[ntp:questions] garmin 18x and linux

unruh unruh at wormhole.physics.ubc.ca
Mon Sep 5 17:34:01 UTC 2011


On 2011-09-05, Chris Albertson <albertson.chris at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 8:04 AM, unruh <unruh at wormhole.physics.ubc.ca> wrote:
>> On 2011-09-05, Miroslav Lichvar <mlichvar at redhat.com> wrote:
>>> On Sat, Sep 03, 2011 at 08:05:21AM -0500, steven Sommars wrote:
>>>> I monitored Garmin LVC (corrected firmware) NMEA time and saw variance of up
>>>> to 50msec. ?I wonder if the variation in NMEA time depends on GPS signal
>>>> quality.
>>>
>>> I'm wondering what is the cause of the variance too.
>>>
>>> With 18x LVC (firmware 3.70) I see errors up to 150 ms. That
>>> wouldn't be that bad if it was randomly distributed.
>>>
>>> A capture over 30 hours:
>>> http://mlichvar.fedorapeople.org/tmp/18x_nmea.png
>>
>> This was captured how? Is that the beginning or the end of the nmea
>> sentence?
>> You have some where the offset is negative. Does this really mean that
>> the nmea came in before the beginning of the second it referred to?
>
> These plots are made with an arbitrary zero point.  The  offsets is
> relative.  By looking at the plot we don't know the true offset.  That
> data is simply not provided.   But it shows what we care about, the
> dispersion.   We can always correct a fixed bias on the time using a
> "Fudge" in the ntp.conf but we can't do anything at all about the
> dispersion.

He has now told us that the offset is .5 sec.

>
> The cause?   My theory is that it can't be in the GPS data.  It is
Of course not. 

> where then the computed location would "Bounce" over a two kilometer
> circle.  I think the error is in the conversion of internal data to
> ASCII.  This requires many conversions of floating point internal
> numbers to ASCII and in a low-powered micro controller the time to
> convert one number depends on the value of the number.  For example
> let's look at small integers.  To convert "7" to ASCII we first load
> the hex value of ascii zero into a register.  then we scan the bits in
> the number to be converted and add in a power of two (or  not) based
> on if the bit is a one or zero.  In the case of "7" we add 4, 2 and 1.
>   If we convert a "4" we would only add "4".  The variability is much,
> much more with floating point.   Remember the little processor in the
> Garmin is tiny and runs slow.  The thing is designed to run on battery
> power.

Depite that I have trouble believing that the internal conversion time
varies by .2 sec. 


>
> When Processing NMEA on the computer, you can't do anything until you
> get the terminating end of line character.  The PC then has to convert
> back to floating point.   This can take a varying about of time too.
> But the computer is MUCH faster and so has much less variability

Of course you can. You can timestamp the beginning of the sentence and
then decide what to do with that timestamp when you get the end of the
sentence. gpsd does not do that. It timestamps only when you actually
send the output to the shm memory segment long after the end of the
sentence has been received. For timing purposes that is silly.


>
> Also remember that the NMEA spec only required the all NMEA sentences
> be output "within the second" and if the GPS "stutters" badly it is
> still in-spec.

But it will put out say 5 sentences in that time. That means that each
sentence should come out to far greater accuracy than .2 sec. 


>
> The PPS signal solves all this.  The GPS 18 has one of the poorest
> timing spec, but even this unit's PPS is spec'd for only 1uS error
> (that would be one sigma about the mean)  1uS is usable  to NTP.
> Better GPS have a single digit nanosecond error.  And cheap eBay GPS
> will have two digit nanosecond error.

Of course pps will make things better. Again, that is not the question
in this thread. The question is Can the nmea be used to set the time,
and what kind of accuracy can one expect ( eg better than .128 sec so
stepping is not an issue)

You keep harping on pps. The OP does not have PPS. So the solution is a
non-starter. Perhaps if you were to send him a gift of a gps receiver
with pps he might be able to use it, but even then that is not sure
(company regulations, etc)


>
> I think only with timing equipment will you see specs that differ by a
> factor of 10,000.   Look at any other gadget, the watts in a stereo,
> GHz clock on a computer.  MPG on a car, You don't see one brand being
> 10,000X different like you do in GPSes.

Sure you do. My little sound card puts out milliwatts, while my stereo
system puts out well over 100W. 


>
> Chris Albertson
> Redondo Beach, California




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