I have been experiencing significantly worse RTK GPS performance compared to last season and was trying to figure out what changed. The GPS signal quality has become so bad that it is affecting normal operation in areas where I previously had no signal issues whatsoever.
While inspecting the RTK antenna on the DC and checking the antenna fitment and seal on the Core, I noticed that one of the antenna housings felt loose and wobbly. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the entire outer shell of the antenna had completely separated and came off with almost no effort, as if it had never been properly glued or sealed from the factory.
What I found inside was even more concerning. There is visible rust and corrosion in the lower section of the antenna. Considering that these antennas survived one summer and one winter without any obvious problems, it appears that water has been slowly getting inside due to poor sealing and has now started damaging the internal components.
Frankly, this is unacceptable for equipment that is marketed for outdoor use and is expected to remain outside year-round. It is hard not to suspect that the deteriorating GPS performance and repeated RTK signal loss are directly related to moisture intrusion and corrosion inside the antenna. The timing certainly matches the degradation I have been seeing.
I also have to wonder how many other Yarbo owners experiencing poor GPS accuracy, weak RTK reception, random positioning issues, or signal dropouts are actually dealing with the same antenna defect without realizing it. If the antenna sealing is this poor, I would expect many more failures as these units age and spend additional seasons outdoors.
To make matters worse, I opened support ticket #205771 regarding this issue, and Yarbo has not provided any response for the last four days. Given the severity of the problem and the apparent hardware defect, the lack of communication from support is extremely frustrating.
It is outdoor rated but I think there was a batch that had some sealing issues. I had one come apart in my hands one time swapping from high to low mounts. I hope that they make the Pro antennas the new standard RTK antenna. Those are far more robust and work better too.
Hi Bryan, appreciate your response but I want @Yarbo to reply and respond to my ticket. They should be sending the pro Antennas for everyone that had bad batch for their frustration and lost time and doing QA for them.
Sorry for the inconvenience caused. I’ve asked our support team to review your ticket #205771 as soon as possible, and I’ve also shared the issue you described with our team for further attention.
Yea my Yarbo only arrived a few weeks ago, and since it started raining I’ve been having increasing GPS dropouts, escalating to the point where it’s now been permanently offline for a week. I’ve taken the antennas off, made sure the antenna fittings are dry, but still no-go. I suspect they are full of water inside. Can’t confirm that though without breaking one open which I’m not about to do. I’ve been waiting for a response from support for some days now and finally thought I’d do my own research, then did a 3 way swap of the antennas L/HRover > Data Center and R/H Rover > Data Center and found the data centre will not come online with either of the rover’s antennas fitted. The rover goes from 0 satellites to 23 with the Data Center antenna fitted to the L/H position.
Would everyone agree it’s pretty conclusive to say both antennas from the rover are U/S?
At first I thought surely I couldn’t have 2x faulty antennas…but then again…if they all have the same design flaw with weatherproofing, then it does make sense that 2 antennas exposed to the same conditions would fail together…
It is certainly possible. You could switch to NetRTK to eliminate the need for the DC antenna to work. Save your maps first in case it wipes them, you can restore it from the cloud. I’d get a couple of antennas ordered, at least if support sends you new ones, you will have some spares on hand.
Or another advice, switch to HA-901 antennas. Lower profile (but larger). Don’t hit as many obstacles (booke 4 antennas in the last 6 weeks, but not since I made the switch) and signal is more stable (and empirically I think L2 lock is faster and I have slightly more detected satellites for L2). And you can get them for 31 CAD on amazon (and even cheaper on Aliexpress if you can wait for them to ship)
Thanks everyone…while I’m waiting for responses from support I’ve ordered a pair of HA-901’s.
I have played with NetRTK, however haven’t had too much success with that, perhaps because my large and hilly property has limited 4g and WiFi coverage…I’ll wait for the new antennas and we’ll see…
Definitely need to use HaLow over WiFi and failover to 4G whenever HaLow is poor. WiFi can be hit or miss for some systems/people. It can also cause some weird connection issues.
It will prioritize in this order (or it’s supposed to). HaLow, WiFi, Cellular. As one fails, it switches to the next.
Yes, your core will need GPS reception for sure for NetRTK to work. But a number of things can present as poor GPS with the Yarbo system. If you have no data path for RTCM, the DC has poor GPS signal, etc. What specific issue are you seeing?
I’m offsite at the moment, so can’t make a bluetooth connection to the DC right now, only via the web and I don’t think that’s available remotely? Won’t be back there till tomorrow. I’ll come back to you with a screenshot when I can.
I’m almost positive the antennas on the rover are dead…when I swapped the L/H rover antenna with the DC antenna, the DC went offline and the rover picked up 23 satellites…swap back, and rover 0 satellites, DC goes green…
