Feedback from the German "Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy" www.bkg.bund.de :)

[Robert Michel]

Salve Sean, *!

Robert Michel schrieb am Mittwoch, den 13. Dezember 2006 um 16:04h:
> Beside to have free sources for the data, 

I have had a mail contact with Mr. Christian Waese from the BKG,
and their data casts on www.euref-ip.net or www.igs-ip.net
are useable for everybody - free of charge and without any restriction,
even to build own product and services.
*g*

Infomation about their GNSS data cast
http://igs.bkg.bund.de/index_ntrip.htm
=> Documentation

Till now I don't have an exact clue how to use NTRIP for AGPS, 
on this page is a hint that a RTCM 2.3 Typ 17 stream would help
for AGPS - probably the Typ 17 is possible to generate from 
the proffered free casts.

And the bkg sells a server based on icecast to (re)broadcast their
cast: "Standard NtripCaster, Vers. 0.1.5 (GPL)
http://igs.bkg.bund.de/root_ftp/NTRIP/documentation/NtripCaster.pdf
but they are selling it for 500 Euro.

Without this fee it would be very easy to rebroadcast
their cast and reduce the request for cast accounts from
our side. 
At the moment I'm not shure if and how the free data cast
from euref-ip.net would help us and without developing/hacking
this data is not interesting, nor cool nor usefull for 
OpenMoko/Neo1973.

So *please* (my wish) register for an direct access only when
you are planing to hack with NTRIP/RTCM/AGPS for more than
just a quick view.
Getting a free rebroadcast running would maybe the first
"next step". So when somebody have experiances with icecast
or have a clue how to rebroadcast without paing the 500 Euro
fee... ;)



The BGK is not working on AGPS, their focus is on monitoring
GNSS and operate reference receiving stations - so their time to 
work with AGPS and their knowledge about AGPS is limited.
But Mr. Waese personaly found the OpenMoko/Neo1973 project 
interesting/ he is anxious how it will develope...
I think this is not equivalent that he will play with
OpenMoko/Neo1973 in his spare time soon, but it sounded 
like what I have already thought:
"OpenMoko/Neo1973 will excite interrest by people working
with geodesy, especialy at the universities."

Sean, what do you thing about a "contract award" with some
devices that geodesy instituts (already active with open source/
GNU/Linux) could discribe ideas what they would like to
do with OpenMoko/Neo1973 that his instituts would get
one/two devices/institut for free (for a periode)?

Because AGPS is a new issue they could do:
- research with AGPS
- some development with open source software
- use it in there lectures, now indoor
  because of GNU/Linux a NX client could transmitt
  the user interface to the professor's laptop, connected
  to the big video-projector 
- use it on conferneces

So this all would motivate professores, memberes of the institut
and students to work with OpenMoko/Neo1973 and imagine when
a part (>25%) of all geodesy students of the university would
by a Neo1973 themself and starts to "play" with OpenMoko/Neo1973.


So even when AGPS is not necessary to have GPS working indoor,
it would worth to work with this and to try to find interest
for OpenMoko/Neo1973 from Geodesy instituts and students :)

Greetings,
rob