Help! If someone is really bored or has a second monitor that can be left on in the corner of the room, you can view my feed at http://airplanes.ddns.net. If you view it for long enough, especially during peak hours (I am UTC-4, EDT) you’ll see the problem described below.
I am new to ADS-B tracking. Had my setup running for about a month now. From day one, I have been fighting a problem I can’t solve. I live 1.5 miles from Fort Lauderdale Int’l and 25 miles from Miami Int’l. During peak hours there are 150 planes on my map and 500+ signals a second received. If I look at the age of the signal (right hand column in dump1090 display) if is usually 0 or 1 with the exception of distant planes barely in range.
Numerous times a day, I stop receiving signals for anywhere from 10-90 seconds. The age of the majority of my signals will be 0 and then starts counting up until they either reset to zero or disappear off the map. During this time, the messages received drops by 80%. Then a minute later they all come back all at once. Sometimes they stay for an hour, other times they start to disappear a minute later. Completely unpredictable. When I view the blue block graph showing my stats, it looks like a mosaic of light and dark speckled tiles. Most other people in the area seem to have a line of blue which fades in and out consistently on a daily basis.
The problem is not contingent on temperature, wind or rain. Happens with all weather conditions.
Happens on both WiFi and a cabled network connections.
Here’s what I have done thus far…
Swapped antennas. Same problem with homemade cantenna or purchased FA antenna.
Swapped all coax. Currently have brand new 50’ run of LMR400 with professionally installed connectors. Also swapped the SMA pigtail that connects to the receiver.
Took the receiver out of the blue case, thinking it might be overheating inside.
Put receiver back in case and wrapped with foil, thinking the foil might block some unknown source of RFI.
Swapped receivers. Have a blue FA ProStick Plus. Swapped with a friends known good unit. Same problem.
Tried numerous high quality power supplies and USB cables to power my RPi 3.
Switched to a powered USB hub to power the receiver.
Reimaged a new image on a new SD card.
Put a cooling fan blowing on the Pi and receiver.
I have just started fiddling with the gain settings. I am seeing a lot more planes by manually adjusting gain instead of leaving it at -10, but the problem of signals dropping out still remains.
In summary, I have physically replaced every piece of hardware with the exception of the Pi itself. I really don’t think the Pi is the problem. When my setup is acting up, I can still SSH into the Pi and snoop around.
I am pulling my hair out and open to ideas to try. Please help!
Jason
