This weekend my goal is to get my uBlox LEA-6 module connected to my ARM processor. I have lots of other things I have to do this weekend (pay bills, …) but with a good following sea I should be able to make the goal. Fingers crossed.
Over the last few months I have been scouting for a good place to test. Here in New Hampshire everything is overgrown by trees. Its hard to find any open space like a parking lot with a clear view of the south sky. South sky visibility is important as the WAAS GPS geosync satellite is parked over the equator of the west coast of the Americas.
So far, I have only found three places. Two are school parking lots that tend to have activity on them during evening and weekend hours. This makes testing tough as I have to abort if either there are cars in the lot, or I start to attract attention from the neighbor hood kids.
The last place is the parking lot at my work place. One parking lot is deserted even during the working day. On weekends I have never seen any cars. But being a large defense contractor, we have lots of security and rules and regulations that would prevent me from just showing up one day. So last week I put out an email to my new manager to ask his help in figuring out the right people to approach to try to make my request smooth. Before I knew it, I had multiple levels of management involved and an email trail a mile long.
My last email was a detailed request to the “Mayor” of the facility’s parking lot I want to use. It included the size of the unit, the frequencies and power of the radios, the chemical makeup of all the parts (for environmental impact), details of all ancillary equipment, a statement that still and video photography would not be used, and a host of other details.
The “Mayor” is an individual responsible for orchestrating a pleasant place to work. They coordinate fundraisers, employee activities, and generally attempt to integrate a social life into the work place. They had a positive response to my email and I may be on my way to getting approval. Anticipation….