Need help with my setup

FlightAware ADS-B Flight Tracking
1

I am using a RPi 4 model B, a flighwaware pro stick plus and the Bingfu Dual Band 978MHz 1090MHz 5dB antenna.

Despite being only for hours it hasn’t detect any aircraft. It is a few miles from a small airport and about 30 miles from a major international airport…

I am using the image for my pi that flightaware provides and the only configuration change I have made is just the settings for WiFi.

On my PiAware Status page I have two oranges:

1090 Radio—Connected to S Mode Receiver but no recent data seen

MLAT ---- No clock sync with nearby receivers

piaware-status
PiAware master process (piaware) is running with pid 523.
PiAware ADS-B client (faup1090) is running with pid 807.
PiAware ADS-B UAT client (faup978) is not running (disabled by configuration settings)
PiAware mlat client (fa-mlat-client) is running with pid 800.
Local ADS-B receiver (dump1090-fa) is running with pid 781.

dump1090-fa (pid 781) is listening for ES connections on port 30005.
faup1090 is connected to the ADS-B receiver.
piaware is connected to FlightAware.

I feel like my setup is a fairly common one so I am not sure why I am having issues.

2

Make sure your cable connectors are correct. There are RP-SMA connectors that will connect but provide no electrical connection. google the difference between SMA and RP-SMA. There are also differences with N connectors. 50 and 75 ohm plugs have different pin sizes.

What code are you using? Are you using the FA image or some other image?

I have received a number of aircraft from an antenna on my basement window (it didn’t have great range but did get a fair amount of aircraft. I am under the flight path into La Guardia airport in NYC).

Remember that the signals are “line of sight”. If the antenna cannot see the aircraft then it cannot receive them.

3

I am using the FA image here: https://piaware.flightcdn.com/piaware-sd-card-7.2.img.zip

This is the antennna: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HQJKMBD/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A2X7IHOFTAZ9BA&th=1

The antenna is plugged straight into the FA Pro Stick Plus.

It is a nice day so everything has been sitting on the deck today with a full view of the sky.

4

It’s not connected to FlightAware servers at the moment. Check the piaware logs by entering

tail -f /var/log/piaware.log

5

Mar 21 02:24:07 piaware piaware[477]: no new messages received in 3888 seconds, it might just be that there haven’t been any aircraft nearby but I’m going to try to restart everything, just in case…
Mar 21 02:24:08 piaware piaware[477]: faup1090 exited with SIG SIGHUP
Mar 21 02:24:08 piaware piaware[477]: attempting to restart dump1090…
Mar 21 02:24:09 piaware piaware[477]: attempting to restart dump1090-fa using ‘systemctl --no-block try-restart dump1090-fa.service < /dev/null’…
Mar 21 02:24:09 piaware piaware[477]: dump1090 restart appears to have been successful
Mar 21 02:24:10 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Lost connection to localhost:30005
Mar 21 02:24:10 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Reconnecting in 30.0 seconds
Mar 21 02:24:10 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Beast-format results connection with 127.0.0.1:30104: connection lost
Mar 21 02:24:19 piaware piaware[477]: ADS-B data program ‘dump1090-fa’ is listening on port 30005, so far so good
Mar 21 02:24:19 piaware piaware[477]: Starting faup1090: /usr/lib/piaware/helpers/faup1090 --net-bo-ipaddr localhost --net-bo-port 30005 --stdout --lat 38.400 --lon -90.100
Mar 21 02:24:19 piaware piaware[477]: Started faup1090 (pid 2316) to connect to dump1090-fa
Mar 21 02:24:39 piaware piaware[477]: 0 msgs recv’d from dump1090-fa (0 in last 5m); 0 msgs sent to FlightAware
Mar 21 02:24:40 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Input connected to localhost:30005
Mar 21 02:24:40 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Input format changed to BEAST, 12MHz clock
Mar 21 02:24:40 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Beast-format results connection with ::1:30104: connection established
Mar 21 02:29:18 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Receiver status: connected
Mar 21 02:29:18 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Server status: not synchronized with any nearby receivers
Mar 21 02:29:18 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Receiver: 0.0 msg/s received 0.0 msg/s processed (0%)
Mar 21 02:29:18 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Server: 0.0 kB/s from server 0.0kB/s TCP to server 0.0kB/s UDP to server
Mar 21 02:29:18 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Aircraft: 0 of 0 Mode S, 0 of 0 ADS-B used
Mar 21 02:29:37 piaware piaware[477]: 0 msgs recv’d from dump1090-fa (0 in last 5m); 0 msgs sent to FlightAware
Mar 21 02:34:37 piaware piaware[477]: 0 msgs recv’d from dump1090-fa (0 in last 5m); 0 msgs sent to FlightAware
Mar 21 02:39:37 piaware piaware[477]: 0 msgs recv’d from dump1090-fa (0 in last 5m); 0 msgs sent to FlightAware
Mar 21 02:44:18 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Receiver status: connected
Mar 21 02:44:18 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Server status: not synchronized with any nearby receivers
Mar 21 02:44:18 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Receiver: 0.0 msg/s received 0.0 msg/s processed (0%)
Mar 21 02:44:18 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Server: 0.0 kB/s from server 0.0kB/s TCP to server 0.0kB/s UDP to server
Mar 21 02:44:18 piaware piaware[477]: mlat-client(741): Aircraft: 0 of 0 Mode S, 0 of 0 ADS-B used
Mar 21 02:44:37 piaware piaware[477]: 0 msgs recv’d from dump1090-fa (0 in last 5m); 0 msgs sent to FlightAware
Mar 21 02:49:37 piaware piaware[477]: 0 msgs recv’d from dump1090-fa (0 in last 5m); 0 msgs sent to FlightAware

6

I would suspect the antenna or its cable. With the dongle removed from the computer, try straightening a metal paperclip then bending the very end at a 90 degree angle and sticking it into the hole on the dongle’s antenna connector, then plug the dongle back in with the rest of the paperclip vertical and see if you receive anything at all. Give it a few hours to run and watch your local map.

7

Please issue following commands, and post output of command rtl_test -t below:

sudo apt install rtl-sdr   

sudo systemctl stop piaware dump1090-fa   

rtl_test -t

After above test is completed:

sudo systemctl restart piaware dump1090-fa
8

rtl_test -t
Found 1 device(s):
0: Realtek, RTL2832U, SN: 00001000

Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U
Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Supported gain values (29): 0.0 0.9 1.4 2.7 3.7 7.7 8.7 12.5 14.4 15.7 16.6 19.7 20.7 22.9 25.4 28.0 29.7 32.8 33.8 36.4 37.2 38.6 40.2 42.1 43.4 43.9 44.5 48.0 49.6
[R82XX] PLL not locked!
Sampling at 2048000 S/s.
No E4000 tuner found, aborting.

9

Based on that output and some research I set the gain manually to be 42.1. After a reboot or restart of services it looks like the gain still adaptively changes to reach the max.

sudo systemctl status dump1090-fa
● dump1090-fa.service - dump1090 ADS-B receiver (FlightAware customization)
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/dump1090-fa.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Mon 2022-03-21 12:17:08 UTC; 4min 38s ago
Docs: PiAware - ADS-B and MLAT Receiver - FlightAware
Main PID: 469 (dump1090-fa)
Tasks: 3 (limit: 4915)
CPU: 42.696s
CGroup: /system.slice/dump1090-fa.service
└─469 /usr/bin/dump1090-fa --quiet --device-type rtlsdr --device-index 0 --gain 42.1 --adaptive-range --fix --lat 3####### --lon -9######>

Mar 21 12:18:05 piaware dump1090-fa[469]: adaptive: available dynamic range (45.0dB) >= required dynamic range (30.0dB), continuing upward scan
Mar 21 12:18:05 piaware dump1090-fa[469]: adaptive: changing gain from 44.5dB (step 26) to 48.0dB (step 27) because: probing dynamic range gain upper b>
Mar 21 12:18:05 piaware dump1090-fa[469]: rtlsdr: tuner gain set to 48.0 dB (gain step 27)
Mar 21 12:18:15 piaware dump1090-fa[469]: adaptive: available dynamic range (45.0dB) >= required dynamic range (30.0dB), continuing upward scan
Mar 21 12:18:15 piaware dump1090-fa[469]: adaptive: changing gain from 48.0dB (step 27) to 49.6dB (step 28) because: probing dynamic range gain upper b>
Mar 21 12:18:15 piaware dump1090-fa[469]: rtlsdr: tuner gain set to 49.6 dB (gain step 28)
Mar 21 12:18:25 piaware dump1090-fa[469]: adaptive: available dynamic range (43.8dB) >= required dynamic range (30.0dB), continuing upward scan
Mar 21 12:18:25 piaware dump1090-fa[469]: adaptive: changing gain from 49.6dB (step 28) to 58.6dB (step 29) because: probing dynamic range gain upper b>
Mar 21 12:18:25 piaware dump1090-fa[469]: rtlsdr: tuner gain set to about 58.6 dB (gain step 29) (tuner AGC enabled)
Mar 21 12:18:35 piaware dump1090-fa[469]: adaptive: reached upper gain limit, halting dynamic range scan here

I am not sure if this is related to the issues I am having or not. Naturally my original problems are still not resolved :frowning:

10 
sudo systemctl stop piaware dump1090-fa  

dump190-fa

Do you see a flow of data?

Break the flow by pressing Ctrl and C keys togather

Restore system :

sudo systemctl restart dump1090-fa piaware

 

11

This is what it looks like:
dump1090-fa
Mon Mar 21 13:19:48 2022 UTC dump1090-fa 7.2 starting up.
rtlsdr: using device #0: Generic RTL2832U (Realtek, RTL2832U, SN 00001000)
Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
rtlsdr: tuner gain set to 49.6 dB (gain step 28)
Allocating 4 zero-copy buffers

No entries or data after that. I also have the gain manually set to 20.7 and adaptive gain disabled so I am not sure why it is showing 49.6. Although maybe I am focusing on the wrong things as I am pretty new to this stuff.

12 

view1090

view1090-fa

Do you see some data?
(One of the two view commands is right, I dont remember which one)

13

Tot: 0 Vis: 0 RSSI: Max -100.0+ Mean nan Min 100.0- MaxD: 0.0nm+ |
Hex Mode Sqwk Flight Alt Spd Hdg Lat Long RSSI Msgs Ti
qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq

That is all I get

14

 

Run view1090-fa without stopping dump1090-fa.

(1) The most basic usage of view1090-fa is with no flags.
The view1090-fa will connect to the dump1090-fa running on the RPi, and display the decoded messages in an ASCII-text table , as shown below:

 

pi@piaware:~ $ view1090-fa  

 Hex    Mode  Sqwk  Flight   Alt    Spd  Hdg    Lat      Long   RSSI  Msgs  Ti \
qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq
 A258B7 S0                   36000  429  270                   -24.0     6  1
 A887FD S2    3575           36000  419  270   43.056  -78.639 -22.2    13  0
 C03CF6 S0          CFXCF     1625   95  027   43.064  -79.613 -21.0    10  1
 A51D23 S0                   29625                             -27.0     4  0
 C05185 S2    4744            3000  144  353                   -18.5    21  0
 C06CC2 S2    4757  CGPEV     1250   88  250   43.161  -79.640 -22.8    15  0
 C0193B S0    1066           34000  457  208                   -24.8     9  0
 A43100 S2                   33000  501  136   43.949  -78.541 -18.7    23  0
 C066DD S0                    1525  142  048                   -12.9     7  1
 C0104F S2    0507            8400  277  098   43.761  -79.406  -4.9    48  0

 

(2) If view1090-fa is used with flag --no-interactive :
The view1090-fa will connect to the dump1090-fa running on the RPi, but will disable interactive mode, and print messages to stdout

 

pi@piaware:~ $ view1090-fa --no-interactive 

*8d8695c658c907a785196225322c;
CRC: 000000
RSSI: -24.6 dBFS
Time: 31554732847.83us
DF:17 AA:8695C6 CA:5 ME:58C907A7851962
 Extended Squitter Airborne position (barometric altitude) (11) (reliable)
  ICAO Address:  8695C6 (Mode S / ADS-B)
  Air/Ground:    airborne
  Baro altitude: 39000 ft
  CPR type:      Airborne
  CPR odd flag:  odd
  CPR latitude:  (119746)
  CPR longitude: (72034)
  CPR decoding:  none
  NIC-B:         0
  NACp:          8
  SIL:           2 (p <= 0.001%, unknown type)

*8da258b79915c1005008a3c8b06d;
CRC: 000000
RSSI: -27.3 dBFS
Time: 31554776138.25us
DF:17 AA:A258B7 CA:5 ME:9915C1005008A3
 Extended Squitter Airborne velocity over ground, subsonic (19/1) (reliable)
  ICAO Address:  A258B7 (Mode S / ADS-B)
  Air/Ground:    airborne
  Geom - baro:   -850 ft
  Ground track   270.1
  Groundspeed:   448.0 kt
  Baro rate:     64 ft/min
  NACv:          2
15

See my post above.
Either
Your antenna / antenna cable / connector is broken

OR
Your dongle is broken.

OR
Your Piaware SD card image got corrupted.

16

Still having issues. I have tried a few different Pi 4s. One had the normal FA image, one had the FA image with lcd, and one had an ubuntu image and I installed the software via a How to I found from you abcd. Nothing worked.

I had ordered a second antenna a couple days ago and that just came. No fix… Regardless of what I use I am still getting that no data is being found/produced

piaware-status
PiAware master process (piaware) is running with pid 1090.
PiAware ADS-B client (faup1090) is running with pid 1106.
PiAware ADS-B UAT client (faup978) is not running (disabled by configuration settings)
PiAware mlat client (fa-mlat-client) is running with pid 1103.
Local ADS-B receiver (dump1090-fa) is running with pid 852.

dump1090-fa (pid 852) is listening for ES connections on port 30005.
faup1090 is connected to the ADS-B receiver.
piaware is connected to FlightAware.

dump1090 is NOT producing data on localhost:30005.

I have a second FlightAware ProStick Plus coming in a couple days, but in my mind I just find it hard to believe the issue is the ProStick Plus I already have that is brand new. How often are those DoA?

Is there anything else I could be missing?

17

Very strong interference can cause zero reception on the FA pro plus.

Could also be that you’re shielding the antenna really well :slight_smile:

18

I am in a fairly rural area, despite being near a few airports. Is there a way to confirm whether interference is an issue? I don’t believe I am shielding that antenna… for several hours today I have had the antenna on our deck with a clear view of the sky. As I mentioned before though, I am very new to this.

Even tried different power supplies. Had planes showing the flightaware site directly overhead, but my device still not picking up anything.

Although at the moment it seems like it could be the ProStick Plus, I am worried once the new one shows up I am still going to have issues…

19

Set a fixed gain 43.9, show signal graph from graphs1090 …

What coax are you using?

20

I have now set a fixed gain 43.9 and disabled adaptive dynamic range.

I am not sure how to show the signal graph that you mention.

The coax is this antenna, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HQJKMBD/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A2X7IHOFTAZ9BA&th=1
plugged right into the FA ProStick Plus.

Currently the dump1090 still says it isn’t producing any data.