Quoting R&S PostMan II brochure "[...] another feature is the capability to track mobile stations by using the global positioning system (GPS). If a station is equipped with a GPS receiver, position data can be transmitted in addition to the actual data after analysis of the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) 0183 protocol [1]. The current position of and the route covered by each mobile station can thus be tracked from a command center". The standard package includes an interface with scanned maps as below: in the left side a screenshot from PostMan and in the right side the correspondent map available from the web [2].
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| Fig. 1 |
After analyzing some recordings, I think this system is the one used by BPol (Bundespolizei See) for tracking their patrol vessels: positions are transmitted on HF to the ashore command center using RSX.25 protocol over GM-2X00 waveforms as discussed here.
After removing the GM-2X00 waveform and decoding the RSX.25 bitstream, it is possible to see the UUCP commands that are responsible for transferring a Bzipped file from BPOLBP23 (patrol vessel "Bad Düben", now out of service) to BPOLBPLEZSEE_HF (Operations Center HQ Cuxhaven).
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| Fig. 2 - RSX.25 bitstream |
login: UBPOLBPLEZSEE_HF <MPL>2016-11-28 15:49:52+01,BPOLBP23;2016-11- BPOLBPLEZSEE_HF 15:49:52+01,BPOLBP23; 2016-11-28 15:47:45+01,BPOLBP26</MPL> Connected
Shere=BPOLBP23_HF SBPOLBPLEZSEE_HF -pz -vgrade=z -R -N07 ROKN07 Pyie
Uy ¸ HN = #E D.05PK D.BPOLBP2C05PK uucp -C D.05PK 0666 "" 0x66 rsgpsadd
ƒ!Z)vL@¬“4m˜ßÐ{ f ã BZh91 ...
The UUCP session has been described in detail in this post, here it's more interesting to dwell on the piped commands uucp file | rsgpsadd:
D.05PK D.BPOLBP2C05PK uucp -C D.05PK 0666 "" 0x66
D.05PK = file to send
D.BPOLBP2C05PK = file name on slave (should be D.BPOLBP2505PK)
uucp = application requesting the file transfer
-C = file has been copied to the spool directory
0666 = mode of file on master for outgoing files
0x66 = 102 Bytes file size
rsgpsadd
rsgpsadd = command to be executed after the transfer, most likely stands for "R&S GPS Add". This program will process the sent file D.05PK, probably unpacking it and store the lines into a database for the further graphic elaboration (map display).
BZh9
here starts the D.05PK file which is sent in Bzip compressed way:
BZ = Signature (0x425A magic number)
h = Bzip2 (h is for Huffman coding)
9 = increments of 100 kB block-size uncompressed
The compressed file, once unpacked, consists of two lines, each consisting of four values separated by commas "timestamp, vessel, latitude, longitude" as in the transmission heard on August 10 at 0806 in which the vessel Bayreuth (BPOLBP25), comunicates its position at times 0737 and 0757 (CEST):
2017-08-10 07:37:48 +02, BPOLBP25, 54.023927, 10.800935
2017-08-10 07:57:47 +02, BPOLBP25, 54.023125, 10.800987
Some comments about these files.
GPS Devices can create a file saving the route they are taken and these files are usually stored in a format called NMEA 0183. Now, as can be seen from the mentioned brochure ("... after analysis of the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) 0183 protocol") I believe the 0183 format files cannot be read directly by PostMan so they must be converted into a new file format. Well, the format of the files piped to rsgpsadd command looks like the Waypoint file format. In the waypoint format each line contains a triplet of values separated by commas, these values are a text string (optional), a latitude value and a longitude value. In the rsgpsadd files it seems that each waypoint line, consisting of the triplet "vessel, latitude, longitude", is preceded by a timestamp string that could be a header value added during the 0183-waypoint conversion. By the way, notice that R&S already developed the "GPS Route Converter" program (NMEA 0183 to waypoint files) to be used by the R&S SMU200A Vector Signal Generator [3]: maybe parts and knowledges from that software is used/embedded in this PostMan application, who knows?
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| Fig. 3 |
I tried to use some rsgpsadd commands, recordered on 26 August (2017), to trace the patrol vessel BPOL21 by using a .kml file and google Earth application [4]: these rsgpsadd commands update the position with a resolution of 10 minutes
2017-08-26 09:02:08 +02, BPOLBP21, 54.4225, 12.271833
2017-08-26 09:12:09 +02, BPOLBP21, 54.414833, 12.252
2017-08-26 09:22:09 +02, BPOLBP21, 54.4075, 12.2325
2017-08-26 09:32:09 +02, BPOLBP21, 54.4, 12.212833
2017-08-26 09:42:09 +02, BPOLBP21, 54.3925, 12.193167
2017-08-26 09:52:09 +02, BPOLBP21, 54.385, 12.173
below the map I obtained, the vessel was moving from right to left
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| Fig.4 |
[1] https://www.nmea.org/.../nmea_0183_v_410.asp
[2] http://fishing-app.gpsnauticalcharts.com
[3] https://cdn.rohde-schwarz.com/...GPS_route_converter.pdf
[4] http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/map_input?form=googleearth
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