Pro stick yellow light purpose?

What’s the yellow light on the flight aware pro stick indicate? Sometimes it’s on, but most of the time it’s off. Just curious.

Pretty sure mine is on all the time. I thought it indicated if the amp was powered or not. Sounds like you pi might not be getting enough juice.

My yellow light is out right now and everything looks 100%. (See attached log image) Anyone else have any thoughts?

https://imgur.com/a/cbTGo
imgur.com/a/cbTGo
https://imgur.com/a/cbTGo

my yellow is on all the time, and running smoothly, without problems

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk

I just tried 3 different known good power supplies on the pi. All 3 cause the device to power on and boot up and feed normal real-time flight information to flight aware.

dump1090-fa is listening for connections on port 30005.
faup1090 is connected to port 30005.
piaware is connected to FlightAware.
dump1090-fa is producing data on port 30005.

flight aware is “live” and showing tons of aircraft on "view live data” map.

I’m beginning to think that the pro stick might have a faulty light.

Any other ideas?

all seems normal

https://imgur.com/FeSUMrq/img]

https://imgur.com/FeSUMrqhttps://imgur.com/a/VGfCq

The LED on my v1.1 Pro Stick started illuminating intermittently and then finally stayed off altogether.

I could see no other issues with the Pro Stick itself as everything else appeared to be operating normally.

I have since removed the LED’s from all my RTL-SDR dongles. (3 Pro Sticks and 1 NooElec)

Well, after being off for 2 days, the yellow light has decided to come back on this morning. It has been on for 3 hours so far. What the hell does this light indicate. It appears that it has nothing to do with pro-stick performance. I get the same specs/feed irregardless as to the yellow light being on or off.

You’re talking about the led that shines through the case near the antenna end? Mine is on solid all the time.

Mine is hit and miss. However , performance is never effected. As you can see, these two pictures were taken at the same time with the yellow light “off”. ( scroll down to see the second image after you open the link )

imgur.com/a/QO4YA
https://imgur.com/a/QO4YA

This morning , she decided to turn on for a bit. I guess that means I get 3 wishes! :laughing:

https://imgur.com/a/6q0p1
imgur.com/a/6q0p1

I did get a reply from flight aware staff. It read the following ,…

…“The Pro Stick LED is not an essential feature. Everything appears to be working as expected:…”

I still I’m not 100% sure what the yellow light is supposed to mean. I’m assuming through deductive reasoning that it means that the dongle is powered up. But apparently there is a fault in the light. Like I said in an earlier post, my light decided to come on today. But maybe it’s just because it’s Monday. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I really bet the light suggest the device is powered on, my pro stick is always with yellow on and the normal stick always with the blue light on.

Simple power indicator as far as I can tell looking at the PCB. Non-essential to operation. The trace, resistor or LED may not have the best connection, I wouldn’t worry about it. It was probably included for aesthetic reasons. People like shiny lights when they plug things in to make them feel like something is happening. Probably not a bad idea to stick the PCB into a metal case (like the ones rtl-sdr.com sells for $5) for ESD protection and extra cooling anyhow. Doing so negates the need for a LED at either rate.

My light was on when I first plugged in (on Saturday). Yesterday (Sunday) the light went out and has been ever since… it might be cosmetic only, but it’s still faulty. Since my system is still new and hasn’t yet gotten a substantial number of days of uptime I’m thinking I’ll power cycle it tomorrow to see if that causes the light to come on.

Again, I understand it’s probably cosmetic only… but is it the canary in the coal mine? Will something else fail?