Designed and manufactured in Boulder, Colorado, USA, the SparkFun RTK Reference Station is the perfect solution for your high-precision geolocation, surveying, and time reference needs. For basic users, it is incredibly easy to set up a fixed location NTRIP server, enabling RTK for rovers and even as an NTP server for equipment synchronization and an astoundingly accurate time base.
RTK is short for Real Time Kinematics. A satellite positioning receiver capable of RTK takes in the normal signals from the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) along with a correction data stream to achieve improved positional accuracy. GNSS includes satellites from GPS (USA), GLONASS (Russia), Beidou (China), Galileo (Europe), plus special additional satellites (e.g., SBAS and QZSS). On their own, these signals will deliver ~30cm positional accuracy. An RTK receiver takes in an additional Real Time Correction Message (RTCM) data stream and then calculates the device's location with 1cm accuracy in real-time. RTK works best when the correction data is generated locally; the 'Rover' receiver accuracy degrades as the distance (baseline) between it and the 'Base' generating the corrections increases. With just a few minutes of setup, the SparkFun Reference Station allows you to generate that correction data locally and share it via Ethernet!