I’ve been running a piaware setup for several years. I did have to replace the dongle once when it died, but generally, things work fine.
I have noticed that my reception seems to have fallen off a cliff within the last couple weeks, but it’s not dead. On the map, I am seeing only very close aircraft at all, even at altitude. (Like 10-11 NM close)
MLAT isn’t synchronizing with basically anyone since around January 14th, and my ADS-B numbers are about 1/10 of what they were just before. Any ideas?
OK, your system is working, and your signal level has seriously dropped. That implies the antenna, connectors, cable, LNA (if used), the receiver dongle, or the power supply is the problem.
Could water have gotten into the cable somehow? That seriously affects signal levels.
Is the system inside or outside?
Any new cell towers in your area that might be swamping out the ADSB signals?
Do you have any replacement parts to swap out and identify possible problems?
Hopefully you have good access to the system and antenna for figuring out what has changed. Have fun and keep us informed on your progress. Others will chime in here to help too. Best wishes on a quick fix.
Thanks for the quick reply! I’ll take a look at the computer and work my way out from there, in order of accessibility. The Raspberry Pi is in a closet, where I’ve run a cable up into the attic for the antenna. If there’s water in the cable, then I have much larger issues at that point.
There are no nearby, new cell towers, just the one that has preceded me here.
Looks like it was just some iffy connections, thanks again!
I unplugged and re-plugged the dongle, and tightened the cable at that end. I’m now seeing planes out to 80+ NM on the map, and far better-looking log entries:
Jan 27 11:32:56 rpi4 piaware[761]: 481 msgs recv’d from dump1090-fa (29 in last 5m); 481 msgs sent to FlightAware
Jan 27 11:33:59 rpi4 piaware[761]: mlat-client(1474): Receiver status: connected
Jan 27 11:33:59 rpi4 piaware[761]: mlat-client(1474): Server status: synchronized with 49 nearby receivers
Jan 27 11:33:59 rpi4 piaware[761]: mlat-client(1474): Receiver: 2.6 msg/s received 1.7 msg/s processed (68%)
Jan 27 11:33:59 rpi4 piaware[761]: mlat-client(1474): Server: 0.0 kB/s from server 0.0kB/s TCP to server 0.0kB/s UDP to server
Jan 27 11:33:59 rpi4 piaware[761]: mlat-client(1474): Aircraft: 1 of 1 Mode S, 2 of 3 ADS-B used
Specifically:
synchronized with 49 nearby receivers instead of zero to one or two
29 messages in the last five minutes instead of approximately zero, and higher numbers again since then
