How to Connect

How to connect to the RTK2go software service.

Terms of Use:
By sending your data stream to this Caster you affirm that
a) you have the right to do so, and
b) you consent to allow others to freely use your data, and
c) the caster owner / operator shall be held harmless for any faults or loss – real or perceived.
The caster owner / operator (SCSC) reserves the right to remove or block any party for abuse.

Connecting as a Data User… (users, rovers, tractors)

When connecting to RTK2go as an NTRIP Client no log-on account is required (for the user name just provide a valid email and and the password value is ignored).

Point your NTRIP client to: rtk2go.com:2101 (port 2101).
Select the valid MountPt name you want and enter it (this string is case sensitive)
For the user account, enter your email.
For the password enter “none” (the Caster will ignore this value but some software requires it be present).

Please enter a valid email as the user name (i.e. me@myMail.com) then the SNIP Caster (the software the runs RTK2go) will be able to send you limited email reports about what went wrong when your connection attempt does not work. This can be very helpful for quick self debugging uses and is unique to SNIP® NTRIP Casters. We will not use your email for any other purposes.

If your NTRIP Client software cannot resolve DNS names, point it to: 3.143.243.81:2101

You can connect using either NTRIP Rev1 style or Rev2.
Many low-end NTRIP Clients only support Rev1.

Useful Tips To Select the MountPt

If you wish to see a current list of the valid MountPt names
(the Base Stations) that are present on the caster at any given time,
click on: www.RTK2go.com:2101/SNIP::STATUS
and then click on any MountPt to see a more detailed report about it.

If you wish to see a map display of these valid MountPt names,
click on: monitor.use-snip.com/?hostUrl=rtk2go.com&port=2101
and then press View All to see a map.

Connecting as a Data Provider… (Base Stations)

When connecting to this site as an NTRIP Server (to send data to RTK2go) a reservation with a connection password is needed. Point your server to: rtk2go.com:2101 (port 2101). Any well formed NTCIP connection with a prior reservation is allowed (both Rev1 and Rev2 style NTRIP connections are fully supported).

Note: All New Base Station Users: Please Register before use

Due to an inability to contact a few users who often send in bad connections for many days at a time (and hence get banned), we require a simple registration process soon where a working contact email will be needed. Access to, and use of, the RTK2go Caster will remain free, but we need to take this step to mitigate unintentional abuse. Use the above link to register now and avoid any downtime.

Note: Once your data stream use an reservation, then the private password assigned for that reservation must be used and you must use the NTRIP style it was assigned (Rev1 or Rev2 style). Any of these values can be changed it you need it, just drop us an email with the requested changes.

To repeat, as a data user you do not need a registered user name to connect (but should use your email); either when getting data (NTRIP Client) or when sending data (NTRIP Server) to the Caster. If your software requires a name, enter anything you wish, the SNIP Caster will simply ignore it.

Note: For those connecting with NTRIP Rev2 protocol devices. SNIP also accepts these connections, but your Base Station reservation must be setup that way (see the above link to make a reservation). If your device requires very short passwords (read: Trimble requires 6 chars or less on some models) or you have any other account restrictions, please note any such needs in your application.

Note: For those connecting with RTKLIB based software devices. You can only connect with Rev1, as Rev2 is not yet supported in that code base. Please do not request a Rev2 reservation for any Base Station using that software.

Note: For those connecting with uBlox uCenter devices. In NTRIP the names of Base Stations (stream names) are always case sensitive. You must match the case of the stream you wish to use. There was a known a problem with certain older copies of that software where everything is limited to names with upper case.

Picking Your Stream Name…

The name that you pick will be unique to you and your data stream. Please try to follow these simple rules:

If there is a name conflict (a dupe), the SNIP Caster will rename the stream to make it unique. This may confuse your NTRIP Client users who expect the initial name. Dupe names are not allowed with the RTK2go Caster and will not be registered.
If there is a conflict from the characters used (such as a “;” in the name) the SNIP Caster will reject the connection. This rarely occurs because most reputable software prevents entering such data.
Use the ASCII characters a~z, A~Z and ,-_ to avoid issues (no commas or spaces are allowed). Do not start with a digit.
All mountPt names are a single string with no white space allowed. So “My MountPt” is not valid, but “MyMountPt” is valid.
All mountPt names are always case sensitive. So “MyMountPt” and “myMountPT” as considered two different streams.
Do not pick the mountPt name “SNIP” as this mountPt string is reserved for special remote command and control uses for Pro users and its abuse can lead to your IP being banned. A few other text terms are also restricted.
If you are aware that users will enter your mountPt with gloves on (Precision Ag in the winter time), consider using lower case letters and keeping it short.
Please keep in mind you are not the only user with an Ag Leader, Emilid, EOS, Hemisphere, John Deere, Emlidreach, Leica, RTKLIB, Septentrio, Spectra, Topcon, Test, Trimble, uBlox, etc. etc. Base Station device. So it is best to avoid using that as the only name string – plus someone probably already has it.
See the note below on this topic.
[Aside: Here is a real-time current list of the software that recently connected to RTK2go.]
Similarity, rather generic terms like “test” or “baseStation” should be avoided to prevent conflicts.
Please keep in mind also that just because you do not see a name conflict right now, another habitual user may connect their data stream when you normally sleep. There are several thousand existing reservations on this Caster. Again, reservations solve that.

This article can be helpful to understand how to read a mountPt in SNIP as well as many other NTRIP tools.

The most common connection problem seen on the RTK2go.com NTRIP Caster is from a “confused” device seeking data from a mountPt that either has never been there, or is no longer present at that moment. This Caster gets well over a million such connections every month.

Note: Bad Choices for Base Station names

In recent months we have seen a large number of Base Station streams rejected due to the selecting a “common” name rather than a unique one. Every station must have a unique name on the Caster it appears on, and SNIP will force this when required. With thousands of reservation now in place on RTK2go, most any common name you can think of is already taken by someone else. When you try to use that name, the default password will not match (nor the IP) and you will be rejected. Do this many times in a row and your IP will be banned for a period of time (your IP can be banned for many other reasons). Worse yet, when two people try this on a common name which is not yet reserved, they can each knock the other off. Name conflicts are an enviable problem when running an open Caster. We have now reserved a number of these names to prevent this problem from growing. Please do not use any of the following as your own Base Station name: Base, ESO, ESOTEST, Esotest, F9, F9P, Leica, mpt, MPT, NVS, Rover, SNIP, Emlidreach, Test, Topcon, Trimble, Ublox, ublox, UBX. This is only a partial representative list. An easy way to overcome this for your own needs is the add a few unique characters to the name such as: ESOTEST ⇒ESOTEST-myCity.

Long term vs short term connections

Either is fine to do. There are no limits on usage. Some data providers leave their streams up 24+7 at all times. Others elect to send data only when they need to conduct a field campaign. We do not collect archival data from these streams and place them on an FTP site. You can easily do that yourself with your own copy of SNIP if needed.

What can be there…

The number or the diversity of streams which you (or your end users) NTRIP clients will see at any given time depends on who else is logged at that time and providing (non hidden) stream data. Recently (3Q 2022) Base station counts tend to number 500+ at any given time.

Hints:

A quick way to see a map of current data sources is this link, then press the “View All” button at the right side to see the table presented as a map.

A quick way to see if any data source was once present but is no long present is this link, scroll down to the “Former Data Streams” section and you will see it listed.

If you see your own IP listed in the temporarily banned IPs list, it implies you have failed to connect for some reason a few hundred times recently. Please correct this. The normal ban / block periods is about 3 hours, but repeat offenders and those who are banned for more aggressive abusive can have bans lasting several weeks. Very aggressive repeat offenders are blocked at the router firewall and never reach the Caster host at all

At any given time you will see hundreds of RTCM 3.x correction streams from all over the world. This is shared resource, but just inform your local users what unique mountPt name is yours. And please tell your users to log on with an email for the account name! Please keep in mind that mount point names are case sensitive. This article can be helpful.

Most published streams are in the RTCM 3.x format, but there is no restriction or limit on this. The uBlox proprietary format is also popular for 6T, 8M, and Fp9 devices (uBlox is a low cost GNSS chip-set maker). Often people use the RTKLIB‘s STRSVR (Stream Server) tool (written by Tomoji Tokasu) to translate these device feeds into RTCM 3.x before pushing them to RTK2go, or to their own copy of SNIP.

On Parsing

This Caster uses SNIP‘s intelligent “auto parsed” mode. If RTCM 3.x data is found, the data will be parsed, the RTCM 3.x content will be filtered, and Caster Table Entry will be filled out for you.

If RTCM 3.x data is not found (or it is found mixed with other content such as uBlox), than whatever you send to it in PUSH-In mode is available to others. You (that is, your NTRIP Server software) needs to also fill out the Caster Table entry for your data in the normal way. Sending CMR/CMR+ data will also result in the data stream not being parsed, so all the data you provide is then sent on the connected users. If you reservation states what the expected format is, that value will be used.

Most network operators prefer to run their own copy of SNIP in with the default parsed mode enabled, so that any inbound RTCM 3.x streams will have the caster table entries automatically filled in and/or corrected for them. And incidentally, most network operators do not you want you to send them your data stream unannounced.

[SNIP owner/operators: You can use the List Recent IPs… button (on the Clients Tab next to the List Current Users… button) to see a list of the IP addresses that have tried to connect to you. This button is also available as a report in the document viewer. The Ban.. button allows managing the list of IPs which have been banned/blocked for a periods of time for abuse. Several other management tools are there as well. The RTK2go machine has been set with fairly aggressive ban limits due to the high number of ‘confused’ users it can get. The ban process can be set to be much more aggressive for NTRIP Server connections than it is for NTRIP Client connections.]