Model Number: Orange Pi PC set 5
CPU: H3 Quad-core Cortex-A7 H.265/HEVC 4K
Memory (SDRAM): 1GB DDR3 (shared with GPU)
Onboard Network: 10/100M Ethernet
USB 2.0 Ports: Three USB 2.0 HOST, one USB 2.0 OTG
I am using 2 powered USB hubs and have a green AirNav RadarBox ADSB, Red UAT and Yellow VHF dongle in the 1st hub and a blue AirNav RadarBox AIS dongle in the 2nd hub. I have 1 antenna for each band. I use this system to run AIS-Catcher for AIS feeding to AirNav ShipXplorer, Marine Traffic, Vessel Finder and AISHub. I feed ADSB, MLAT and UAT to FlightAware, FlightRadar24, AirNav RadarBox24, ADSBExchange, ADSB.fi, AirPlanes.live, PlaneFinder and ADSBHub.
I have built a 2nd system the same as above but it does not have AIS yet. I plan to try to read NMEA data from a cellphone used as a WiFi access point (if that is doable!!!) and access the device with ssh and dynamic DNS (setup and working already on local WiFi neetwork. I have installed the myddns client on the 2nd OrangePi and set it up.
If I can set up aa cellphone as an LTE modem to WiFi access point for internet access and read NMEA that could be useful. Can this be done at all? Has anyone tried this?
I look forward to some ideas expressed.
However, I am concerned about my OrangePi being overloaded. Here is the PiAware Status Page below. Is my system too overloaded to consider something like this?
It is running at 44% to 55% load and 59 deg C to 67 deg C. I have a 12V forced draft fan passing air through the enclosure but may add a 2nd induced draft fan too to lower the temperature.
If I read it correctly, it sounds like he wants to use a cell phone as both a WiFi access point for the system and also for a GPS geolocation. Maybe it’s a portable setup??? If it’s not, I don’t see the advantage of a GPS location over just entering the lat/lon coordinates.
Thanks. Been monitoring the Pi and CPU load has settled to 49% to 48% which is ok it seems for now. I am trying to use a cellphone for a mobile setup to provide LTE to WiFi internet access. But from what I read it is possible to use gpsd to listen for NMEA GPS data over WiFi from a cellphone GPS. I have looked at NMEA GPS and NMEA Link which support USB, Bluetooth and WiFi transmission from a cellphones GPS and it seems gpsd May be able to read data over WiFi on the Pi.
Hi jafrank. That’s exactly what I want to try. I am trying to use a cellphone for a mobile setup to provide LTE to WiFi internet access. But from what I read it is possible to use gpsd to listen for NMEA GPS data over WiFi from a cellphone GPS. I have looked at NMEA GPS and NMEA Link on my iPhone to test. They seem to support USB, Bluetooth and WiFi transmission from a cellphones GPS and it seems gpsd May be able to. The only difficulty I anticipate is to establish if it’s possible to read in position information instead of explicitly inputting latitude longitude and height information when setting up MLAT. I suspect this may not be possible. It may be that I have to leave out the MLAT setup in a mobile setup as it may be to hard to setup for the limited accuracy a mobile MLAT station could provide.
I was also wondering if a GPS hat may offer better latency as it seems as though MLAT requires positioning accuracy that a mobile station reading NMEA over a WiFi link would not be able to do easily.
My initial thought was that a mobile station needs an internet link and for MLAT positioning. So I know a cellphone can do both (internet and also GPS/NMEA over WiFi). And a cellphone and OrangePi/Raspberry Pi and fans for cooling can all run of one of the $40-60 UPS devices using 18650 Li-Ion batteries for power and cooling.
I am currently running a stationary headless OrangePi feeding AIS, ADSB, UAT, VHF and MLAT to multiple providers. Unfortunately because we rent and don’t own our house the antennae (4: ADSB UAT VHF AIS) setup if far from optimal. The CPU load is only 40-50%. CPU runs at 59-66 deg C and I have DDNS setup for ssh access to monitor performance while I am away. I have started to make a mobile unit. It uses the 3 in 1 RadarBox ADSB UAT and VHF antenna. This seems to work at home but antenna placement is again not optimal so I want to be able to move it around to see how it performs. I may add in AIS with AIS catcher to feed ShipXplorer Marine Traffic Vessel Finder and AIS hub like I do for my fixed station if I can power it cool it with fans and get internet access. If I can do mobile MLAT I may try that too.
(a) Feeding gps location data to piaware data feeder, in which case it will automatically reset to current location, as the location of mobile receiver changes.
OR
(b) It requires to be set at My-ADSB web page settings, in which case it would require resetting manually whenever receiver location changes.
I may be misremembering (but I don’t think so). There have been several discussions over the past couple of years about creating mobile stations. I know there is at least one ADSB antenna that also receives and synchronizes with GPS data. I think I recall @obj (one of the programmers that created the FA software) saying that FA doesn’t update position data in real time, but rather does it periodically. The result would be that if you were driving in a car, you wouldn’t see your position moving down the road at speed, rather you would “jump” from position to position.
Hopefully Oliver will pop his head in and correct me if I am wrong!
My goal would not be to see my station moving but as you suggest just to get enough periodic position updates read by FlightAware to test if some sort of MLAT is possible. If not I would settle for a mobile ADSB UAT VHF solution.
There is an additional consideration in my case: I feed MLAT to FlightAware, have configured FR24 - but see it says “not permitted “ even though it’s enabled, RadarBox24, ADSBExchange, Airplanes.live and ADSB.fi. So I would need to figure out how to feed GPS NMEA data over WiFi to all providers - to do due diligence .
So I think I will be doing mobile ADSB UAT and VHF. At very best I may only get mobile MLAT to work partially for FlightAware (which was my main and first provider I set up). I am still waiting on my mobile UPS and it’s 18650 batteries to arrive. Battery delivery to Hawaii is complicated to do because so many providers do not ship.
My other goal is to try to get better antenna placement by using a mobile solution too.
I think I will connect up my mobile system to my WiFi and my cellphone and run one of my NMEA apps to connect to the mobile unit over WiFi while the unit is running gosd to read the NMEA data from my phone and see if I can get gpsd to communicate with PiAware and send NMEA GPS data. If that works then I can connect up my UPS power system. It’s running a dynamic dns daemon too and I have ssh setup on my iPhone which connects to the mobile Pi using the dynamic dns I have configured so it may work. But I may be able to connect to iPhone hotspot and then both will be on same subnet so may be easy for ssh that way too.
I really don’t think you are going to get MLAT while moving. MLAT is timing-based, as I understand it, & requires that you synchronize with (I think…) 3 or more other nearby receivers. I’m not sure how you are going to get that lock if your position changes every 5 minutes.
I have been trying to get my OrangePi to connect to my iPhone SE 3rd edition. Long story but my iPhone SE was cheap and using its eSIM capability was cheap too for internet access. The only thing I can’t work out it how to get a headless Raspberry/Orange Pi to connect to it using wpa_supplicant. If I can get that to work then I can try to get NMEAGPS iPhone app which seems to serve GPS data over WiFi to serve GPS data to gpsd. Otherwise I will try one of those RPi/OPi HAT 5G/LTE modems that connects to internet and also has GNSS.
An update on my mobile OrangePi ADSB UAT VHF feeder. I could not get my iPhone SE or Android Xaiomi Mi 10T Pro to function as an access point for my Orange Pi to use. So I found a USB Quectel EC25-AF IoT modem which I battled to get to work using QMI mode so I set the modem to use ECM mode. However, I noticed it seems to disable the RadarBox ADSB and UAT and VHF dongles. I noticed that removing the USB Quectel modem and restarting piaware, dump1090-fa (ADSB) and dump978-fa (UAT) and rtl_airband (Airband VHF) solved the issue. I was wondering if the USB system was being overdrawn from a supply current perspective or whether it was n Orange Pi computing resource issue. When I plug in the USB modem into the Orange Pi and watch the FlightAware feeder stats page I can see that it says: "no ADSB programme listening…etc…"and when pull out the modem and restart piaware, dump1090-fa and dump978-fa the log shows that piaware, dump1090-fa and dmp978-fa are running again
It will probably an overload in terms of bandwidth on the internal USB bus of the Orange Pi. It’s not a voltage issue as well but the max number of signals on the USB bus that interrupts the feeds.
I used an Android phone, as WiFi hotspot, to give data connection to one of my radar boxes (Pi3 based). It worked, but be ready for a huge data usage.
I had to turn off the MLAT to reduce it and it was still GB of data weekly. I guess it depends of the received traffic level at your location…
Similar experience.
I use my Galaxy S9 as a wifi hotspot for notebook when away from home. I will never use a public wifi access point due to security concerns. My next notebook will have cellular capabilities.
