Ok, so I am not the brightest bulb in the Home Depot lighting department.
So, can someone generate a step by step process for creating a 978mhz UAT setup?
Going in assumptions are a Pi2, a SDR dongle, and an antenna. Let’s also assume we start with a “stock” PiAware Flightaware sd card image , just to have a common baseline that is easily functionally testable… If there is a better jumping off point, by all means.
Assume the user can log into their Pi with ssh (putty or equivalent)
I am guessing there would be two stages, first “disassemble” the FA distro, then “assemble” the dump978 / mutability distro.
Forgive me if there is adequate “how-to” docs somewhere, if so, point me to them!
Advanced topic might be a how-to to build a two dongle setup that can do both 1090mhz and 978mhz on a single RPi…
I used dump978 before. Had a Netbook computer running Dump1090 and Dump978. Had to use 2 USB dongle’s. You might not see much 978 traffic. I’m better sure in order to pick up 978 traffic, you have to be in range to a ground station.
I think the main issue is that those few who have UAT receivers don’t have proper antennas. The count will still be low, but I suspect we, overall, are missing most of the UAT traffic. So, few receivers with short range, plus relatively few aircraft = only a couple a day.
I’m sure I’m missing some stuff, so I will updated as it’s remembered or pointed out…
Start with a clean OS, not the FA image. It’s asking for trouble. Below is assuming it’s a raspberry pi 2 with a clean OS already setup for network, and you’ve make sure its up to date, etc.
Install Dump1090-mut, web server, and rtl-sdr per: http://discussions.flightaware.com/post177419.html#p177419
You will need to configure dump1090-mut as net only, start at boot, and all the standard configs. It walks you through it. Bind to 127.0.0.1 is ok if you’re doing this all on the same machine.
sudo dpkg-reconfigure dump1090-mutability
Then dump978
cd ~/git
git clone https://github.com/mutability/dump978.git
cd dump978
make
Choose a place for dump978 to live. I went with /usr/local/dump978
Move that folder of dump978 stuff to where you wish.
Consider a script to keep it going. The provided example does the job, but there are better ways to go about it.
I have a script at /usr/local/dump978/dump978-maintainer.sh
#! /bin/sh
##################################################
## Script to keep the entire pipeline operating ##
## if one of the programs exits ##
##################################################
# Version below outputs dump978's output to a temp file and the loop sends it out
#/usr/bin/rtl_sdr -f 978000000 -s 2083334 -g 48 - | /usr/local/dump978/dump978 > /tmp/dump978.out &
#while true
# do
# tail -n0 -f /tmp/dump978.out | /usr/local/dump978/uat2esnt | /bin/nc -q1 127.0.0.1 30001
# sleep 15
# done
###########################################################
## Below is for all the piped programs to be in the loop ##
###########################################################
while true
do
/usr/bin/rtl_sdr -f 978000000 -s 2083334 -g 48 - | /usr/local/dump978/dump978 | /usr/local/dump978/uat2esnt | /bin/nc -q1 127.0.0.1 30001
sleep 30
done
The above script has two options. The second one is the default. I didn’t use the first for too long, so it could have unexpected results long term.
if used, set permissions for script…needs to be executable.
Set script to start everything a boot… Once again, not ideal setup. init should really be doing this.
The simple way:
sudo pico /etc/rc.local
add line at bottom:
# Starts and Maintains Full Dump978 Pipeline
/usr/local/dump978/dump978-maintainer.sh &
If you don’t use the script, you could add a line, such as:
You can check with the top command to see if everything is up. You should see dump1090-mut, rtl_sdr, dump978, uat2esnt, dump978-maintainer.sh (if used), and nc all running.
Go to the web interface to see if you see any. Default port for the web site is 8080. i.e. 192.168.x.x:8080
This provides a system which tracks UAT, but doesn’t upload to Flightaware. If you also want to send this data to Flightaware, you will need to also install PiAware.
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