NOTE: THIS USER GUIDE ONLY APPLIES TO THE V3 NODE
For the CTT Node V2, please consult the appropriate user guide in the CTT User Guide Directory
Congratulations on your purchase of the new CTT Node V3! The CTT Internet of Wildlife System, of which the Node has been an integral part since the beginning, has just become significantly more powerful with this new Node. We incorporated your suggestions in developing this new Node, which offers several specific benefits and improvements over the old model:
Inside your Node shipment, you’ll find two main components (Figs. A & B): a box containing the solar-rechargeable battery pack, antennas, and mounting hardware, and the Node itself in a latched case. Figure C shows the contents of one Node laid out for identification.
Key for Figure C
In 2025, we discontinued the original 4 Watt solar-rechargeable power supply in favor of a slightly larger one that provides 5 Watts of power and a new gimbal attachment for easier and more secure positioning. In addition to the extra wattage, this supply features a USB-C port that can be used for manually recharging the batteries in the absence of solar exposure, and a new heavy-duty water-tight connector.
Figure D: New 5V solar panel as packaged for shipping. Face down with accessory parts in plastic enclosure.
Figure E: Upon removing the 5 Watt solar/battery pack, you’ll find the hardware for mounting your V3 Node and 5 Watt Solar Panel underneath.
Key for Figure F:
We have no doubt that you are excited to deploy your Nodes, so here’s a quick start guide to get you going in a few minutes.
Your Node comes with the hardware necessary to mount it to a piece of 3/4” conduit. Note that other mounting hardware is absolutely possible, so feel free to use whatever makes sense for your site.
You will also need:
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT that before powering up your Nodes, you first attach antennas to the appropriate ports on the outside of the Node case. The antennas mount on the top of the Node case and point upward. The 2.4GHz port is on the RIGHT, and the 434MHz port is on the LEFT when viewing the Node from the front. You can double-check this by matching the proper SMA port to the proper radio—on the CTT Node, the 434MHz radio is the size of a postage stamp, while the 2.4GHz radio is tiny. If you are using the antennas shipped with your Nodes, the longer one is the 2.4GHz antenna, and the shorter one is the 434MHz antenna.
Consult the photos below for a visual description of how the hardware is connected. In short, use the four screws to attach the mounting plates to the back of the Node V3. The top plate also has three holes in a triangle pattern that can be used for mounting the solar-rechargeable power supply. You can also decide to mount the power supply elsewhere if that’s more convenient or better for recharging.
There are two rectangular cutouts on each of the mounting plates that can accommodate a hose clamp for wrapping and tightening around your mast material. Zip ties or other tools may be used as well.
STOP! Have you attached the antennas to the Node first? If not, DO SO before connecting power. Otherwise, you may damage the 2.4GHz radio!
The power cable runs first through the cap
of the
cable gland
, then the rubber grommet
with the
lip of the grommet
facing toward the Node
(see
red arrow in the image below).
When you screw the cable gland cap
onto the
cable gland
, it will compress the grommet
and
seal around the cable. Before tightening, make sure the power plug is
pulled through the cable gland and into the case, and plugged into the
5V barrel jack
on the Node board. Ensure a little bit of
slack on the cable inside the case, then tighten down the cable gland
cap until there is no movement in the cable when tugged lightly. This
process both seals the entry from water and helps reduce the chance of
unintentionally pulling on the power cable and damaging the board.
We recommend final tightening of the cap with a crescent wrench, but be careful not to overtighten and crush the cable!
Once the cap is tightened, you should see the grommet compressed around the cable.
ON
: Output VoltageOFF
: No Output VoltageBlinking (1x per second)
: Charging (battery voltage
between 2.8-4.0V)Fast Blinking (2x per second)
: Not ChargingSlow Blink (1x every 2 seconds)
: Charging, but battery
voltage below 2.8VSolid ON
: Battery more than 90% chargedON
: Normal battery voltage (above 2V)OFF
: Battery is below normal voltage or otherwise in an
abnormal stateTo turn on the 5 Watt Solar Pack, press the Power button on the back of the unit. On initial start, you’ll see the battery level indicated for 8 seconds. To turn off, simply press the Power button.
To check the battery status once powered up, press the power button to turn the unit off, wait 3 seconds, then press the power button again to turn the power back on and display the charge for 8 seconds. Note: if you press the power button during the 8 seconds of charge display, you will turn the unit off.
With the new 5 Watt Solar Pack, there are 5 indicator lights on the back of the unit next to the power button: 1 square light and 4 round lights. Their behavior depends on whether the unit is powered on, off, or in startup mode.
Light Position | Light Type | Status | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Leftmost | Square | Green ON/OFF | Charging indicator - lit when there is light on the solar panel |
1st Circle | Round | Blinking Green | Power indicator - shows unit is powered on |
2nd Circle | Round | OFF | Not used when running |
3rd Circle | Round | OFF | Not used when running |
4th Circle | Round | OFF | Not used when running |
Light Position | Light Type | Status | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Leftmost | Square | Green ON/OFF | Charging indicator - lit when there is light on the solar panel |
All 4 Circles | Round | OFF | Unit is powered off |
Light Position | Light Type | Status | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Leftmost | Square | Green ON/OFF | Charging indicator - lit when there is light on the solar panel |
All 4 Circles | Round | Variable | Battery charge indicators (see table below) |
Number of Circle Lights ON | Battery Voltage Range |
---|---|
0 lights | < 3.4v |
1 light | 3.4 - 3.55v |
2 lights | 3.55 - 3.7v |
3 lights | 3.7 - 3.87v |
4 lights | 3.87 - 4.2v |
We recommend that all Nodes are placed within 1km of a SensorStation to ensure that all data is effectively transferred from the Nodes to the SensorStation. This assumes good line-of-sight between the Nodes and the SensorStation, so every installation must consider topography, vegetation, or height of Nodes and/or SensorStation antennas when estimating detection distance. Some trial and error should be expected when setting up your Node grid.
Nodes can be used for various reasons to answer a number of questions. This section assumes that Nodes are being used for localization, or estimating a location within a Node grid from multiple simultaneous Node detections. In this case, it’s important to understand the relationship between distance and signal strength between your tags and your grid of Nodes. This can be accomplished using one of your tags and a CTT Sidekick. This is covered in the Sidekick User Guide, but assuming you have a good handle on the distance at which signal strength becomes uninformative with regard to distance, you will want to ensure that your Node spacing is less than this distance. In several empirical cases, we have found that distance to be ~150m, so spacing Nodes every 100m or less is good for a number of bird species. For species that spend their life on the ground (turtles, etc.), this distance may be closer to 50m, but will ultimately require some test data collection.
The Node V3 is capable of simultaneously collecting 434MHz and 2.4GHz tag detections, making it compatible with all radio tags manufactured by CTT. The device also collects supplemental information that can be used for monitoring its health and location. The theory of operation is to capture incoming tag beeps and health data, save them to the on-board SD card, then relay them to any nearby SensorStations. Below is a list of the tasks performed by the Node under the standard configuration and adequate power levels:
(2024-07-16)
or later (Latest:
09-10-2024
)4.0.0
or laterIf you received your SensorStation after July 16, 2024, you most likely have a compatible disk image for the new CTT Node V3. To confirm this, connect a computer to your SensorStation via WiFi or Ethernet see directions here and navigate to the SensorStation Overview.
If your station indicates you are running the Disk Image from July 2024 or later, then you have a compatible version. For optimal performance, we recommend upgrading to the latest Disk Image (09-10-2024) when possible. To upgrade, flash your Raspberry Pi with the newest Disk Image per the instructions here.
If you are running a Disk Image older than July 2024, you must upgrade to use CTT Node V3.
The Radio version is displayed over each radio in the SensorStation
Overview. You need to be running v4.0.0
or later to
detect CTT Node V3.
If you are running the correct Disk Image but not the correct Radio
Firmware, you can update it from the LCD menu on your SensorStation or
from the Update Radio Firmware
button on the SensorStation
Overview page (image below).
Your CTT Node V3 has a 16GB SD card pre-installed for backup storage, as well as for manual data collection and management. As you saw from photos in Section 2, it’s now much easier to service the SD card on Node V3 compared to the previous version. We do not recommend hot-swapping the card. It is encouraged to power down the device before inserting/removing the card.
The SD card holder is spring-locked, so to remove the card, first push down on the card and you should feel it disengage when released. Now the card can be safely removed. To reinstall the card, make sure to push down to engage the spring lock, and when you release it, you should feel it lock into place. DO NOT FORCE THE CARD OUT OF OR INTO THE SLOT—doing so will void the warranty.
If you replace the SD card with your own, prior to inserting a new SD card into a Node, please ensure it has been formatted as FAT32. We strongly recommend the use of 16GB SD cards. While much larger cards are available, the underlying filesystem may be incompatible with them. Please test all new cards prior to using them in field-deployed Nodes. Each time a card is inserted, we HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you pair to the Node with CTT Mobile and verify the device is communicating with the SD card.
When properly set up, your Nodes will collect and send their data to a nearby SensorStation, not requiring you to access the SD card internal to each Node. There are reasons why we recommend periodically servicing the Node’s SD card:
The following features are available through the SD card:
Detections are stored in .csv format. In this protocol, the first row contains a list of comma-separated keys called headers. These headers are the names for each column. Each subsequent row contains the corresponding comma-separated data.
Detections from the 434MHz receiver will be saved on the SD card with the following format:
434_mhz_beep_n.csv
(Where n
is an integer
that gets incremented every time the previous file exceeds 25 MB)
The following CTT products apply to the 434MHz category:
Headers | Units | Example | Description |
---|---|---|---|
time | ISO 8601 | 2022-04-14T21:25:22Z | Time of detection [UTC] |
tag_id | Alphanumeric | 3319332D | Factory programmed identifier. Traditionally an 8-character ID, however some IDs contain an additional layer of verification which makes them 10 characters. |
rssi | dBm | -79 | RSSI is an indication of the power level being received by the receiving radio after the antenna and possible cable loss. Therefore, the greater the RSSI value, the stronger the signal. Thus, when an RSSI value is represented in negative form (e.g., −100), the closer the value is to 0, the stronger the received signal has been. |
Approximately 27 million records of type 434MHz can be saved per 1 gigabyte of SD card storage.
gps_n.csv
(Where n
is an integer that gets
incremented every time the previous file exceeds 25 MB)
Headers | Units | Example | Description |
---|---|---|---|
time | ISO 8601 | 2022-04-14T21:25:22Z | Time of location [UTC] |
latitude | Decimal Degrees | 38.296078 | The north–south position of a location on the surface of the Earth |
longitude | Decimal Degrees | -104.356331 | The east-west position of a location on the surface of the Earth |
altitude | Meters (Above Mean Sea Level) | 1428 | |
hdop | 0.68 | Dilution of precision | |
vdop | 1.36 | Dilution of precision | |
pdop | 1.31 | Dilution of precision | |
on_time | Seconds | 90 | Time the receiver was in the on state. |
health_n.csv
(Where n
is an integer that
gets incremented every time the previous file exceeds 25 MB)
Headers | Units | Example | Description |
---|---|---|---|
time | ISO 8601 | 2022-04-14T21:25:22Z | Time of health snapshot [UTC] |
up_time | milliseconds | Time (ms) since the device booted/restarted. | |
power_ok | 1 (Power is Ok) 0 (Power Not Ok) | Indicator of the power supply’s status. When the power supply is not ok, the device’s internal scheduling system stops performing certain tasks. | |
batt_mv | millivolts | Voltage of the battery (or power supply). | |
temp_battery_c | celsius | ||
charge_mv | millivolts | Average charger voltage since last health message. (Voltage sampled every 60 seconds) | |
charge_ma | milliamps | Average charger current since last health message. (Voltage sampled every 60 seconds) | |
charge_temp_c | celsius | ||
node_temp_c | celsius | ||
energy_used_mah | milliamp-hours | ||
sd_free | % | ||
sub_ghz_det |
log.nnnn
(Where n
is an integer that gets
incremented every time the previous file exceeds 25 MB)
The device writes system logs to the SD card for troubleshooting and diagnostic reasons.
If you are used to the Node V2, then you may have used Node Client to communicate with your Nodes. This is no longer needed with the Node V3, as the new Nodes can pair directly with the CTT Mobile App and changes to the Node are made directly through pairing with the app.
You can find links to both the iOS and Android versions of the CTT
Mobile App on our main user guide page here,
or by searching for CTT Mobile
in the respective app
stores.
To pair with your Node, open the CTT Mobile App on your mobile phone
and click the Connect Device
button. This
will open the Available Device page. From here, click the
Start Scan
button. This will then display
any and all Nodes within your phone’s detection range. If you
have more than one Node, a good way to determine which one is closest to
you is to use the RSSI value. Choose the Node you wish to pair
with by clicking the Connect
button. You
will get a Pairing Complete! message when you have
successfully paired with the Node. From here, click the
Go
button.
You should now be on the Details
screen. At the bottom
of the page is a menu with up to five buttons; the active page’s button
is highlighted in blue.
Details
- provides an overview of
Node Status
, Solar Charging Status
(only valid
when attached to the Solar-rechargeable Power Supply), and
Current Config
Map
- Displays a map showing your
location relative to all Nodes currently being detected that have valid
GPS fixes. Nodes without GPS fixes will not be displayed on the
map.Listen
- This page is where you can
toggle on and off viewing tag detections on both 2.4GHz and 434MHz
frequencies via the app. Note that the Node is always listening (or
is listening on a predetermined schedule if you have modified the
configuration), so toggling these buttons on and off only toggles
whether or not the app is displaying detections on your phone.Config
- This page allows you to
modify the Node config file and upload it to the Node you are paired
with in real-time.Config parameters include:
Enable/Disable LEDs
: Default = ONAdjust the Health Packet interval (min)
: Default =
15 minUplink Tx Power (Low/Med/High)
: Default =
Low. Note: this is the power used for the Node to
send data to the SensorStation and therefore only affects transmission
from the Node to the SensorStation434MHz Scan Hours (0-24)
: Default is
ALL. Note that all times are in UTC.2.4GHz Scan Hours (0-25)
: Default is
ALL. Note that all times are in UTC.⚠️ ALERT! If you shut off all 2.4GHz hours and then unpair with the Node, you will not be able to pair with it again, since you have told the Node to turn off the 2.4GHz radio indefinitely. Also, if you do set a schedule for 2.4GHz listening, you can only pair with your device during those hours when it is listening. For instance, if you are studying Monarch butterflies using the BluMorpho tags and only have the Nodes listening during the daylight hours, you will only be able to pair to your Nodes with the CTT Mobile App during those daylight hours.
Once you have set up the config as you like, click the
Submit
button to push it to the Node. Leaving the page by
clicking one of the other page buttons and then returning to the Config
page will allow you to confirm the config has been updated. If you are
working on a config and change something you don’t want to change,
simply click Reset
.
Dev
(this may not be available) -
The Developer page has three buttons at the top:
Command
- allows the user to submit various commands
to the Node and provides feedback from the Node via the output
window.
FW Update
- allows the user to upload a new firmware
file.
Clear
- clears the output console.
Clicking on the Command
button will bring up a list of
commands you can issue to the Node.
The current Node firmware as of this writing is
v0.6.0-beta
.
If you need to update your Node firmware, you can use the following steps:
Ensure you have the current Node firmware file. If you don’t, you can find it in our User Guide directory.
4.3.3
or greater to perform this
update.node3_5_1-beta.bin
or something similar.Once the upload is complete, you’ll see a Pending Firmware tile with a “Verify” button. Tap the “Verify” button.
Once the file is verified, you’ll have the option to install it. Tap the “Install” button.
After sending the install command, the Node will disconnect from the app while it installs the new firmware and reboots. You will be taken back to the Home Screen.
Wait until you see the LED lights on your Node come back on, indicating the installation is complete, and pair with the Node again.
This will take about 2 minutes.
Following the same steps as before, navigate to the Firmware Update screen.
Your screen should look like the one below.
Note: The firmware version in the images shown may not reflect the most current firmware at the time of your deployment, so use the image firmwares simply as reference to show how to read the info, and use the latest firmware files available from our support site when updating your Nodes.
Congratulations! Your Node V3 firmware has been updated! If you have any questions or issues during this process, please reach out to CTT Customer Support for assistance.
This User Guide is a living document. Your experiences and input are greatly appreciated, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to us regarding what you’d like to see included here. You can submit your suggestions and any errors to our Customer Service Desk here, and we will work to incorporate them in future revisions.
All material © Cellular Tracking Technologies, 2025.