I setup my first ADSB receiver this weekend using a Mini N100 PC. I have Debian 11 Bullseye installed as the OS on VirtualBox and then installed the piaware, dump1090-fa and piaware-web software on the VM.
Thanks @abcd567 for the instructions on your GitHub. They were a lifesaver.
I configured my lat / lon on my flightaware profile and I could see aircraft on both the local web interface and Skyaware Anywhere for the last 2 days until this evening. I can only see aircraft movements on the local web interface and NOT on the Skyaware Anywhere webpage even though when I look at my feeder stats page in my FA account it says FA is receiving reports from me. I checked the Piaware Log file and it says it successfully sent messages to Flightaware. I also checked the local Piaware status page on the VM today and 3 of the buttons are except for the MLAT button which is orange.
A few questions:
Any thoughts on why I cannot see the aircraft on the Skyaware Anywhere webpage this evening after it has been working for 2 days?
Why would the MLAT button on the Piaware status page still be showing as Orange instead of turning green?
Is there some software I can install to check the status of my antenna / receiver?
What is the best way to see if data is being transmitted to Flightaware besides checking the piaware log file?
Is dump1090-fa producing data? You can check this by following command:
nc localhost 30003
If dump1090-fa is producing deceded data, bove command will result continous flow of data in terminal. Press Ctrl+c buttons to break flow and exit. If no data is shown, then something wrong eiter with dump1090-fa, or dongle, or antenna.
The VM often has problem of dongle pass-through from Widows to Linux in VM
Jan 27 23:21:53 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Receiver: 103.1 msg/s received 20.1 msg/s processed (19%)
Jan 27 23:21:53 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Server: 0.0 kB/s from server 0.0kB/s TCP to server 0.2kB/s UDP to server
Jan 27 23:21:53 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Aircraft: 1 of 1 Mode S, 10 of 10 ADS-B used
Jan 27 23:22:19 raspberry piaware[764]: 5796 msgs recv'd from dump1090-fa (257 in last 5m); 5770 msgs sent to FlightAware
Jan 27 23:27:19 raspberry piaware[764]: 6073 msgs recv'd from dump1090-fa (277 in last 5m); 6047 msgs sent to FlightAware
Jan 27 23:32:19 raspberry piaware[764]: 6343 msgs recv'd from dump1090-fa (270 in last 5m); 6317 msgs sent to FlightAware
Jan 27 23:36:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Receiver status: connected
Jan 27 23:36:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Server status: not synchronized with any nearby receivers
Jan 27 23:36:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Receiver: 136.7 msg/s received 25.5 msg/s processed (19%)
Jan 27 23:36:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Server: 0.0 kB/s from server 0.0kB/s TCP to server 0.3kB/s UDP to server
Jan 27 23:36:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Aircraft: 2 of 3 Mode S, 9 of 9 ADS-B used
Jan 27 23:37:19 raspberry piaware[764]: 6664 msgs recv'd from dump1090-fa (321 in last 5m); 6638 msgs sent to FlightAware
Jan 27 23:42:19 raspberry piaware[764]: 6891 msgs recv'd from dump1090-fa (227 in last 5m); 6865 msgs sent to FlightAware
Jan 27 23:47:19 raspberry piaware[764]: 7012 msgs recv'd from dump1090-fa (121 in last 5m); 6986 msgs sent to FlightAware
Jan 27 23:51:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Receiver status: connected
Jan 27 23:51:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Server status: not synchronized with any nearby receivers
Jan 27 23:51:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Receiver: 68.1 msg/s received 12.9 msg/s processed (19%)
Jan 27 23:51:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Server: 0.0 kB/s from server 0.0kB/s TCP to server 0.2kB/s UDP to server
Jan 27 23:51:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Aircraft: 2 of 2 Mode S, 4 of 4 ADS-B used
Jan 27 23:52:19 raspberry piaware[764]: 7099 msgs recv'd from dump1090-fa (87 in last 5m); 7073 msgs sent to FlightAware
Jan 27 23:57:19 raspberry piaware[764]: 7170 msgs recv'd from dump1090-fa (71 in last 5m); 7144 msgs sent to FlightAware
Jan 28 00:02:19 raspberry piaware[764]: 7311 msgs recv'd from dump1090-fa (141 in last 5m); 7285 msgs sent to FlightAware
Jan 28 00:06:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Receiver status: connected
Jan 28 00:06:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Server status: not synchronized with any nearby receivers
Jan 28 00:06:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Receiver: 76.5 msg/s received 14.5 msg/s processed (19%)
Jan 28 00:06:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Server: 0.0 kB/s from server 0.0kB/s TCP to server 0.2kB/s UDP to server
Jan 28 00:06:54 raspberry piaware[764]: mlat-client(1289): Aircraft: 1 of 1 Mode S, 5 of 5 ADS-B used
Jan 28 00:07:19 raspberry piaware[764]: 7453 msgs recv'd from dump1090-fa (142 in last 5m); 7427 msgs sent to FlightAware
Jan 28 00:12:19 raspberry piaware[764]: 7518 msgs recv'd from dump1090-fa (65 in last 5m); 7492 msgs sent to FlightAware
Jan 28 00:17:19 raspberry piaware[764]: 7594 msgs recv'd from dump1090-fa (76 in last 5m); 7568 msgs sent to FlightAware
Your system is OK,
Your receiver is not synchronized for Mlat because of dongle passthrough to VM is not as good as in case of a direct install like on RPi. On my VM, I always have this log “not synchronized with other receivers”.
If on “Skyaware Anywhere” your receiver is not shown connected, it is issue eith Flightaware Servers. It will get resolved after couple of hours.
So MLAT is not essential for the tracking side of things. From my basic understanding so far is that MLAT makes the positions of aircraft more accurate. Is that correct?
Signals from some aircraft (such as military or private), do no include position data and therefore cannot be displayed on map. MLAT is used determine position of such aircraft by a technique called triangulation or multilateration usig signals from 3 or more receivers which pich the signal of such an aircraft. Without MLAT you wont see military or private planes on Skyaware map. All other planes have nothing to do with MLAT.
I have the same problem, I am new and configured the Raspberry PI based on Flightaware build instructions with their image, i am feeding both FA & FR24. I can see aircrafts on my local PiAware SkyAware, but can’t see any on SkyAware Anywhere
Any help is highly appreciated with detailed instructions how to do it
Thanks
Nothing else was running on it besides Windows OS and Virtualbox. They seem to be good little devices. For various reasons I decided to wipe it and install Debian 12 instead so am still getting everything re-installed and setup
