The Fix: entry no longer displays TIME ONLY for GPS timing receivers

[ka4ymy]

Hello!

I wanted to report that after upgrading PyGPSClient from version 1.6.10 to 1.7.2, regarding the FIX: entry located in the top display section, it no longer displays the words TIME ONLY in red print when the GPS receiver's GPS coordinates are locked and is used exclusively for timing or for time acquisition service. It now displays 3D in green. I can sporadically make the words TIME ONLY reappear when I randomly click stop however when I click Start again it reverts back to 3D. This does not affect the performance of the program in any way, I think its just a cosmetic thing.

I'm using a ublox F10T timing receiver paired with a Raspberry Pi5 as a stratum 1 time server for my home LAN. I use PyGPSClient as a troubleshooting and satellite monitoring tool. I think the python version here is 3.14.6 (homebrew). My desktop computer is a Mac M2.

My apologies, I'm not a programmer and know very little about what goes on under the hood. I was just wondering if anyone else notices the missing TIME ONLY entry or is it a problem on my end?

Thank you!
Regards-
Stephen

[semuadmin]

Hi @ka4ymy

Sorry you're having difficulty.

What message protocol is your F10T set to output (NMEA, UBX, or both)?

A 'TIME ONLY' fix status is only consistently available via the UBX protocol; specifically from messages like NAV-PVT (fixType=5) or NAV-SOL / NAV-STATUS (gpsFix=5). This behaviour hasn't changed between versions 1.6.10 and 1.7.2. If your receiver is also outputting NMEA sentences (e.g. RMC or GLL), you may see the fix status alternate rapidly between values output by NMEA messages, and values output by UBX messages.

Try disabling all output messages except UBX NAV-PVT, NAV-SAT and NAV-DOP (those are the only UBX messages needed to fully populate PyGPSClient's top banner).

You can do this via PyGPSClient's UBX Configuration panel. The settings you need to update (via a CFG_VALSET command) are:

1. CFG_MSGOUT_UBX_NAV_PVT_USB = 1 (substitute UART1 for USB if you're connected via UART rather than USB)
2. CFG_MSGOUT_UBX_NAV_SAT_USB = 1
3. CFG_MSGOUT_UBX_NAV_DOP_USB = 1
4. CFG_MSGOUT_NMEA_ID_RMC_USB = 0, etc.

(FYI if you set the Configuration Command Recorder facility to 'Record' while you make these updates, you can save the commands as a preset and reproduce them at a later date with a single click)

Let me know if this helps.

[ka4ymy]

Hi semuadmin, and thank you for your response.

The F10T is currently set for both NMEA and UBX. It's configured for stationary mode as well as fixed lat/lon entry to achieve the most accurate timing that the thing will offer. I did verify NAV-PVT=5 and NAV-STATUS=5. I disabled everything but UBX NAV-PVT, NAV-SAT and NAV-DOP and its still reporting 3D using v1.7.2. I then fired up a backup copy of v1.6.10 on a Mac laptop and it reports TIME ONLY. So who knows. I am running PyGPSClient as a standalone program built using py2app. Google AI suggested taking this route instead of feeding it through Mac's Automator which was a bit clunky and not too user friendly. The problem may well lie in that arena. There seems to be a whole lot happening during the py2app process that could potentially go wonky which is light years outside of my understanding.

Bottom line is that it is no big deal. The program itself works great and accomplishes what I seek. I just wanted to report what I was experiencing in case it was something that might be of value to the programmers on site. At this point it's likely something on my end.

[semuadmin]

Though I doubt this is directly related to your issue, I would STRONGLY recommend ignoring anything Google AI has to say about Python deployment. py2app is a completely unnecessary complication for a package like PyGPSClient and I do NOT advocate or support this mode of deployment on any operating system. If you need tips on how to configure a desktop icon on MacOS after a standard pip installation, just ask here. On Linux, the supplied installation shell scripts are generally the quickest and easiest option.

I've just tried setting TIME ONLY mode on my own NEO-F10T (running TIM 3.01 firmware), using Stationary DynMode, and it appears to work as expected on both Mac and RPi (FYI: I generally change the baud rate to a minimum 115200 as I've found the default 38400 can produce some odd stream timeout artefacts):

Would you be able to send me a copy of a binary datalog from your receiver while its running in TIME ONLY mode? I can take a look at that and see why our results might differ.