Android keep socket connection open on thread

thank you for your help.

I'm trying to stream sensor data from my android device to a server via TCP socket. I'm fairly new to Android and threads are a tough concept for me to grasp.

I have two methods, connectToServer() and sendDataToServer(). connectToServer() is called once at startup and sendDataToSever() is called over and over again at about 100 HZ. I would like to open the socket at connectToServer() and leave it open always, so that sendDataToServer() can send data on that socket repeatedly.

public static void connectToServer(){
    sendThread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
        public void run() {
            mySocket = null;
            os = null;
            try {
                mySocket = new Socket(PC_IP, PORT);
                os = new DataOutputStream(mySocket.getOutputStream());
            } catch (UnknownHostException exception) {
                Log.d("sunnyDay", exception.getMessage());
            } catch (IOException exception) {
                Log.d("sunnyDay", exception.getMessage());
            }
        }
    });
    sendThread.start();
}

public static void sendDataToServer(byte[] data) {
    String dataString = Arrays.toString(data);
    // send this String to the server
    sendThread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
        public void run() {
            if (mySocket != null && os != null) {
                try {
                    os.writeBytes(dataString + "\n");
                }  catch (IOException exception) {
                    Log.d("sunnyDay", exception.getMessage());
                }
            }
        }
    });
    sendThread.start();
}

The only way I've been able to repeatedly send data is by closing and reopening the socket every time in the same thread call, although I feel like this is not the solution.

I tried to have them both on the same thread so that the socket connection is still there, I'm assuming this is where I'm missing something about threads.

Any input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!