HOWTO: Airspy mini and Airspy R2: Piaware / dump1090-fa configuration

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ uname -m
aarch64

The only thing ive not done
is plugged in the airspy mini yet

pi@64bit:~ $ uname -m
aarch64

SITE 98275 up and running since about 18:45 yesterday.

I definitely canā€™t run the CPU as hard without dropping samples.
Previously samples started being dropped at greater than 88-90%, now 67-68% is as far as I can push it.
Itā€™s strange, a 0.1% of -e increases usage from 67% to 90%+, was not like that with 32 bit Iā€™m sure.

Please see this:  

Added the new binary to be used for uname -m giving arm64 or aarch64.

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So, I found that the CPU governor was throttling down the CPU because we donā€™t use much of it, and this results in the bus to also run slowly which in turn results in packet drops. I hope they will fix this behavior in the official Raspberry OS 64. Not much impressed by the beta so far.

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Iā€™ve had a similar problem previously with the 32 bit decoder - I have force_turbo=1 set in /boot/config.txt, which disables cpu throttling so it remains at full speed all the time. As long as you arenā€™t overclocking or using the over voltage flag, it wonā€™t trip the warranty bit. Fixing the cpu frequency solved that issue.

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I have documented that for the Pi2/3 but I was hoping for better with the Pi4.

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Iā€™ve seen this before with single-threaded (or more generally, threads < cores) CPU-bound loads; it can happen on x86 too.

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Just got an Airspy Mini and am setting it up on my RPi 3B+. I am having a problem where its running fine for a few minutes but is then stopping unexpectedly. The Airspy Mini firmware is the latest version. Iā€™m running it in 12MSPS with the bias-tee on. The bias tee is running the RTL-SDR ADS-B LNA. I am powering the RPI using the POE hat. Here is what the log is saying:

Jun 26 10:49:38 piaware airspy_adsb[279]: Decoding stopped
Jun 26 10:49:38 piaware airspy_adsb[279]: Client disconnected 127.0.0.1:50166 (beast)
Jun 26 10:49:39 piaware airspy_adsb[279]: Acquired Airspy device with serial 260868C82A329B9B
Jun 26 10:49:39 piaware airspy_adsb[279]: airspy_start_rx() failed: AIRSPY_ERROR_LIBUSB (-1000)
Jun 26 10:49:40 piaware airspy_adsb[279]: airspy_open() failed: AIRSPY_ERROR_NOT_FOUND (-5)

It just repeats the not found error until I shutdown the RPi, remove power and start it again. It will then run a few minutes again and then throw the same errors.

Sounds like power issues.

The early POE hats didnā€™t provide proper USB power i believe.
Maybe you have one of those?

Not sure, could maybe also be the Airspy Mini getting hot?

Maybe get an external bias-tee and feed it 5V from the RPi?
That way itā€™s not going through the Airspy and might be less of an issue.

Check if you have undervoltage warnings:

sudo dmesg --ctime | grep voltage

Make sure no other USB devices are connected. The shared USB bus (SD card, ethernet/wifi and USB) cannot handle another device being connected whilst the airspy is in use.

I ran the airspy with POE adapter and bias-t enabled on an RPI 3B+ without any issues. Make sure that you have a quality POE power supply. The 4B is much better. You will need to keep the RPI3 CPU cool as it often overloads the CPU.

I powered the LNA separately with an injector. This will leave a bit more juice for the Airspy from the limited USB port.

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I definitely have one of the newer POE hats that shouldnā€™t suffer from that problem.

The POE injector Iā€™m using is a TP-Link TL-POE150S V4 which should be able to provide enough power.

I have an external bias-tee coming that I can power from somewhere else to see if that fixes it.

Strangely enough Iā€™m also seeing this when I restart the processes according to your instructions. Itā€™ll start throwing that error again. So any time I change options I have to restart the Pi and then unplug and replug the Airspy a few times before its found.

Did they change how power is distributed on the Pi4B? Am I better go just get one of those if Iā€™m going to use the Airspy Mini?

So actually iā€™ve often seen the same issue with an Airspy R2 used with a laptop.
It usually only occurs after reboot and might be a separate issue.

@prog
Is there anything to diagnose this issue further? (the below error happening after the RPi decoding for a couple of minutes)

Jun 26 10:49:38 piaware airspy_adsb[279]: Decoding stopped
Jun 26 10:49:38 piaware airspy_adsb[279]: Client disconnected 127.0.0.1:50166 (beast)
Jun 26 10:49:39 piaware airspy_adsb[279]: Acquired Airspy device with serial 260868C82A329B9B
Jun 26 10:49:39 piaware airspy_adsb[279]: airspy_start_rx() failed: AIRSPY_ERROR_LIBUSB (-1000)
Jun 26 10:49:40 piaware airspy_adsb[279]: airspy_open() failed: AIRSPY_ERROR_NOT_FOUND (-5)

This could be a power issue. Check the PSU and the cable.

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What LNA were you using?

I plugged my RPi directly into a power cable and that may have fixed the issue where it only ran for a few minutes. But I am still having the problem if I restart the Airspy_adsb service. I have to go and unplug and replug the dongle once or twice for it to show up. Hereā€™s the error its giving again.

Jun 26 15:30:14 piaware systemd[1]: Stopped Airspy ADS-B receiver.
Jun 26 15:30:14 piaware systemd[1]: Started Airspy ADS-B receiver.
Jun 26 15:30:14 piaware airspy_adsb[24484]: airspy_adsb v1.85
Jun 26 15:30:14 piaware airspy_adsb[24484]: Listening for beast clients on port 29999
Jun 26 15:30:14 piaware airspy_adsb[24484]: Acquired Airspy device with serial 260868C82A329B9B
Jun 26 15:30:14 piaware airspy_adsb[24484]: airspy_start_rx() failed: AIRSPY_ERROR_LIBUSB (-1000)
Jun 26 15:30:15 piaware airspy_adsb[24484]: airspy_open() failed: AIRSPY_ERROR_NOT_FOUND (-5)

and then that last error repeats every second until the Mini is replugged once or twice.

Strike that. Plugged in to a normal power supply that I have no reason to doubt is still causing it to unexpectedly shut down and gives me this error:

Jun 26 15:35:08 piaware airspy_adsb[24484]: Decoding stopped