Announcing PiAware 3! (Latest version: 3.8.0)

Have you enabled Mode A/C in piaware-config? The default settings do not enable Mode A/C.

1 Like

It appears to be the default setting Oliver:

Should PiAware enable reception of Mode A/C messages when requested?

You may need to disable this if processing Mode A/C overloads your receiver.

allow-modeac yes

Ah, sorry, I forgot I made it on-demand. Planeplotter (or whatever else you connect with) needs to request Mode A/C by sending an appropriate Beast config command to dump1090 (0x1a ā€˜1ā€™ ā€˜Jā€™ - see Beast Wiki)

You can force always generating Mode A/C by passing --modeac to dump1090-fa, but there is no config setting that will do that on the sdcard image.

I just found running ā€œview1090-fa --modeacā€ works.

Yep. view1090 will send the config command in that case.

Wow! Now highest ever message rate @ 2200+! Will that be implemented in the next build please?

Outside DPD, standard rtl-sdr dongle with an FA filter.

It appears to have a higher message rate than my Mode-S Beast ā€¦

Hugh

iā€™m not a linux driver, can you advise full command to turn mode ac on
thanks (i have a rpi 3b running piaware, will mode ac work with this configuration?)

Try this
sudo piaware-config allow-modeac yes

Check with
sudo piaware-config -show

sudo systemctl restart dump1090-fa
sudo systemctl restart piaware

jon, thank you very much

gw4xxj, could you provide full linux command line you used(iā€™m not a linux driver) for enabling mode ac?

retman1222, I just typed ā€œview1090-fa --modeacā€ on the command line. It is not very satisfactory in that you need to leave the window open.

@gw4xxj @retman1222
Just type in
sudo view1090-fa --modeac &

and it will run in the background and you can close the terminal

adding the
&

Works for other processes also btw :wink:

I still keep learning about linux lol :slight_smile:

1 Like

Iā€™m btw not exactly sure what modeac will do, sure it increases the message rate. However the planes with and without positions stays about the same.

Maybe someone can (simply :stuck_out_tongue: ) explain?
Is this only usefull if you use another viewer other then the (local) skyview page?

Doesnā€™t work here unfortunately ā€¦

Kind Regards

Is there a way to add this to the startup code on the Pi?

Hugh

see reply from katwijk several posts above re command sudo view1090-fa --modeac &

2 Likes

Iā€™am not to good at linux, but this seems to work too
(untill you do a reboot)
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4797050/how-to-run-process-as-background-and-never-die

(Background is from that post above, I tested this with the below instructions and this works with me.
There is also more info, but didnā€™t checked everything out.

You could try just the commands below, it;s harmless and you can remove the package ā€œscreenā€ easy with
sudo apt-get purge screen

anyway this works for me, is this useful in my situation? I donā€™t know. :smiley:
But it works. Maybe for people who use planeplotter. (see @abcd567 post below)

Anyway no harm to try this ā†’

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install screen

Next start screen:
screen

run
sudo view1090-fa --modeac

press
ctrl + shift + a

press
d

It should exit and keep running

To get back to the process run (this will work even if you close the ssh session remotely and reconnect later)
screen -r

Then if you want to stop the process just use
ctrl + c

edit:
to see processes running through screen type
screen -ls

Not to sure, itā€™s a little bit unclear what is running but you can at least see whatā€™s running trough screen in the background.

More in the link, I didnā€™t go any further into it for now

1 Like

To start view1090-fa in modeac at boot/reboot, try this method (un-tested, as I dont have Planeplotter)

(1) Create new file view1090.sh

cd ~/
sudo nano view1090.sh

(2) Copy-paste following code in new file

#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/view1090-fa  --modeac &

(3) Save (Ctrl+o) and Close (Ctrl+x) the file

(4) Make new file executeable

sudo chmod +x view1090.sh

(5) Open file /etc/rc.local for editing

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

(6) Copy-paste following code just above last line (i.e. above exit 0)

/home/pi/view1090.sh &

(7) Save (Ctrl+o) and Close (Ctrl+x) the file

(8) Reboot Pi
sudo reboot

@abcd567

Can you tell me more about mode AC?
Is this usefull for something if you donā€™t have planeplotter etc running?
It seems not to send the increased message rate to flightaware or other sites.

Also in skyview I donā€™t see really more planes with positions. Only increased messages/second

thanks :wink:

(btw you made a little typo in (5) etc not erc :slight_smile: just saying before people just copy/paste :smiley: )

I am not sure, but I think the above workaround to start view1090-fa is normally not needed/useful if you dont feed Planeplotter. The modeac is enabled by default. This is confirm by output yes of this command:

pi@piaware:~ $ sudo piaware-config --show allow-modeac
yes

Thanks, typo corrected.