Hi All,
I run a feeder, and I find that the USB port that runs the SDR receiver fails after a period of time. My antenna is a modified mobile RFI antenna that was for the 800MHz band. I have re-tuned it to 1090MHz. It’s mounted on a stand-off on the side of my tower at around 6m above ground level. At the end of that coax run (RG-58), I have a LNA. From there to the SDR is around 5m of RG-174. Power for the LNA is from the SDR. A power meter on the USB port shows 280mA current draw running both SDR and LNA. Voltage is within spec at 4.97V.
After a random period of time, which could be anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 months, the feeder page shows no aircraft, yet site information shows three greens for PiAware, FlightAware, and MLAT, while SkyAware shows no aircraft.
Re-booting remotely sometimes resolves the issue.
Re-booting locally with a power cycle sometimes resolves the issue.
As a last resort, sometimes I find that I need to change the SDR to a different USB port on the Pi, as the port it was on stops working, even after power cycles.
I now have a 8GB Pi4B with all 4 ports dead, and the next Pi (same micro SD card) has already killed one port, with 3 good ports remaining.
The power meter shows that 5V is available on the failed port.
Ed.