Howto get the logger data

[ghost]

Hello, nice that there is some code for the HX870 radio.

/dev/ttyACM0

is there, when I connect the radio via USB to my Debian Linux box.

Could You provide a one liner to get the logger data?

I enabled the logger in the radio for some time to record the movement and now would like to get the logger data. Unfortunateley, Yaseu only provides the software for Windoze which I do not have. Thanks

[cr]

Hey @wodry, thanks for trying to use an unusable software! It has just undergone a major overhaul to make it somewhat usable for people familiar with python and the command line.

There is already functionality for parsing waypoint data that can be used to decode the GPS log, but neither are exposed through the command line interface, yet. The trouble is that there's about 7000 more or less common different file formats for GPS export to choose from for export (see List of GPS trace file formats for a list), and I don't know which one would be the most versatile.

What would be particularly useful to you? GPX? KML?

[cr]

I was wondering, would @johannessen perhaps haven an opinion on import/export format utility?

Perhaps importing waypoints would be most versatile as CSV? Something you don't necessarily need some waypoint/map software for.

Export isn't as critical, I think, as it should be a format widely supported by track plotting and map software.

[johannessen]

Clearly, import and export should support a common format.

Supporting a common format enables dumping waypoints and routes from the radio, modifying the data on a computer, then flashing it back to the radio. As the radio does not have a numeric keyboard, modifying numbers using the radio's built-in config menu is not a good user experience. Therefore I believe this would be a common use case.

I don’t use the HX870’s waypoints/routes feature much myself. I have a detached GPS device with map display for that purpose. So perhaps you shouldn’t put too much value in my opinion on which format to use. That said, I do think GPX would be the best choice, as it’s relatively simple and kind of the industry standard for this purpose.

The position log, which I think this issue was about, could also be exported as GPX (with a <trk> element). However, KML might perhaps be more user-friendly for beginners? I deal with spatial data all the time, so that’s hard to say for me.

[ghost]

Thanks for Your reply. I do not know anything about GPS tracking data formats. I have a quite basic interest of the track data: The length of the track. I would like it if I could lay the track data on an open map (like openstreetmap?), as a bonus.

[cr]

@wodry, let's see what investigating possible data format brings to light. Thanks for the feedback!

@johannessen, I see two majorly different use cases that import and export formats need to cover:

• Import of waypoint data, because entering waypoints on the device is a major pain.
• Export of GPS tracks for keeping a record of where you have been.

I don't know the specifics of the GPX format yet, and I am not at all confident that it supports everything we need for waypoint imports, specifically naming, ordering, and perhaps empty entries. I would absolutely want to avoid that you must switch to some graphical tool for creating a simple waypoint file when all you'd have to do is punch in a few GPS coordinates.

Exports are another story. From what you say it seems that GPX would be the perfect choice fort that.

I am not entirely convinced yet that import and export format should definitely be identical, and in the end I would like to support multiple formats for import and export anyway to accommodate multiple workflows.

[cr]

@woordy, @johannessen, #22 just landed experimental GPX export. Please feel free to give it a try and provide some feedback whether the GPX file works in your software.

[cr]

I should add that for now only the GPS log is exported. There's no support for importing or exporting waypoints, yet.

[EdwardFinegan]

I'm not an expert on this but I think once its in a GPX format it should not be hard to convert to KML with other tools if needed. My understanding is GPX stores more data types, and more meta data about the data. KML could be thought of as a subset of the information stored in GPX.

[johannessen]

Hey @cr, very nice! Aside from an issue with very long logs (#28), GPX export appears to work fine.

I would tend to ignore speed and heading data. For one thing, they appear to be rather inaccurate, at least for the HX870. For another, average speed and course between two adjacent log points can be easily calculated by the GPX consumer.

FWIW, none of my GPS devices seem to report speed and heading in their GPX tracks. GPSBabel does include them in its GPX output when available in the input data, but simply uses GPX 1.0’s <speed> and <course> elements instead of a 1.1 extension.

@edfinegan: KML and GPX are different formats for different purposes. None is a subset of the other. But they’re both XML-based, so in theory they could be extended to store just about any type of data. And when used in very simple cases such as this one, conversion is indeed easily done with GPSBabel or similar tools.

[johannessen]

@wodry: After installing hxtool, you can get the GPS log data with this one liner:

hxtool gpslog -g log.gpx

Once you have the GPX file, you could upload it at gpsvisualizer.com to get the information you’re interested in. From the “output format” menu on that page, choose “elevation profile” to obtain the track’s length or “Leaflet HTML” to draw the track with an OpenStreetMap background layer.