Good evening OBJ -
This is great - I was just talking to a buddy of mine about building a vehicle-mobile ADS-B display (kind of like avoidance radar, except it’s just a truck) and was thinking that I’d have to figure out a way for PiAware to know that the location was constantly changing. If this is already a feature, then all I need to do is feed my main vehicle GPS data to the Pi. Is it really that easy?
Cheers - Jon N7UV
PiAware will automatically detect and use a connected GPS device via the standard “gpsd” service on the Pi. It should be plug-and-play, however this is not a formally supported feature.
Thanks Eric,
I have been uploading from my motorhome when travelling around but only whilst stopped at a site and after manually inputting Lat, Lon and Alt.
With GPSD on the Pi (and a USB GPS of course) would that be done automatically?
Would it work whilst driving?
Cheers
Yes your lat/long will be updated automatically and should work while driving.
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My GlobalSat BU-353-S4 installation does not keep my position updated on PiAware Skyview on a continual basis while I’m driving.
It requires a reboot of the Pi3 and a refresh of Skyview in order to update my position on the map.
http://usglobalsat.com/p-688-bu-353-s4.aspx#images/product/large/688.jpg
Just a thought, a quick fix/hack might be:
- You could write a script to restart dump1090 every 20 minutes when driving.
- Add in a reload/refresh in the html on the map side for every 25 minutes.
I’m going to have to study up on script writing.
Do you know any good sources??
Hi Chris,
I have no problems with with the position updates for dump1090. When GPSd/Dump1090 senses a reasonable position change it will restart dump1090 automaticly. OBJ or ChrisCarlson might give the distance for that. It might be that you haven’t crossed that treshold before you do a reboot.
Skyview needs to be refreshed but that is a simple F5 or a autorefresh extension in your favorite browser.
I use it on a vessel and it works like a charm. We are working close to shore now so I even have Mlat from shorestations and can track US, UK RC-135’s and Swedish S102B’s nicely over the Baltic and N45N flying just inside the borders of the Baltic states.
If you look up my stats you might have an idea where I work. The planeplotter feeder has no GPS attached and as such is stationary. Cant be bothered to manually update that one, but the PiAware will show our movement while we work in the field.
Regards,
Neal
Hi Neal,
Thanks for your detailed information.
Earlier this afternoon, I took a drive and found out that dump 1090 and PiAware are apparently receiving continuous GPS position updates. This was evident when I checked the My ADS-B page where one manually sets the pi’s location. Lo and behold, the position was already entered without any previous manual input.
Only problem is, that no matter how often I do a Skyview refresh, the new positions won’t update until I reboot the Pi.
Chris,
That’s strange! When you drive around can you check your PiAware log on you stats page? On mine it gave the occasional restart of dump1090 after the position change treshold was met. I can’t check it right now as we are at anchor waiting for better weather to continue work. (gotta love winter in the Baltic)
The Skyview position comes from Dump1090 I think and that will only be updated every once in a while. The position I see now (before reboot) in my Skyview is about 3nM from our current position. After I rebooted, the Skyview is at our current position. So that leads me to believe that a dump1090 restart would be enough to update the skyview position.
What kind of distance did you drive before rebooting? Check you Piaware log on your stats page and wait for a dump1090 restart.
Hope this helps a bit.
Regards from a windy Baltic,
Neal
Thanks Neal.
I’ll try the things you mentioned.
I’m probably not being patient enough and expecting the Skyview map to refresh immediately.
Best regards,
Chris
<html>
<head>
<title>AUTO-REFRESH EVERY 5 SECONDS</title>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5">
</head>
<body>
BLAH
</body>
</html>
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Thanks Tom.
As Neal indicated, Dump1090 finally rebooted without my intervention. This from my log:
2017-12-04 11:04 EST] attempting to restart dump1090-fa using ‘systemctl --no-block try-restart dump1090-fa.service < /dev/null’…
[2017-12-04 11:04 EST] dump1090 restart appears to have been successful
I’m not sure yet what, exactly, triggers the auto-reboot but I’m satisfied with the results.
I really don’t mind having to manually refresh Skyview.
Mind you, I fully realize that none of this is officially supported by FlightAware and fully appreciate the fact that GPS data does, in fact, propagate to PiAware via the “gpsd” service.
Chris
yes - i have no time/keen on to look into skyview-code - it was just the quick and dirty way to refresh without manually hit the reload button. probably the skyview site gets the site location from 127.0.0.1/dump1090/data/receiver.json - so the better way were to just reload this information via javascript …
Tom,
Thanks for your kind help.
Unfortunately, with my level of expertise (or lack thereof) most of this stuff is way over my head.
cj
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Patience is a virtue 
Glad you got it sorted. Cool thing is that it also updates the position for Mlat. So if you have a nice dataplan on mobile you can feed on the go.
Data is dirt cheap here, got myself a local sim now and have 30G for abt. 10US, with free data between 0100 and 0700 per month. So at the moment I’m not dependent on the ships sattelite connection for feeding and internet.
Regards,
Neal
Neal,
Sound like you’ve got an excellent data plan! I’ve been using a T-Mobile “SyncUP DRIVE” connected to my car’s OBD port, as my wifi hotspot. It works very well for providing a connection to the Pi. Since this is a new application for me, I haven’t yet taken the time check my data usage. I don’t think feeding FlightAware is all that data intensive, but I will find out soon.
A few times, I’ve connected using my iPhone as a wifi hotspot but it seems a little slower than the SyncUP DRIVE.
Happy cruising to you and yours!!
Chris