Rare Sighting of UAT978 from Toronto
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Traffic during last week
Receiver location: Toronto, Canada - Only occasional UAT978 traffic.
US locations will have much more UAT978 traffic.
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Iâm trying out the new 3.7.0.1 setup to see if I can run 1090 and 978 together. I am checking everything out in my home office before installing in my hangar at the local airport. My aircraft are all running 1090, but I want to watch all ADS-B at the local field, so want a dual band setup. Thank you FlightAware for enabling this.
So far, all is running well, but no 978 traffic. Because we are having a spring snowstorm with low ceilings, that is to be expected.
Here is a picture of my setup running in the window sill for testing. The Blue Prostick is connected to a 1090 antenna and the orange Prostick is connected through a 978-1090 bandpass filter to a 978 antenna.
Here are my questions:
- Is there any way other than using a USB extension cable to plug two Prosticks into a Rasberry Pi 3B? BTW, I am using this for the extension cord: Amazon: 6" USB 3.0 Extension
- I know there is a lot of interference in nearby bands so I used the orange Prostick with a bandpass filter. Is that a reasonable choice?
- I only used the blue Prostick for the 1090 band because I assume that its internal filter only passes 1090. Is that a reasonable assumption?
- Does anyone have any suggestions on this setup before I finalize it, package it neatly, and take it to the hangar?
Thanks ahead of time for your help. This is my first post.
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@Cottonwood1162
Perfect setup! 
Which antennas are you using? If possible, posting photos of the two antennas will be nice. Where are the antennas located, indoors or outdoors?
Physical constrains do not permit two dongles to be pluggedin directly to RPi. One directly, one through USB extender cable, as you have done.
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@abcd567: Thanks for the thumbs up and quick reply.
For antennas and setup, this is a quick and dirty, in the office, get everything working setup, before taking everything out to the hangar experiment.
The antennas are FlightAware 1090 and 978 external antennas, leaning in the windows. They are behind fabric screens. More troublesome is the treated glass that I bet is at least 10 dB loss at 978 and 1090. That is OK, because this is just a test. Even with that and in a first floor window, I am getting a little over 100 mile range and seeing around 1400 aircraft a day on 1090. Here are antenna pictures.
At the hangar, I plan to put a mast on the back of the hangar with the 1090 antenna on top, and the 978 antenna a little lower and mounted with something like this. Rotate that base 90Ë, use U-Bolts on the main mast, and these work great for secondary antennas.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B001DFS49U/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
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I am located at Toronto, Canada, which has only occasional UAT traffic. Whenever I look to Skyview978 map, it is empty. In last 3 weeks, only on two occasions there were UAT978 flights when I viewed the map. These also disappeared within 15 minutes.
To monitor the UAT978, I installed performance graphs by @wiedehopf. By viewing these graphs, I know how many flights my receiver has picked during last 24hrs, or last 7 days, or last 1 month.
https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/piaware-sd-card-image-3-7-0-1-quickstart-guide/48262/205
Here is the thread goving details & installation method of the graphs:
Graphs for dump1090 â my version with install script
To summerize, to install the graphs, it only requires to issue following command:
(Scroll right to see full command)
sudo bash -c "$(wget -q -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wiedehopf/graphs1090/master/install.sh)"
To see the graphs in browser:
IP-of-Pi/graphs1090/
The graphs wont show immediately after installation. They appear about 10 minutes after installation because these are collecting data to populate graphs.
Graphs update automatically at an interval of about I think 10 minutes.
At anytime to update the graphs issue following command:
sudo /usr/share/graphs1090/graphs1090.sh 24h
Then reload browser (Ctrl+F5)
NOTE:
To see UAT978 graphs, scroll down to bottom. The bottom 3 graphs are for UAT978.
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Installing the graphs is the best thing to do for trouble shooting and for the statistical data.
I did install the performance graphs just before your post. @abcd567, thanks for the advice.
@wiedehopf, thanks for the performance graphs; great work!
So far, still no 978 aircraft. I assume that the messages shown below are just noise. Iâm in Boulder, CO and the weather the last few days has been IFR, low IFR and occasionally marginal VFR. Most of the 978 installs are fair weather, VFR flyers, so I wonât worry until we get some nice weather here.
@wiedehopf, thank you for this work and the detailed install instructions.
Concerning the mechanical install instructions, I recommend adding one or two USB extension cables to the shopping list and letting people know what they need to do physically to plug two Prosticks into one Raspberry Pi. Without at least one USB extension cable, two Prosticks do not fit. While I figured this out and most people will also, it would be nice to explicitly state the mechanical details.
Here is a USB extension cable that worked well for me:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S2N2Q4U/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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Do they fit if you remove the plastic casing? 
I guess anyone who doesnât mind removing the plastic case will do that anyway.
They should fit staggered.
I have been using something like this for year. Even with metal cases on the pro-sticks or RPI, it works without an issue. Just make sure that they are good quality and not cheap crap.
I got a couple of aircraft today on 978, so my setup seems to be working. When we get back to some sunny weather in Colorado, maybe I will see more activity.
I looked at Skyview to see the second aircraft. Interestingly, that aircraft, a Citation Jet, was broadcasting ADS-B on both 1090 and 978 from FL410. Below are some screen shots. I know it is very common for aircraft to receive on both 1090 and 978, but why would an aircraft be set up to transmit ADS-B on both 1090 and 978?
On 978:
On 1090:
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Affluence
Got my pi setup with both dongles. After booting I see an error that Wireless network is up but it says âNO IP ADDRESS ASSIGNEDâ
I did check and the attribute is WIFI yes and I edited the two place for my SSID and router password. Even put quotes around the names.
With my old Setup and SD care it works fine. Checked my router and it is being assigned an IP address.
Also neither dongle is showing upâŚ
Not sure what is wrong⌠HELP!
-
No ip address assigned (of course itâs got to happen to me!)
-
Please give following commands and post output
sudo journalctl -eu piaware
sudo journalctl -eu dump1090-fa
sudo journalctl -eu dump978-fa
Please pardon my ignoranceâŚ
I can run all the commands and see the results on my pi monitor but how do I capture if I do not get an IP address? Also not sure HOW to capture unless I take a pic on my screenâŚ
Thanks for you assistanceâŚ
BTW I got the 1090 dongle to work as I was looking at the log file and it said something that it saw the dongle at â1000â (maybe it was set to that on the old system but the 978 doesnât show anything and I am betting that it that the Sn is not set correctly, how do I find what the âdongleâ thinks itâs SN is?
Give this command. It will list both dongles with their serial numbers:
rtl_test -t
The ouput may say âfailed to open error 6â. Ignore it.
It found two devices both are set to â1000â Guessing thatâs not right.
One you have connected to 1090 mhz antenna should be set to 00001090
The one you have connected to 978 mhz antenna should be set to 00000978
How-to Serialize Dongles for ES1090 + UAT978
GREAT YOU ROCK!!!
got the SN taken care of and now they both connectâŚbut no recent data seen on both⌠antennaâs not connected yet so I guess that is correctâŚ
Now⌠still No IPâŚ
I turned off the WIFI via the config file but left lan on connected the wire to my switchâŚ
link lights flashing on the pi but still not getting an IP address⌠So neither lan nor WIFI getting IP address
Thoughts?