TerraStar Support Bulletin | L-Band Beam Table Revision

Issue Summary:

TerraStar and Oceanix correction services deliver precise GNSS corrections to users worldwide via L-Band beams from geostationary satellites and over IP delivery. Between January 21 and March 4, 2022, there was an invalid message value which was broadcasted automatically over L-Band. This impacts some OEM6 receivers that were powered on and tracking L-Band during this period.

Products Affected:

OEM6 L-Band capable products that were powered on and tracking L-Band satellites between January 21, 2022 and March 4, 2022.
Users with ASSIGNLBANDBEAM configured to ‘AUTO’ (this is the default setting) are more likely to experience the impact. Users operating in Western Europe and Western Africa are most likely to experience the impact.

Impact:

Time period of impact: January 21 to March 4, 2022.
In some cases, this incorrect message resulted in an error on OEM6 receivers. This may appear as communication output errors from the receiver.

Mitigation:

As of March 4, 2022 the beam table values have been updated and the correct values are now being broadcasted globally to all active users.

Receivers will need to be configured to ASSIGNLBANDBEAM MANUAL [Beam ID] to receive the updated beam table. Manual beam assignment will allow the receiver to operate normally. The correct beam for a user’s location can be found based on the coverage map. For example, the command to manually track the 25E beam is:

ASSIGNLBANDBEAM MANUAL 25E

Once the beam table is updated, the SID09 entry will no longer be visible in the LBANDBEAMTABLE log. Beam table updates are transmitted over L-Band once per hour. Once the beam table is updated, the receiver can be configured to ASSIGNLBANDBEAM AUTO again as normal.

Note that no action is required for OEM6 users inactive during the period of impact.

Once updated the beam table will show something similar to the example below, with no SID09 entry:

[COM2]<LBANDBEAMTABLE COM2 0 65.5 UNKNOWN 0 1.176 00000000 f3b2 14798

< 7

< "AORE" "A" 1545855000 1200 -15.50 1

< "AORW" "B" 1545845000 1200 -54.00 1

< "IOR" "C" 1545865000 1200 64.50 1

< "POR" "D" 1545905000 1200 178.00 1

< "25E" "E" 1545825000 1200 25.00 1

< "143.5E" "F" 1545835000 1200 143.50 1

< "98W" "G" 1545865000 1200 -98.00 1

Reference:

Commands and logs can be found in the OEM6 Firmware Reference Manual.

• ASSIGNLBANDBEAM page 75
• LBANDBEAMTABLE page 503

Please contact support.novatel@hexagon.com with any questions.