Have been using a 3B v1.2 since 2016, with only one SD card replacement when updating from jessie to stretch. The Pi serves FA, RB24, SPMS, PF, ADSBx, MilitaryModeS, and OpenSky. It also runs Xastir pulling weather data from my local weeWx weather station, and pushing it to APRS/CWOP.
With that load it was running around 70-90% CPU, and in the winter got as low as 60’C. After adding a second receiver for UAT, the temps were as low as 65’C at night during winter, and the load was 80%+. /var/log/messages was showing regular under-voltage and normal-voltage messages, and UAT was dropping tons of samples per journalctl dump978-fa. dump1090exporter was showing over a 50 million more dropped 1090 samples than it was processing.
It was previously powered over PoE using a 802.3af 12.5W ethernet-usb splitter, and a 12.5W injector. Earlier this week I upgraded that to the Pi PoE+ 802.3at HAT, and a 802.3at 30W injector. Also changed the pi to a 3B+ v1.3 on Bullseye. Now with the HAT fan running the temps haven’t broken 54’C during the day (ambient high temps are ~75’F right now), dump1090exporter shows 0 dropped 1090 samples, while journalctl shows 0 dropped 978 samples. CPU is ranging 30-50%. This past week I dropped (or rose?) 4000 points in the FA rankings!
I am also using dynamic-range, and before the upgrade, the gain was usually 49, but now it doesn’t go higher than 43… Maybe it was cranking the gain up because it was losing so many samples…?
All feeders ( 7 in total) are using flightaware pro stick plus and a flightaware filter
3x flightaware antenna, 3x Vinnant antenna, 1 Chinese adsb antenna
I used to use a pijuice and connect USB to its input, but the batteries kept dying and puffing probably because the outdoor Enclosure is in direct sun all day.
I use the wall warts that came with the Pi’s. The wall warts are connected to my house power that is protected by a whole house backup generator. I live in coastal Florida where power outages (at least one a week) are the norm. Thank you Duke Energy.
All equipment at my place is powered by an original power supply unit.
These are connected to UPS equipment in case of a power failure supplying an average runtime of 4-5 hours.
Power outages are rare here but if they happen the UPS also provides gracefull shutdown of the equipment and in doing so limiting the damage to disks etc.
A mix of different USB power supplies, none original raspberry Pi. A multi output 50W USB power supply, plus a couple of non-original individual ones. I have way too many projects to use individual power supplies for everything. I do sometimes get the low voltage warning as the multi output power supply seems to put out around 4.9V. No UPS. They have run for hundreds of days in a row and the cause of any reset has been network, not power related.
I am using a Pi 3, Model B. Antenna is a colinear array, about 48" (120 cm), in the attic, probably about 30’ (9m) above ground. Cable from antenna to Pi is 25’ (7m) of KMR-400.
Some graphs over the last 24 hours (weekends are lighter than mid-week):
I was using a Pi4 4GB, but CPU usage was super low so I swapped it out for a Pi3 B+. Will probably switch back to the Pi4 when I get a airspy mini soon.
Using the official PSU since they output 5.1v. Have checked the output voltage at the usb port with the RTL-SDR v3 stick plugged in and the voltage remains above 5v.
I use a Zero W, no graphs or charts, just a tuner connected with a basic antenna.
Feed FA, FR24 and ADSBx
Uses around 400mA power
CPU temperature around 45c with an ambient temperature between 17-20
Have another Zero W which I use on occasions as a portable unit, powered by 5v USB power bank.
3B+ with Flight Aware ADS-B SDR and 1090mhz filter, plus Flight Aware 978 UAT SDR. Powered by RPi wall wart.
Have Flight Aware 1090mhz 66cm antenna for ADS-B and unmodified magnetic base antenna for UAT.
ADS-B antenna is co-located with Winegard HD7000R OTA-TV antenna on 10-foot steel pole, which is mounted to a pergola attached to my back deck. 10m SMA cable gets it about ~18ft (~5.5m) off the ground. I’ll take pictures of the setup later today and post in that discussion thread.
UAT antenna is located in a basement window. Someday this spring or summer I’ll move that to co-locate it with the ADS-B and install lightning arrestors (just in case!).
