I can’t seem to install Piaware and I don’t understand why the piaware software ‘appears’ not to have an OS installed?? If I follow the piaware guide, when i boot the Pi the green light goes on for a couple of seconds, then stops.
So I have tried booting with Raspbian Buster. Neither add/remove or the command line finds piaware. I have tested the dongle and it is working.
I am clearly doing something wrong or missing something - help!!
Ninian Yule
PiAware - dump1090 ADS-B integration with FlightAware - FlightAware
The piaware sd-card image doesn’t work yet for the RPi4.
But the above installation should be straight forward.
On no no no…command line doesn’t recognise the wget command!
I can’t believe there is no warning on the piaware site that the image doesn’t work with the Pi 4…
That’s strange
sudo apt update
sudo apt install wget
Installing it should fix that wget problem 
Thanks for your help, I have to get my head around Pi after a couple of years away! PiAware now installed, claimed, but unfortunately I don’t appear to be picking up anything. I know I am in a ‘quiet’ area (near Mildenhall and Lakenheath)…
When did you download the Buster image, more than a week ago?
Then you would need to update the system and reboot
sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade
sudo reboot
Otherwise you have a problem with the dongle.
Does the local map display ok?
Does the command view1090-fa work?
Which dongle are you using? What is your local Skyview showing?
Your installation seem to be recognized, but the last checkin was four hours ago:
Looks like you did not run the install properly because also position, and date/time are missing.
Does your raspi have the correct time set?
Thanks guys for your help, much appreciated.
wiedehopf - the updates did the trick, and the dump1090 command shows data. Skyview does too, although the map opens in southern Italy!
foxhunter - correct time/date are correct in raspbian desktop. no idea about location… Dongle is a FlightAware Pro Stick Plus 1.0
I was hoping to pick up STN movements, the airport being only 40 miles away, but I’m getting nothing from that direction.
Interestingly I sent a support ticket to FlightAware and I got a reply stating that Piaware does not work with the Pi 4. He thought it might be introduced at the update after next! There is at least one Pi retail outlet that is selling FlightAware as a package with the Pi 4.
Maybe they put Buster on an sd-card and install the package?
Configure your location: https://flightaware.com/adsb/stats/user/ninyule
Be precise about it for MLAT.
Then after restarting piaware/dump1090-fa it should display the correct location.
Yep, that’s worked, thanks.
For completeness, there are a few things going on here:
It’s possible to run 3.7.1 on a Pi 4 / Buster install but you will need to build from source.
The next release, 3.7.2, won’t change this; the surprise distribution update happened too late in the piaware release cycle and right now we just want to get 3.7.2 out the door. 3.8 will have Buster support.
No idea what the prepackaged kit includes; this is a third party thing that we don’t have any visibility into.
The pre-built Stretch packages for piaware and dump1090-fa seem to be running just fine on Buster.
I can confirm it myself for piaware, not for dump1090-fa.
But i’m pretty sure after the kernel problems had resolved themselves multiple people reported that dump1090-fa was running just fine.
Good to know, thanks. The binaries themselves should be fine but I thought there were some dependency problems. If it works, great!
That’s only dump978-fa.
There are "quiet areas " on the planet - the UK isn’t one of them!
On Raspberry Pi / Raspbain Buster, the package install has no problem of any sort, not even dependencies.
On OrangePI PC / Armbian Buster, the package install has problem of dependencies. I simulated the installation as if it is on Stretch by changing apt source from Buster to Stretch. Even after that, I had to manually install Recommended dependencies
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 4.19.57-v7+ #1244 SMP Thu Jul 4 18:45:25 BST 2019 armv7l GNU/L inux
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)"
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ apt-cache policy dump1090-fa
dump1090-fa:
Installed: 3.7.1
Candidate: 3.7.1
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ apt-cache policy piaware
piaware:
Installed: 3.7.1
Candidate: 3.7.1
.
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo systemctl status dump1090-fa
● dump1090-fa.service - dump1090 ADS-B receiver (FlightAware customization)
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/dump1090-fa.service; enabled; vendor pres
Active: active (running) since Wed 2019-09-18 10:17:10 EDT; 1min 29s ago
Docs: https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/
Main PID: 774 (dump1090-fa)
Tasks: 3 (limit: 2200)
Memory: 4.8M
CGroup: /system.slice/dump1090-fa.service
└─774 /usr/bin/dump1090-fa --device-index 00000101 --gain -10 --ppm 0
Sep 18 10:17:10 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Started dump1090 ADS-B receiver (FlightA
Sep 18 10:17:10 raspberrypi dump1090-fa[774]: Wed Sep 18 10:17:10 2019 EDT dump
Sep 18 10:17:10 raspberrypi dump1090-fa[774]: rtlsdr: using device #0: Generic R
Sep 18 10:17:10 raspberrypi dump1090-fa[774]: Detached kernel driver
Sep 18 10:17:11 raspberrypi dump1090-fa[774]: Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Sep 18 10:17:11 raspberrypi dump1090-fa[774]: rtlsdr: enabling tuner AGC
Sep 18 10:17:11 raspberrypi dump1090-fa[774]: Allocating 4 zero-copy buffers
.
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo systemctl status piaware
● piaware.service - FlightAware ADS-B uploader
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/piaware.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Wed 2019-09-18 10:19:45 EDT; 5min ago
Docs: https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/
Main PID: 868 (piaware)
Tasks: 4 (limit: 2200)
Memory: 10.5M
CGroup: /system.slice/piaware.service
├─868 /usr/bin/piaware -p /run/piaware/piaware.pid -plainlog -statusfile /run/piaware/status.json
├─905 /usr/lib/piaware/helpers/fa-mlat-client --input-connect localhost:30005 --input-type dump1090 --results beast,con
└─915 /usr/lib/piaware/helpers/faup1090 --net-bo-ipaddr localhost --net-bo-port 30005 --stdout --lat 43.xxx --lon -79.xxx
Sep 18 10:19:50 raspberrypi piaware[868]: mlat-client(905): fa-mlat-client 0.2.10 starting up
Sep 18 10:19:50 raspberrypi piaware[868]: mlat-client(905): Using UDP transport to 70.42.6.191 port 8005
Sep 18 10:19:50 raspberrypi piaware[868]: mlat-client(905): Listening for Beast-format results connection on port 30105
Sep 18 10:19:50 raspberrypi piaware[868]: mlat-client(905): Listening for Extended Basestation-format results connection on port 3
Sep 18 10:19:50 raspberrypi piaware[868]: mlat-client(905): Input connected to localhost:30005
Sep 18 10:19:50 raspberrypi piaware[868]: mlat-client(905): Input format changed to BEAST, 12MHz clock
Sep 18 10:19:50 raspberrypi piaware[868]: piaware received a message from dump1090-fa!
Sep 18 10:19:50 raspberrypi piaware[868]: mlat-client(905): Beast-format results connection with ::1:30104: connection established
Sep 18 10:19:51 raspberrypi piaware[868]: piaware has successfully sent several msgs to FlightAware!
Sep 18 10:20:20 raspberrypi piaware[868]: 107 msgs recv'd from dump1090-fa; 107 msgs sent to FlightAware
I didn’t have to make any changes to piaware or dependencies when I upgraded from Stretch to Buster. I ran dump1090-fa for a month or so with no issues with an rtl dongle and now in network only mode with airspy.
The only issue I had was relating to the mlat client in use by other feeders where I had to manually update a library. Piaware mlat didn’t have that issue however.
I faced this issue with Radarbox24’s supplied mlat-client package for use with their feeder.
I solved this by building mlat-client from source code:
https://www.airnavsystems.com/forum/index.php?topic=101771.msg407051#msg407051