Comparison of different dongles for 978 MHz UAT reception

abcd567 · February 15, 2020, 10:39pm

Quote from https://www.radarbox24.com/flightstick978:

thespeedycab · February 15, 2020, 10:42pm

Technically, in the US we have to report internet purchases to state tax authorities for which sales tax has not been paid. At the time of state tax filing we get to pay the sales tax. Amazon withholds sales tax now in most (if not all) counties.

abcd567 · February 15, 2020, 10:56pm

@thespeedycab
As far as I know, in Canada sales tax are to be paid only on items sold in Canada. No sales tax to be paid for items purchased outside Canada. An import duty may be applied by customs when such item arrives Canad, but such low cost items fall below the minimum cost of dutiable items.

DavidUnsworth · February 16, 2020, 5:54pm

Just found this thread - presently using a NooElec Smart v4 Dongle with 1/4 wave ground plane in the attic, 10ft of FSJ1-50 and Light-Blue FlightAware filter.

I ordered the RadarBox dongle from Amazon today and it’s supposed to arrive tomorrow. Will be very interested to see the difference that the inbuilt LNA and filter make to my reception - here’s my last 7 days graphs.

wiedehopf · February 16, 2020, 7:04pm

Your signal level is actually where the UAT decoder likes it.

With an LNA you will probably need to turn down the gain.
The UAT decoder / modulation isn’t as resistent to overdrive as the 1090 decoder / modulation is.

DavidUnsworth · February 16, 2020, 7:24pm

Yes - fully expect to have to do that - and I’ve noticed that the UAT reception behaves differently, no doubt due to the much wider bandwidth of the signal. Looks like i’m getting just about the full dynamic range of the Dongle right now, but the NF of the NooElec isn’t that good (as determined previously) and I have a fair bit of 850MHz cell signals plus there are a number of 950MHz 5G micro sites being built around me - one 1/4mile away and a couple of others wishing 1.5 miles. So going to run some scans of the spectrum with existing setup and then the RadarBox UAT Dongle to see how much the cell signals are attenuated by the filtering of just the Dongle and then with the FA filter as well.

Adding the RTL-SDR-Blog filtered LNA to my 1090MHz side made a notable improvement to the cell signals (and so much gain that I have 16dB of fixed attenuators on the front-end of the ProStick Plus)

markrrichardson · February 17, 2020, 12:20am

RB UAT 978 Redstick finally arrived (i know, it’s terrible having to wait until late in the evening for package I ordered yesterday ).

Appears to be working but I don’t believe there are any UAT 978 aircraft flying at the moment…which is typical near me at this time of the evening. Guess will know more tomorrow and the following days.

Went ahead and starting feeding UAT 978 to RadarBox…hopefully that is working as well. Couple of minor changes needed to get that to work. But nothing too difficult for my scrambled brain!

BTW, it lights up when connected, nothing too bright but it glows.

abcd567 · February 17, 2020, 1:05am

How did you configure it?
As far as I know:

Flightaware uses dump978-fa which needs a dedicated dongle.
Radarbox24 uses dump978-rb which needs a dedicated dongle.

Hence to use both FA 978 and RB 978, you will need TWO 978 dongles.

In addition ONE 1090 dongle for dump1090-fa

Dxista · February 17, 2020, 1:05am

Not so. It’s hit and miss if above $50 (it may have increased to $80 recently), and when they hit, it’s HST plus Canada Post Brokerage, around $9. I never paid duty because I never ordered anything subject to it.

turbodogfl · February 17, 2020, 1:07am

Looks like the Amazon facility with RB 978 Redstick is Erlanger, KY. Current setup has FA Orange and external FA sma filter. May need to try RB 978 with and without FA external filter.

abcd567 · February 17, 2020, 1:17am


Do you wish to install dump978-rb program? (y/n) y
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  dump978-rb
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 38 not upgraded.
Need to get 141 kB of archives.
After this operation, 469 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 https://apt.rb24.com buster/main armhf dump978-rb armhf 1.0.1+buster [141 kB]
Fetched 141 kB in 1s (222 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package dump978-rb.
(Reading database ... 51199 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../dump978-rb_1.0.1+buster_armhf.deb ...
Unpacking dump978-rb (1.0.1+buster) ...
Setting up dump978-rb (1.0.1+buster) ...
The user `dump978' is already a member of `plugdev'.
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/default.target.wants/dump978-rb.service → /lib/systemd/system/dump978-rb.service.

$ sudo rbfeeder --set-network-mode off --no-start
$ sudo systemctl stop piaware dump1090-fa dump978-fa
$ sudo systemctl restart rbfeeder

$ sudo netstat -anp | grep -w LISTEN  

tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8978            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      690/lighttpd
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8754            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      632/fr24feed
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8787            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      561/modesmixer2
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:22              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      607/sshd
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:32088           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      9246/rbfeeder
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:28380           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      9267/dump978-rb   
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:30978           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      9267/dump978-rb   
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:32004         0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      9246/rbfeeder
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:30053           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      620/pfclient
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:30054           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      620/pfclient
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:32457         0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      9246/rbfeeder
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:32458         0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      9246/rbfeeder
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:32459         0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      9246/rbfeeder
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8080            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      690/lighttpd
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:80              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      690/lighttpd
tcp6       0      0 :::22                   :::*                    LISTEN      607/sshd
tcp6       0      0 :::28380                :::*                    LISTEN      9267/dump978-rb
tcp6       0      0 :::30978                :::*                    LISTEN      9267/dump978-rb
tcp6       0      0 :::80                   :::*                    LISTEN      690/lighttpd

markrrichardson · February 17, 2020, 1:23am

Serialize the RedStick to 00000978 instead of what the default is for them: 00000401

Reinstall RB24 to get the 978 client.
sudo bash -c "$(wget -O - http://apt.rb24.com/inst_rbfeeder.sh)"

Edit the following by making sure ENABLED=yes and the serial=00000978
sudo nano /etc/default/dump978-rb

# dump978-rb configuration
# This is sourced by /usr/share/dump978-rb/start-dump978-rb as a
# shellscript fragment.

# dump978-rb won't automatically start unless ENABLED=yes
ENABLED=yes

RECEIVER_OPTIONS="--sdr driver=rtlsdr,serial=00000978 --sdr-auto-gain --format CS8"
DECODER_OPTIONS=""
NET_OPTIONS="--raw-port 30978 --json-port 28380"

This part I’m not sure about…need to see a plane or three to make sure:
sudo nano /etc/rbfeeder.ini

[client]
network_mode=true
log_file=/var/log/rbfeeder.log

key=xxxxxxxxxx

sn=EXTRPI001067

lat=40.9xxxx
lon=-81.4xxxx
alt=343

sat_used=0

sat_visible=0

[network]
mode=beast
external_port=30005
external_host=127.0.0.1

[mlat]
autostart_mlat=true
#mlat_cmd=/usr/bin/python3.5 /usr/bin/mlat-client

[dump978]
dump978_enabled=true

dump978_enabled=true
Not sure if I need to change anything else.

Especially the sdr-auto-gain setting. I have it set by piaware at 29.7 so not sure if this is gonna be a conflict or ignored or supercede.

abcd567 · February 17, 2020, 1:31am

@markrrichardson
So you have assigned dongle serial 00000978 to dump978-rb.
But dongle serial 00000978 is also assigned to dump978-fa.
Wont both these dump978 compete to grab dongle serial 00000978? Would it be grabbed by FA or RB?

CONCLUSION:
To use both FA 978 and RB 978, you will need TWO 978 dongles, the fa one serialized as 00000978, and the rb one serialized as 00000401

markrrichardson · February 17, 2020, 1:37am

Not sure. Probably, so it won’t work for what I want to do. Need a couple of planes to confirm. May end up NOT feeding UAT 978 to RB.

pi@piaware:~ $ piaware-status
PiAware master process (piaware) is running with pid 770.
PiAware ADS-B client (faup1090) is running with pid 894.
PiAware ADS-B UAT client (faup978) is running with pid 13305.
PiAware mlat client (fa-mlat-client) is running with pid 877.
Local ADS-B receiver (dump1090-fa) is running with pid 769.
Local ADS-B UAT receiver (dump978-fa) is running with pid 13232.

dump1090-fa (pid 769) is listening for ES connections on port 30005.
dump978-fa (pid 13232) is listening for UAT connections on port 30978.
faup1090 is connected to the ADS-B receiver.
faup978 is connected to the ADS-B UAT receiver.
piaware is connected to FlightAware.

dump1090 is producing data on localhost:30005.
dump978 is NOT producing data on localhost:30978.

AND
sudo systemctl status rbfeeder

Feb 17 01:35:09 piaware rbfeeder[624]: [2020-02-17 01:35:09] Can’t connect to 978 source (127.0.0.1:28380). Waiting 5 second…
Feb 17 01:35:12 piaware rbfeeder[624]: [2020-02-17 01:35:12] ******** Statistics updated every 30 seconds ********
Feb 17 01:35:12 piaware rbfeeder[624]: [2020-02-17 01:35:12] Packets sent in the last 30 seconds: 950, Total packets sent since startup: 175103
Feb 17 01:35:12 piaware rbfeeder[624]: [2020-02-17 01:35:12] Data sent: 5.4 MB
Feb 17 01:35:12 piaware rbfeeder[624]: [2020-02-17 01:35:12] Data received: 5.1 KB
Feb 17 01:35:14 piaware rbfeeder[624]: [2020-02-17 01:35:14] Can’t connect to 978 source (127.0.0.1:28380). Waiting 5 second…

So looks like FA has won and RB can’t connect…hmmm.

abcd567 · February 17, 2020, 1:38am

To use both FA 978 and RB 978, you will need TWO 978 dongles, the fa one serialized as 00000978, and the rb one serialized as 00000401

markrrichardson · February 17, 2020, 1:44am

Sadness

Now I need another antenna…

abcd567 · February 17, 2020, 2:11am

Apart from 2 independent 978 dongles, both the dump978-fa and dump978-rb listen on same port i.e. 30978. This will create a mess.

dump978-rb config

dump978-fa config

wiedehopf · February 17, 2020, 2:33am

you just need to configure it properly, no need for two dongles.

dump978-rb … looks very much like a dump978-fa copy.

Just disable either one, as long as they listen on 30978, both rbfeeder and piaware should be happy to connect to it.

abcd567 · February 17, 2020, 2:38am

Yes, that was my conclusion also after seeing dump978-fa config
Just these 3 commands will fix everything:

sudo systemctl stop dump978-rb
sudo systemctl disable dump978-rb
sudo systemctl restart dump978-fa dump1090-fa piaware

EDIT: Does not work. The rbfeeder fails to connect to dump978-fa

RBFEEDER

PIAWARE

DUMP978-FA

thespeedycab · February 17, 2020, 3:50am

Besides the software solution that is in the thread before this post, there’s always Amazon to the rescue for a hardware solution:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B2ZGCHF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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