Telemetry sim card woes

[SwedishKnievel]

Just got off the phone with ATT. They tell me that my SIM card is 4G/LTE and not 3.5G as I requested when I got it at the ATT store. Further, they tell me that they cannot provision the SIM to 3.5G and rather I have to go back to a store and get a new 3.5 SIM.

Does this correlate to others' experience?

[brentp]

That does not seem to make sense from my experience.

You can get a SIM card targeted for a tablet plan (not phone) and it will work in your RaceCapture system.

However, the easiest way to do it is to simply get a FreedomPop SIM card - $0/month for 200MB of data - and it is AT&T based.

https://www.autosportlabs.com/freedompo ... telemetry/

[SwedishKnievel]

Looks like the free one is no longer available. Which one will work?

[brentp]

Search for $0.99 SIM - this should pop up a link that lets you get the 99 cent SIM:

https://www.freedompop.com/offer/cent-s ... gLNtPD_BwE

After signing up and receiving your SIM, ensure you downgrade all of the extra services until your monthly bill shows $0, assuming that's what you want.

[SwedishKnievel]

@Brentp thanks. I placed the order. I will update once it arrives. Thanks for the info.

[SwedishKnievel]

Got the freedompop sim, installed it, configured it, cycled the power a couple of times, and, it works!

Before I could get it to work, however, I had to toggle a number of settings having to do with data logging and background streaming. Honestly, I am very confused as to how this is all to work.

These are the things that are confusing me:

1. How and when does the RCPIII begin and end sending telemetry data?
2. If telemetry is being sent, is data also recorded elsewhere?
3. What happens, for example, at a track where the cell signal is weak? Does the RCPIII store data until it obtains a signal good enough to send it?
4. What settings affect the sending of telemetry? There seem to be a number of them and they are in different places in the U/I.

Thanks

[brentp]

Glad you got it to work. To answer your questions:

1. RaceCapture/Pro transmits data immediately if the "background streaming" switch is on. If off, then it only start streaming when the SD card logging is activated.

2. It can be recorded to SD card at the same time - see the "Automatic Control" feature under Setup. Be sure to test it before hitting the track.

3. If the cell signal is weak, it may interrupt transmission. However, all of your data will be recorded to SD card locally. You can upload the SD card contents to Podium after the fact for a complete session.

4. Settings are under Telemetry for controlling when telemetry is active, and under Wireless, for setting up your cellular carrier.

Hope this helps!

[kwenzel]

I've had two good sessions with my RCP3, both test days in a spec miata, and in both cases telemetry seemed to work fine with a freedompop SIM. I've moved it over to my autocross car, and noticed that now the RCP3 doesn't seem to even see the SIM (see attachment). It shows as "not initialized" - and the screen doesn't seem to change whether or not the SIM is installed.

[brentp]

Hi,

You might want to double check the SIM card is inserted properly, and that cellular telemetry is turned on under wireless. Also check that your freedom pop SIM is active - they tend to go dormant after a period of non use.

Barring that, you can go through the troubleshooting steps here:
https://wiki.autosportlabs.com/RaceCapt ... r_activity

[kwenzel]

Turned out to be simpler - without background streaming enabled (I disabled this to avoid ad-hoc events appearing every time the RCP3 powered up), it doesn't seem to try to talk to the cell network (no [cell] messages in log, etc). Enable background streaming, or... well, just wait until I'm actually logging via trigger, and it works just fine.