This is my first journal entry on OSM diary. Exciting. Alright, RTK GNSS units are amazing. You can use them in so many different applications, both professional and hobbyist (try doing a quick search on your favourite search engine for example applications)… but they are expensive.

This is how you DIY your own real RTK! You will need to have some knowledge of bash, python, the fundamentals of GNSS, and some interest in troubleshooting.

You will need

1. Two U-blox ZED-F9P GNSS receivers. This is the module behind the processing. You can configure this in many ways, i.e., using a board of your choice. I will be using an ArduSimple board.
2. A radio module. This will be used to communicate between the rover and base over some distance.
3. Power supply. You can use a power bank here.
4. A Raspberry Pi. I will be using a Raspberry Pi Zero W. You can use any device given that it is capable of connecting to a WiFi network.
5. Jumper cables. Male to male and female to female.
6. OTG cables.
7. USB A cables and maybe USB C cables depending on the type of Raspberry Pi you will be using and the type of smartphone you will have.
8. An android smartphone. …we are almost done with the list…
9. An SD card.
10. Two multi-band antennas.

Last, I should mention that this project will be considerably cheaper than the commercially available options. More on this in the coming sections. I will detail how to make the connections to all the devices and maybe the software setup.