Transport and Power
A perfectly configured correction stream is useless if it never reaches a rover, and a base that stops broadcasting partway through a session is often worse than one that never started, since the gap can go unnoticed until well after the fact.
Getting a correction stream from base to rover, and keeping the base powered and protected long enough to matter, are practical engineering decisions with real, well-established options at every budget and every duration, from a single afternoon to an unattended, multi-week installation.
Choosing How the Stream Actually Travels
A direct, local radio link, traditional UHF, or a modern, inexpensive alternative such as ESP-NOW, WiFi, or LoRa, all covered in the fourth companion of this series, suits a base and rover working within a limited range of each other with no dependence on cellular coverage at all. NTRIP over a cellular or internet connection suits a wider working range, or a base whose corrections need to reach more than a handful of rovers at once, at the cost of depending on a connection the radio-based options do not need.
The choice between a direct radio link and NTRIP is really a choice about working range and rover count, not simply about which technology sounds more modern. Both remain entirely valid, current options for different shapes of project.
Power for the Length of the Job
A base running for a single day can often work from battery power alone, matched simply to the session's expected length. A semi-permanent installation running unattended for weeks needs a genuinely reliable power plan, solar with adequate battery backup, a mains connection, or some deliberate combination, sized with real margin rather than assumed to work because it worked once during a shorter test.
A power setup that worked fine during a short test session is not automatically adequate for a multi-week, unattended installation. Longer duration exposes power and weather problems a short session would never have revealed at all.
Weather Protection Scaled to Duration
A temporary, single-session base needs only enough physical protection to survive that one day's conditions. A semi-permanent installation needs enclosures and mounting genuinely rated for sustained outdoor exposure, sun, rain, and temperature swings across its entire intended lifespan, not simply sturdy enough to survive being set up once.
A base performed flawlessly during a two-hour test session using battery power and a simple weatherproof bag. Is that setup ready for a three-week unattended deployment? Not necessarily. A short, successful test says little about power endurance or weather resilience over a much longer, unattended duration.
Transport, whether a direct local radio link or NTRIP over cellular or internet, should match the working range and rover count a project actually needs. Power and weather protection should be sized to the installation's real duration, not assumed adequate simply because a shorter test succeeded.
Getting a base running is not the same as knowing it keeps running correctly. The next chapter covers what to actually check, and how often.