MTKBABEL(1)

💖 MTKBABEL(1) — the group-chat guide 💖

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about mtkbabel from the General Commands Manual section. she's a command line queen and she's about to change your whole GPS situation. 🛰️✨

---

✨ NAME ✨

mtkbabel — the tool for managing GPS data loggers based on the MTK chip. no cap, that's literally her whole job.

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

mtkbabel [-abcdEfhiIlmopRrstvwx]

look at that little flag bouquet. we will go through every single one later, don't worry your pretty head. 💅

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So mtkbabel is a command line program that operates GPS data loggers built on the MediaTek MTK chip. She was tested on the i-Blue 747, the Qstarz BT-Q1000, and the Holux M-241 — and honestly she should work with other GPS devices based on the same chip too. 🫶

The main features are giving:

• Command line interface (iconic, obviously)
• Save data log in GPX and raw binary format
• If required, retrieve all the data, also the old one being overlapped
• Change logging criteria: time, distance, speed
• Change log format
• START/STOP logging
• Set OVERLAP or STOP method on memory full
• Erase the internal memory

---

🎀 USAGE 🎀

In order to use mtkbabel, please follow these instructions like the little ritual they are:

1. Attach the GPS data logger device to your computer via USB. 🔌
2. Now you have to switch the GPS device (at least the i-Blue 747) into LOG or NAV mode, otherwise the device will not be powered on, and no connection will be possible. > Beware that in NAV mode the device goes into sleep mode if not connected to any Bluetooth device. 😴
3. In order to use mtkbabel you have to either be root (not recommended) and/or you must have read/write permissions for the USB device file, usually /dev/ttyUSB0. This device usually has permissions 'crw-rw---- 1 root dialout', so you can either add your user to the dialout group (in this example) by doing

$ adduser USERNAME dialout

or (not recommended) make the device world-readable/-writable by doing:

$ chmod 666 /dev/ttyUSB0

Another option is to write a udev rules file to change the owner and permissions of /dev/ttyUSB0 according to your requirements. ✨

4. You can now run mtkbabel. For example, if you want to download the track log and the list of waypoints you captured on the device, run:

$ mtkbabel -s 115200 -l off -f foo -w -t

The default speed of 115200 baud should work in most cases and you can omit it, for the Holux M-241 you must use 38400 instead. This will turn off the autolog function, which is always turned on when you switch on the device. The track log will be in the file foo_trk.gpx, the waypoints in the file foo_wpt.gpx (both in GPX format). The file foo.bin will contain the binary log file. Downloading the data from the GPS device can take <em>several minutes</em>, depending on how much data has to be transferred. be patient babe, she's doing her best. 😭

In order to delete all data from the GPS device, run:

$ mtkbabel -s 115200 -E

---

💅 OPTIONS 💅

here's the main event, bestie. every flag, no skips, no shortcuts. 🍓

• -a — Read all the log memory (overlapped data).
• -b filename.bin — Do not read data from a GPS device, but rather read a previously saved .bin file. Ignore -f option.
• -c — Create a GPX file with both tracks and waypoints.
• -d debug_level — Debug level: 0..7.
• -E — Erase data log memory.
• -f — Base name for saved files (.bin and .gpx). If you, for example, use -f gpslog, mtkbabel will create files which are called gpslog.gpx, gpslog_trk.gpx, gpslog_wpt.gpx and gpslog.bin.
• -h — Show a help text and exit.
• -i — Ignore some error conditions and try to extract as much data as possible from GPS.
• -I — Same as -i, but also write bad records into the GPX file.
• -l {on|off} — Turn logging ON/OFF.
• -m {stop|overlap} — Set STOP/OVERLAP recording method on memory full.
• -o log_format — Enable or disable log fields (FIELD1,-FIELD2,...), available fields: UTC, VALID, LATITUDE, LONGITUDE, HEIGHT, SPEED, HEADING, DSTA, DAGE, PDOP, HDOP, VDOP, NSAT, SID, ELEVATION, AZIMUTH, SNR, RCR, MILLISECOND, DISTANCE.
• -p port — Communication port, default: /dev/ttyUSB0.
• -R — Recover from disabled log: erase data and reset recording criteria.
• -r time:distance:speed — Set logging criteria (zero to disable): every 0.10-9999999.90 seconds, every 0.10-9999999.90 meters, over 0.10-9999999.90 km/h. Not all the devices support such wide ranges, more reasonable values are 1-999 seconds, 10-9999 meters and 10-999 km/h.
• -s speed — Serial port speed, default 115200 baud.
• -t — Create a GPX file with tracks.
• -v — Show version information and exit.
• -w — Create a GPX file with waypoints.
• -W weeks — Add the specified weeks count to timestamps, to fix the Weeks Rollover Bug. Try -W 1024 or multiples, or use -W -1 to guess the rollover count from current time.
• -x — Force reading Holux format. This is required to read-back the binary data produced by some Holux devices, which do not embed into the data itself the Holux identifier string.

---

💀 BUGS 💀

Please report any bugs to Niccolo Rigacci <niccolo@rigacci.org>. be nice about it, she's trying. 🙈

---

👑 LICENCE 👑

mtkbabel is covered by the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2 or later. slay, legally speaking. ⭐

---

🌈 AUTHORS 🌈

Niccolo Rigacci <niccolo@rigacci.org>

This manual page was written by Uwe Hermann <uwe@hermann-uwe.de>. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL (version 2 or later). 💜

---

and that's the whole thing, bestie — this page came to you from the General Commands Manual collection, dated October 11, 2019, and it's giving main character energy from start to finish. go log some tracks. periodt. 💅✨🦋