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Getting started
Tap the connection tile on the main screen and fill in:
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Caster host | The caster's address, for example ntrip.kadaster.nl. No http://
|
| Port | Usually 2101 for plain connections; casters that offer TLS usually serve it on 443 |
| Use TLS | Encrypt the connection. An explicit choice — the app suggests it when the port is 443, but never assumes |
| Mountpoint | The stream's name, exactly as the caster publishes it. Case matters |
| Username, Password | Leave both empty for an open caster |
Not sure of the mountpoint name? Fill in the caster and port, save, then tap Browse mountpoints…. The list is the caster's own sourcetable: every stream it publishes, its format, its constellations, and whether it expects a position from you. Free shows the list so you can read it; type the name you want into the mountpoint field.
The app is a client. It connects where you tell it to, with your credentials, and that keeps the relationship — and the terms — between you and the caster.
So before you point it somewhere: have permission to be there. Public reference networks publish open streams and are meant to be used; a commercial network's mountpoints are for its subscribers; a station belonging to someone else's project is theirs. Some casters limit how many connections one account may hold, and a measurement tool that reconnects is still a connection.
The data you receive belongs to whoever operates the station, under their terms and not ours, and what you do with it is between you and them.
None of this is unusual — it is the ordinary position of any NTRIP client — but a tool that makes connecting easy should say it once, plainly.
NTRIP sends your username and password base64-encoded, which is an encoding, not encryption: on a plain connection anything on the network path can read them. If the caster offers TLS — by convention on port 443, where plain NTRIP uses 2101 — tick Use TLS and the whole connection is encrypted, credentials and stream alike.
The certificate is always verified: against the same root authorities a browser trusts, and the certificate must name the caster you asked for. There is no "connect anyway" button, deliberately — a measurement tool that shrugs at a wrong certificate would happily measure an attacker's station. A refused connection tells you which side to distrust: "did not complete a TLS handshake — check the port and the TLS setting" points at the settings; a certificate sentence (expired, wrong name, untrusted) points at the caster.
The ephemeris stream in the paid edition has a TLS switch of its own, because it may be a different caster.
Tap Run the check. It takes about ninety seconds, and the eight rows fill in as the evidence arrives. A verdict is only claimed once it has held for a full minute, so a station that flickers cannot pass by being healthy at the right moment.
While it runs you can tap Analysis to watch the views, and Back to return to the verdict.
The badge at the top is the verdict. When a run cannot start at all it says why there instead of counting seconds — the caster rejected the user name or password — and the row that carries the field at fault is the one to tap; Troubleshooting lists every message and what to change.
Below it, each of the eight checks carries its own verdict, the number behind it, and a sentence saying what it means. A row with a ▾ has more to show: tap it to fold it open.
A CAUTION is worth reading rather than dismissing: it is the app saying this is not a clean pass, and here is precisely which part.
Some streams — network-RTK or "nearest base" services — send nothing at all until the receiver reports where it is. Their sourcetable entry says so, and the app follows it: tick Send GGA, and give it a position by one of three routes.
- From station fills in the mountpoint's own published coordinates, which is the right choice for testing whether a station serves the area it claims.
- Pick on map opens your map app; copy the coordinates there and press Paste.
- Or type latitude and longitude yourself.
The free edition always sends the position you set, never the phone's. A network service will answer for the point you give it, so it must be inside that network's coverage — a position outside it can make a healthy service look like a broken station.
The sky view needs to know where satellites are, and an observation
stream does not carry that. Many stations broadcast their own orbits and
then nothing is needed. For a station that does not, use ⋮ → Import
navigation file and pick a RINEX navigation file (.rnx, or a
.gz of one) that you have obtained yourself.
The app never downloads one for you: the file comes from a data provider whose terms are between you and them.
It has to be today's. Orbits more than four hours old are not used — by then they no longer say where the satellite is — and a stale file still loads and still reports thousands of records, so the only sign is the sky view's summary line turning red. Satellite orbits explains what that line says and names a place to get a current file.