Using a SBS-3 with Basestation and PiAware - No MLAT sync

FlightAware ADS-B Flight Tracking
1

Hi

I have a SBS-3 which I use via basestation software to feed my local setup, and use the IQ feature for DSD.

I used the very helpful scripts to install all the flightaware components on some debian based (ubuntu) distributions - as I do not have a PI available at this location.

I used modesmixer2 to create a server listening on port 30005 & fatv 10001 so that the FA executables can connect.

I then used modesmixxer2 to connect to my basestation on a remote windows machine and pull the SBS data.

I am getting ADSB data and pushing to FA as witnessed in my webstats. However, i an not getting sync with other local receivers.

03/12/2016 08:23:40 mlat(12864): Receiver status: connected
03/12/2016 08:23:40 mlat(12864): Server status: not synchronized with any nearby receivers
03/12/2016 08:23:40 mlat(12864): Receiver: 0.0 msg/s received 0.0kB/s from receiver
03/12/2016 08:23:40 mlat(12864): Server: 0.0 kB/s from server 0.0kB/s TCP to server 0.0kB/s UDP to server
03/12/2016 08:23:40 mlat(12864): Aircraft: 0 of 0 Mode S, 0 of 0 ADS-B used
03/12/2016 08:26:16 23540 msgs recv’d from modesmixer2 (331 in last 5m); 7274 msgs sent to FlightAware
03/12/2016 08:31:16 25867 msgs recv’d from modesmixer2 (2327 in last 5m); 9601 msgs sent to FlightAware

Are there any special options needed for modesmixer to allow MLAT entries?

Do i have any other options to connect my SBS-3 with basesataion to FA and give mlat? (the basestation software SBS machine is obviously windows)

It should be noted that i have another fully functioing RTL dongle (with massively reduced range) based FA instance using MLAT without issue - on the same external public IP address - would that have a part?

Regards all

Mike

2

The SBS receiver produces a 20MHz timestamp that rolls over frequently (every 0.8s IIRC), quite different to the beast / dump1090 which is 12MHz and effectively never rolls over. It requires special handling and a direct feed to mlat-client of the original data to handle this. This sort of setup is unfortunately not currently supported by piaware.

3

Thanks for the info, that fits as the ubuntu image already has mutabiliy-mlat-client on and working feeding into a private network.

Are there any plans to get the fa-client to work with SBS and basestation? I would imagine that alot more MLAT positions could be provided to the network if this was operational.

Thanks

Mike

4

It would be nice to have and it is somewhere on my todo list. Though it is more involved than just configuration changes and there aren’t lots of SBS receivers around so it’s not too high up the list, unfortunately. I do have work in progress for supporting external receivers that overlaps with some of the SBS work, at least.

5

Hello,

Supports PiAware 3.x not SBS-3 with MLAT?

Kind regards

FA.EDDH

6

Piaware 3 does not support mlat with a SBS.