p . CFG-TP5, -e PPS) do not work .

If you want to see what the CFG-TP configuration items that your receiver supports, look at the CFG-TP group in the default layer:

$ ubxtool -v 1 -g CFG-TP,7
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 7 position 0
  layers (default)
    item CFG-TP-TP1_ENA/0x10050007 val 1
    item CFG-TP-SYNC_GNSS_TP1/0x10050008 val 1
    item CFG-TP-USE_LOCKED_TP1/0x10050009 val 1
    item CFG-TP-ALIGN_TO_TOW_TP1/0x1005000a val 1
    item CFG-TP-POL_TP1/0x1005000b val 1
    item CFG-TP-TP2_ENA/0x10050012 val 1
    item CFG-TP-SYNC_GNSS_TP2/0x10050013 val 1
    item CFG-TP-USE_LOCKED_TP2/0x10050014 val 1
    item CFG-TP-ALIGN_TO_TOW_TP2/0x10050015 val 1
    item CFG-TP-POL_TP2/0x10050016 val 1
    item CFG-TP-MSG_ALWAYS/0x10050037 val 0
    item CFG-TP-TIMEGRID_TP1/0x2005000c val 4
    item CFG-TP-TIMEGRID_TP2/0x20050017 val 4
    item CFG-TP-PULSE_DEF/0x20050023 val 0
    item CFG-TP-PULSE_LENGTH_DEF/0x20050030 val 1
    item CFG-TP-DRSTR_TP1/0x20050035 val 3
    item CFG-TP-DRSTR_TP2/0x20050036 val 3
    item CFG-TP-ANT_CABLEDELAY/0x30050001 val 50
    item CFG-TP-PERIOD_TP1/0x40050002 val 1000000
    item CFG-TP-PERIOD_LOCK_TP1/0x40050003 val 1000000
    item CFG-TP-LEN_TP1/0x40050004 val 0
    item CFG-TP-LEN_LOCK_TP1/0x40050005 val 100000
    item CFG-TP-USER_DELAY_TP1/0x40050006 val 0
    item CFG-TP-PERIOD_TP2/0x4005000d val 1000000
    item CFG-TP-PERIOD_LOCK_TP2/0x4005000e val 1000000
    item CFG-TP-LEN_TP2/0x4005000f val 0
    item CFG-TP-LEN_LOCK_TP2/0x40050010 val 100000
    item CFG-TP-USER_DELAY_TP2/0x40050011 val 0
    item CFG-TP-FREQ_TP1/0x40050024 val 1
    item CFG-TP-FREQ_LOCK_TP1/0x40050025 val 1
    item CFG-TP-FREQ_TP2/0x40050026 val 1
    item CFG-TP-FREQ_LOCK_TP2/0x40050027 val 1
    item CFG-TP-DUTY_TP1/0x5005002a val 0.0
    item CFG-TP-DUTY_LOCK_TP1/0x5005002b val 10.0
    item CFG-TP-DUTY_TP2/0x5005002c val 0.0
    item CFG-TP-DUTY_LOCK_TP2/0x5005002d val 10.0

Changing "-v 1" to "-v 2" will yield descriptions of most of the messages.

Saving U-blox configuration

Now that you have your GNSS receiver configuration just the way you want it, you will want to save it. Saving is very dependent on your receiver configuration. For now, we’ll look at the Gen8, way of doing things.

Gen8

A u-blox receiver may have any, all, or none of: Battery backed RAM (BBR), Flash, Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM (EEPROM) and SPI Flash. If you have BBR that uses a real battery, the battery will only last a few years. Some BBR uses a Super Capacitor that will not degrade with age.

The current configuration is stored in RAM, and will disappear on power loss, device reset, configuration load, or configuration change.

It is not easy to tell what storage options are available. There may even be none. You can sometimes tell if your device has flash with MON-VER:

$ ubxtool -p MON-VER -P 27.12
[...]
UBX-MON-VER:
  swVersion EXT CORE 1.00 (f10c36)
  hwVersion 00190000
  extension ROM BASE 0x118B2060
  extension FWVER=HPG 1.13
  extension PROTVER=27.12
  extension MOD=ZED-F9P
  extension GPS;GLO;GAL;BDS
  extension SBAS;QZSS

"swVersion EXT CORE" means your firmware loaded from FLASH memory, so you have FLASH memory. It also means that you can update the firmware on your device.

If you have no FLASH, then you will see "swVersion ROM CORE":

$ ubxtool -p MON-VER -P 18
[...]
UBX-MON-VER:
  swVersion ROM CORE 3.01 (107888)
  hwVersion 00080000
  extension FWVER=SPG 3.01
  extension PROTVER=18.00
  extension GPS;GLO;GAL;BDS
  extension SBAS;IMES;QZSS

The only way to detect the other storage options is to try to store into, and load from, each storage option. And see which worked. I leave that as an exercise for the reader. Ubxtool just tries to store everywhere and see what sticks.

First we need a data item to store. The Dynamic Platform Model (dynModel) is a common one to change. See what it is currently:

$ ubxtool -p CFG-NAV5  -P 27 -v 2
UBX-CFG-NAV5:
 mask 0xffff dynModel 0 fixmode 3 fixedAlt 0 FixedAltVar 10000
 minElev 10 drLimit 0 pDop 250 tDop 250 pAcc 100 tAcc 350
 staticHoldThresh 0 dgpsTimeOut 60 cnoThreshNumSVs 0
 cnoThresh 0 res 0 staticHoldMaxDist 0 utcStandard 0
 reserved x0 0
   dynModel (Portable) fixMode (Auto 2D/3D) utcStandard (Default)
   mask (dyn minEl posFixMode drLim posMask timeMask staticHoldMask
         dgpsMask cnoThreshold utc)

You can see that dynModel is set to "Portable" (0). The most common default setting. But you want to use your receiver on your boat, so you want to set dynModel to "Sea" (5). Then verify that worked:

$ ubxtool -p MODEL,5  -P 27 -v 2
connected to tcp://localhost:2947
ubxtool: poll MODEL,5

sent:
[...]
UBX-CFG-NAV5:
 mask 0x1 dynModel 5 fixmode 0 fixedAlt 0 FixedAltVar 0
 minElev 0 drLimit 0 pDop 0 tDop 0 pAcc 0 tAcc 0
 staticHoldThresh 0 dgpsTimeOut 0 cnoThreshNumSVs 0
 cnoThresh 0 res 0 staticHoldMaxDist 0 utcStandard 0
 reserved x0 0
   dynModel (Sea) fixMode (Unk) utcStandard (Default)
   mask ()
[...]

$ ubxtool -p CFG-NAV5  -P 27 -v 2
[...]
UBX-CFG-NAV5:
 mask 0xffff dynModel 5 fixmode 3 fixedAlt 0 FixedAltVar 10000
 minElev 10 drLimit 0 pDop 250 tDop 250 pAcc 100 tAcc 350
 staticHoldThresh 0 dgpsTimeOut 60 cnoThreshNumSVs 0
 cnoThresh 0 res 0 staticHoldMaxDist 0 utcStandard 0
 reserved x0 0
   dynModel (Sea) fixMode (Auto 2D/3D) utcStandard (Default)
   mask (dyn minEl posFixMode drLim posMask timeMask staticHoldMask
         dgpsMask cnoThreshold utc)

It did, but if we now power down the receiver, then it will revert to the last saved configuration or default. So we want to save the current configuration in RAM, as much as possible, to whatever storage we have, if possible. The "-p SAVE" option does that:

$ ubxtool -p SAVE  -P 27 -v 2
[...]
UBX-CFG-CFG:
  clearMask: 0x0 ()
  saveMask: 0xf1f (ioPort msgConf infMsg navConf rxmConf senConf rinvConf
                   antConf logConf)
  loadMask: 0xf1f (ioPort msgConf infMsg navConf rxmConf senConf rinvConf
                   antConf logConf)
  deviceMask: 0x17 (devBBR devFlash devEEPROM devSpiFlash)

You can now power down your receiver. Power it back up, and verify with "-p CFG-NAV5" that dynModel "Sea" was saved. Or, most likely, for almost all GPS mice, not.

Gen9

UBX-CFG-CFG, used by "-p SAVE", is deprecated in protocol versions greater than, or equal to, 23.01. It also works differently than before. So on newer receivers you should clear, save, and load configurations with Configuration Items. Before continuing this section, read the ubxtool man page on Configuration Items.

As always, this example starts with a receiver that has just been reset to its default configuration. Check the value of dynModel in all four possible layers. One at a time, as the LAYER option to UBX-CFG-VALGET is an index.. The layers, as used by UBX-CFG-VALGET, are:

0 — RAM — running value
1 — BBR — value saved in BBR
2 — Flash — value saved in Flash
7 — Default — the firmware default value

$ ubxtool -g CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL,0
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 0 position 0
  layers (ram)
    item CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL/0x20110021 val 0
[...]
$ ubxtool -g CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL,1
[...]
UBX-ACK-NAK:
  NAK to Class x06 (CFG) ID x8b (VALGET)
[...]
$ ubxtool -g CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL,2
[...]
UBX-ACK-NAK:
  NAK to Class x06 (CFG) ID x8b (VALGET)
[...]
$ ubxtool -g CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL,7
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 7 position 0
  layers (default)
    item CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL/0x20110021 val 0

The current dynModel is 0, and the default dynModel is 0, but you see a NAK for BBR and Flash! Nothing wrong there, it is just telling that dynModel is not set in BBR or Flash. We can fix that, by setting dynModel to 2 (Stationary). Here is how to do that in all layers, except the default layer.

$ ubxtool -z CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL,2
[...]
 UBX-CFG-VALSET:
 version 0 layer 0x7 transaction 0x0 reserved 0
  layers (ram bbr flash) transaction (Transactionless)
    item CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL/0x20110021 val 2
[...]
$ ubxtool -g CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL,2
[...]
UBX-CFG-VALGET:
 version 1 layer 2 position 0
  layers (flash)
    item CFG-NAVSPG-DYNMODEL/0x20110021 val 2

The -z without the third, layer, argument sets all of: RAM, BBR, and flash. After doing the above, you can read the value of dynModel saved in Flash. Not shown, but also in RAM and BBR.

The LAYER index is not to be confused by the LAYER bitmap used by UBX-CFG-VALDEL and UBX-CFG-VALSET. The bitmap for those is:

1 — RAM layer
2 — BBR layer
4 — Flash layer

Antenna Testing

Starting around protocol version 27, in the Gen9 and Gen10 devices, the UBX-MON-SPAN message was added. This allows your receiver to act as a simple spectrum analyzer for testing GNSS antennas. It will not tell you if your GNSS antenna is properly polarized for any band, but it will show you if your it is at least passing the proper bands.

This is a good initial screen to see if your antenna can handle L2 and/or L5 bands. Paradoxically, cheaper antennas tend to avoid the expense of good filters, and may work better than more expensive antennas with tight pass bands.

L1 only antennas also need testing. Newer signals use more L1 bandwidth (/- 15.34MHz), and old L1 antennas may have pass bands that are way too tight (/- 6MHz). Once again, cheaper antennas with sloppier bandpass filters may work better than older expensive ones with tight filters.

Gen8

You are totally out of luck.

Gen9

A scan only takes a few seconds. To create a file with the scan data run this:

$ ubxtool -p MON-SPAN -P 27 -v3 -f /dev/ttyACM1 | \
grep  -E  '^     1[[:digit:]]{9}, [[:digit:]]{1,3}' > ant.dat

The ubxtool command runs the MON-SPAN procedure. The grep command extracts just the data that we need.

Convert that data into a nice plot with gnuplot using this plotfile:

$ cat ant.plt
set terminal qt size 600,600

set style line 12 lc rgb'#808080' lt 0 lw 1
set grid back ls 12

set xtics nomirror rotate by -45
set format x "%9.0f"
set yrange [20:180]
plot 'ant.dat' using 1:2

And plot it to your desktop this way:

$ gnuplot -persist < ant.plt

You can then save the plot from the gnuplot menu as an SVG, PDF or image.

See for more information on gnuplot.

See for a list of common GNSS frequencies and bandwidths.

References

https://www.rfwireless-world.com/terminology/gnss-gps-frequency-bands
GNSS and GPS Frequency Bands Explained
http://gnuplot.infoa/ | gnuplot homepage

COPYING

This file is Copyright by the GPSD project
SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-clause