Welcome to SatPulse discussions

[jclark]

I welcome feedback and discussion.

If you have got SatPulse working, I would love to hear about your hardware configuration.

If there is something concrete about SatPulse that needs fixing, then please create an issue.

[ccb056]

Just came across this after falling into the rabbit hole earlier this year. This looks amazing James - ordering a Raspberry PI CM5 just to run this and compare against my existing setup running (4) LEA-M8T's on a single machine with FreeBSD/Chrony. SatPulse.net was an excellent read.

Antenna questions:
What are your thoughts/experiences with timing antennas?
I saw only patch and survey were mentioned, what about helix?

[jclark]

Thanks.

I don't think helix antennas are very suitable for static timing applications. Their main advantage is that they are lightweight and don't need a ground plane: they are good for drones. I have one (a Beitian BT-560 with a BT-M61AJ5 antenna base), which I use if I want to do some development while travelling.

[ccb056]

So I'm following the instructions here, and have hit a snag - any ideas?

https://satpulse.net/setup/rpi-os.html

ccb056@tock:~ $ uname -r
6.12.47+rpt-rpi-2712

ccb056@tock:~ $ sudo hwclock --show
sudo: hwclock: command not found

ccb056@tock:~ $ date
Thu Oct 23 08:23:01 PM CDT 2025

[jclark]

hwclock is in /usr/sbin on my machine. Does sudo /usr/sbin/hwclock work? Are you on Trixie or Bookworm? You might need to sudo apt install util-linux-extra.

[ccb056]

Thanks James - looks like I am on trixie

ccb056@tock:/usr/sbin $ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="13"
VERSION="13 (trixie)"
VERSION_CODENAME=trixie
DEBIAN_VERSION_FULL=13.1
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

this worked: sudo apt install util-linux-extra

ccb056@tock:/usr/sbin $ sudo hwclock --show
2025-10-24 08:05:18.660299-05:00

[ccb056]

Here's what I get with a Raspberry Pi CM5, u-blox LEA-M8T, and Taoglas Magma X2 AA.200 (indoors)

[jclark]

That looks what I would expect with your hardware setup.

[ccb056]

What do you think is the limiting component?

[jclark]

You would get a better PHC offsets with a dual band GPS. But if you consider the complete system i.e. the accuracy of the system clock of clients, then the limiting factors would be the network switch (which would be fixed with a PTP aware switch) and the synchronization of the system clock on a client with its PHC (which would be fixed by a client with cross-timestamping support typically using PTM).