From the Top...978 Setup

[wmccouch]

Greetings, I’m having some difficulty interpreting the various tutorials out there on setting up 978. I currently have a 1090 setup on a Raspberry Pi 3+ with PiAware. Seems 978 is a lot more involved.

Here is what I have:
Separate Raspberry Pi 3+ (I’m not trying to run 978 and 1090 on the same box)
Micro SD Card
978 Antenna + Cable
FlightAware Pro Stick

I downloaded PiAware Raspbian Linux 3.8.1 and etched to the micro SD card. Modified the wifi instructions in the piaware-config.txt file for my network.

After this, the instructions get fuzzy. On the FlightAware page, aside from the standard 1090 setup instructions, there’s a link to here: https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/advanced_configuration#uatsteps for the apparent steps to do 978. It picks up with “To enable UAT mode, set “uat-receiver-type” to “sdr”…” It references an advanced configuration to modify, but I’m not seeing how to do that by modifying a .txt file in the PiAware etched SD card like piaware-config.txt. I’m at a standstill.

1. Can anyone provide concise steps on the appropriate path to configure PiAware for 978 operation, beginning with the correct program to be written on the SD card?

Again, I’m running this on a separate Raspberry Pi 3+ rig rather than having two dongles on a single unit. Once appropriate configuration for 978 is established, I wish to “claim” this new 978 receiver within my current FlightAware account where my 1090 data is already feeding.

Thank you!

[abcd567]

Try this:

 

@abcd567

9 - USING ONLY ONE FREQUENCY (978 Mhz OR 1090 Mhz)

9.1 - If you want to run 978 Mhz only
In this case, you will need only one dongle, but you will have to disable dump1090-fa by following command

sudo piaware-config uat-receiver-type sdr
sudo piaware-config receiver-type none
sudo systemctl restart piaware

To re-enable dump1090-fa (requires an additional dongle for dump1090-fa)

sudo piaware-config receiver-type rtlsdr
sudo systemctl restart piaware

9.2 - If you want to run 1090 Mhz only
In this case, you will need only one dongle, but you will have to disable dump978-fa by following command

sudo piaware-config receiver-type rtlsdr
sudo piaware-config uat-receiver-type none
sudo systemctl restart piaware

To re-enable dump978-fa (requires an additional dongle for dump978-fa)

sudo piaware-config uat-receiver-type sdr
sudo systemctl restart piaware

[wmccouch]

Thank you!

Forgive the question, but how do I access the interface to enter in these commands? When I plug in my Raspberry Pi to HDMI and keyboard, I see a boot screen for PiAware but it goes blank after a few seconds. I don’t see a command line where I could enter these instructions. Thanks

[abcd567]

You will have to use another computer (desktop/laptop) connected to the same router to which the RPi is connected, and SSH to RPi.

The very first thing you need to do is to enable SSH on Piaware. Please see the post linked below.

Next is install PuTTY on desktop/laptop.
If you are using Mac or Linux desktop/laptop, you dont need to install PuTTY. Use Mac/Linux Terminal to SSH.

For Beginners - How-toSSH to RPi - Setup Putty in Windows

[wmccouch]

Success! Installed PuTTY, interfaced with the RPi, modified instructions, connected to antenna setup…now up and running on 978!

Thank you abcd567!

Sadly, the map is silent. Strong hopes for better times ahead.

[obj]

You can also just add those config settings directly to piaware-config.txt - all the piaware-config command line tool is doing is modifying piaware-config.txt anyway.

[wmccouch]

Thanks obj, I had suspected as much.

Four hours and not a single 978 flight shown. The log seems to show all is functioning however.

[obj]

978 is relatively low traffic and biased towards smaller GA aircraft which tend to fly a lot more on weekends / daytime / in good weather / when there isn’t a pandemic going on, so it may just be that there’s nothing to hear right now.

[abcd567]

UAT flights are occassional. I got fedup waiting and watching Skyaware978 map for hours with not a single plane. Finally I installed graphs which record when the planes showed up.
To install performance graphs, issue this command

sudo bash -c "$(wget -q -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wiedehopf/graphs1090/master/install.sh)"

Detailed instructions here:

https://github.com/wiedehopf/graphs1090/blob/master/README.md

This graph is for UAT flights my RPi picked during last 7 days: