Announcing PiAware 3! (Latest version: 3.8.0)

FlightAware ADS-B Flight Tracking
986

Plug the microSD card into your Windows card reader and the PiAware boot partition will mount as a Windows drive. Simply create an empty file named “ssh” in its root directory to enable the ssh server.

The config.js file is in PiAware’s Linux file system partition so it can’t be directly edited from Windows. You’ll need to ssh to your running PiAware node to modify it.

Since the Fall 2017 Creators (1709) update, Windows 10 has a built-in ssh client, so Putty is no longer needed. Here are instructions on how to enable it:

Then simply open a PowerShell or Command Prompt window and type (replace xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with your PiAware IP address):

ssh pi@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

987

got a SSH setup done to the Pi and changed the config.js item I wanted to change. Thanks to all.

988

My UAT site has been up and down this week for various testing but has been online full time for a little over 24hrs. Using a RTL-SDR dongle and FlightAware UAT antenna I tracked 13 aircraft today and will replace that dongle with a orange FlightAware dongle Friday so we will see if that improves things a little. So far the update is working great, just got to figure out how to enable range rings.

989

edit /usr/share/skyview978/html/config.js to enable the range rings (and additional data and extra maps).

990

Do I edit via files on the SD Card or through SSH?

991

through ssh.
use vi or nano (I think non-unix people prefer nano).

992

That was easy enough, thanks!

993

Had this issue today after manually compiling v3.7.0.1 last evening (both dump1090-fa and piaware).
Instead of rebuilding the full piaware-package I only (re)compiled faup1090:

$ pwd
/home/pi/adsb-receiver/build/piaware_builder

cd package-stretch/dump1090
make clean
vi dump1090/net_io.c <--- EDIT LINE 1881, CHANGE 600 TO 700
make faup1090
strip faup1090
sudo systemctl stop dump1090-fa
sudo cp faup1090 /usr/lib/piaware/helpers/faup1090
sudo systemctl start dump1090-fa
tail -100f /var/log/piaware.log

So far, so good. Thanks for the “pass”, @wiedehopf!

1 Like
994

PiAware 3.7.1 is now released! See the release notes at the top of this thread for more information.

This version supports tracking aircraft that use 978 UAT. In the USA, aircraft that operate below 18,000 feet can choose to use an ADS-B solution that runs on 978 MHz called a Universal Access Transceiver or UAT. The FAA created this option to relieve congestion on the 1090 MHz band. Both solutions perform the same basic function, and both meet the January 1, 2020 ADS-B requirement in the USA.

Please pay particular attention to the “In the USA” part. Aircraft outside of the United States do not use UAT, so if you’re not in the US you will not see 978 traffic.

Please note, you should not expect to see aircraft at the same distance you do when using 1090 MHz and the numbers you do see will likely be dramatically lower. You are also more likely to see smaller aircraft as the UAT solution is typically cheaper and thus more inviting to General Aviation.

The new version will allow you to do everything you could with the 1090 MHz version and adds the similar capabilities in 978 MHz. There have been no changes to 1090 MHz functionality.

When you first boot the image it will look and act like a normal 1090 MHz PiAware. In order to activate the 978 MHz features please run the following from the command line:

piaware-config receiver-type none

piaware-config uat-receiver-type sdr

sudo reboot

Skyview for 978 runs separately from the 1090 Skyview. You can see it at http://piaware.local/skyview978/ or http://piaware.local:8978/ where piaware.local is the LAN address of your Raspberry Pi. Changes to the links to make that work like it does for the 1090 are coming.

If you’d like to feed your 978 data to software like VRS, use port 30978.

You can connect two SDRs and if they’re configured correctly you can run both 1090 and 978 on the same Pi. This is currently not officially supported and is at your own risk.

You can upgrade existing PiAware installations to 3.7.1 from your stats page. Click the gear near the top right part of the page and use the Device Command “Upgrade and restart PiAware”.

You can also download a SD card image here: http://piaware.flightcdn.com/piaware-sd-card-3.7.1.img.zip

Please enjoy the new version and we look forward to your feedback!

7 Likes
995

Great! Updated all 4 of my feeders already no issues.

Has anyone been able to get UAT 978 data into Virtual Radar Server (VRS) working yet?

I add it as a feed, port 30978, using BaseStation format. It receives messages from the feed, but does not track any aircraft or plot them. (I currently have 2 aircraft in view giving data to Skyview 978… )

2 Likes
996

VRS, as far as I know, does not know how to interpret 978MHz UAT messages; they’d need to add support for the protocol.

(in general, there is very little existing software for UAT, certainly nothing like the existing ecosystem of software for 1090MHz)

1 Like
997

I upgraded from my stats page and it shows I am running 3.7.1 but UAT 978 is not working. Looking around for the issue I see that the dump978 software does not exist. Should that have been in the package? In the logs I can see that Piaware has attempted to start dump978 and of course reported that it couldn’t find it. Is it possible to download the upgrade so I can install it without using the stats page and maybe see what is happening during the install?

998

You are using the package, not the sd-card image.

You’ll need to install the dump978-fa package.
Edit for completeness: You will also need the package named skyview978.

For configuration you can check this post (of course you don’t need to use the github stuff to compile the packages as they can be now installed via apt) :
Dump978 Add-On Installation Procedures? - #17 by abcd567

999

wiedehopf

Thanks very much, I am good now. I was misunderstanding the architecture.

1000

Ah thanks you.

Yeah, that is what I’m seeing. Very little UAT support.

I am seeing on the mutability dump978 fork, they have a program called uat2esnt that converts UAT ADS-B messages to Mode-S ADS-B messages for other programs to understand the data,. It does this by taking the output from dump978 though and piping it directly to this program. I have no idea how to set this up or event attempt to use it with dump978-fa without messing everything up. Is this something that could be intigrated into PiAware for ease of use? GitHub - mutability/dump978: Experimental demodulator/decoder for UAT on 978MHz

1001

I did the 3.7.1 update through the stats page and then added a 2nd SDR dongle using the QuickStart post in this forum (change the serial numbers on each dongle, then run a few sudo commands to configure each SDR) and I now have both 1090 & 978 working on 1 RaspPi.

Now when I go to the local IP address, I get 2 buttons - 1090 map or 978 map.

As many have mentioned, 978 traffic is spotty because most air traffic is commercial / 1090 and 978-equipped planes are flying lower so they are harder to pick-up. I plan to replace the mini-antennas that came with my SDR dongles (Adafruit 1497).

1 Like
1002

If you have no other use for them you can shorten them and place them on a food can, the length for the whips should be this:

For 978 MHz you would need a wire with a length of 77 mm or 3.03 in
For 1090 MHz you would need a wire with a length of 69 mm or 2.71 in

You can make them a little bit shorter as the length quoted is the length to the start of the shielding and that normally begins somewhere in the middle of the base of these whip antennas.

Cutting the can height to those approximate heights can help as well but isn’t quite as critical.

1003

I have Piaware, dump978-fa, and dump1090-fa successfully running on 3.7.1. It is connected to the feeder and and sending messages on both 978 and 1090, everything looks great, but, the feeder is not being used for MLAT. I have my position set correctly and resources look good on the Pi. MLAT is running and the log shows that multilateration data has been requested. What else could I look for to resolve this issue? Thanks.

1004

I would look into power problems, that can lead to missed samples and MLAT not working.

Can you check this log:
sudo journalctl -eu piaware | grep -v 'reported location\|--lat\|feeder ID'
And this log:
sudo journalctl -eu dump1090-fa | tail -n50

1005

I’ll give that a try. Do the food cans have to be electrically connected?