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Raspberry Pi type B + DVB-T Dongle to feed FR24

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  • Originally posted by HermanZA View Post
    Do we have any experience on the forum regarding the PI and the network interface going bad?
    After a slight thunderstorm and power failure, my PI is not on the network. A basic IFCONFIG (local logon) shows me its Transmitting data, but not Receiving anything. All other network equipment is working fine... (all of it was again power cycled and checked).... I swopped network cables, other port on the switch, even edited /etc/interfaces/network to change the IP address (as a last resort test)... No Joy.

    Even went so far and used my previous installs SD card and get the same results.

    As the saying in Africa goes: Do I now plant my Pi?
    Hi Herman!!!

    It may not be your PI. I had the same problem and it turned out that my Dongle (2 of them) got fried during a heavy lightening... Thunder storm. I no longer trust my dongles to be connected to the antenna during such heavy storms. I tested the dongles using SDRShape on 1090mhz and found they no longer received incoming signals. My PI turned out to be ok. Hope this helps

    Andy
    Andy T-KTIK1

    RPI - http://Temporarily off Line due to t...98.37.214:8080

    Comment


    • Originally posted by andyk1 View Post
      Hi Herman!!!

      It may not be your PI. I had the same problem and it turned out that my Dongle (2 of them) got fried during a heavy lightening... Thunder storm. I no longer trust my dongles to be connected to the antenna during such heavy storms. I tested the dongles using SDRShape on 1090mhz and found they no longer received incoming signals. My PI turned out to be ok. Hope this helps

      Andy
      Test the interface by seeing if to can putty to the Pi with no dongle
      Test the dongle by attaching a screen and keyboard and see if dump1090 will list the planes it receives run using ./dump1090 --interactive (from the folder the program resides in)

      Comment


      • Running into trouble, need assistance, no space left on device.....

        Originally posted by peterhr View Post
        The write up was made using Raspberian 2013-07-26-wheezy-raspbarian (latest at the time of writing).

        Once I had a working config, I removed my FR2 key and saved the SDcard image as PHimage-Pi-RTL2832-FR24-2013-24a.img

        ... you could restore that image, add your FR24 key and you should have an almost working radar [some errors in scripts were found after uploading the image, the upload takes hours so was not repeated]

        ... the scripts that needed changes were put on the google drive and need applying to the restored PHimage-Pi-RTL2832-FR24-2013-24a.img image (and can be used by those building from scratch)

        ---

        New Raspbarian Wheezy distributions [since the write up was done] include drivers for the TV tuner dongle as part of the Linux.

        Since we don't use the dongle as a TV tuner - these need to be disabled - see member loplo and Jayent posts above if using a new Rasbarian image or are updating / upgrading your Wheezy.

        The guide is now in need of a rewrite to take this into account, and that needs time and equipment (unless I take my running radar down to do it).

        Remember, before running major updates on your Pi software, take an image of the SD card to work on so you can get back to what you had before.
        Hello,

        I am trying to follow the directions in the Raspberry Pi + RTL-SDR RTL2832 guide, and am running into trouble on step 2 of the following:

        Update the OS to the latest version…
        apt-get update
        apt-get upgrade

        Partway through the process, I begin getting errors:

        Unpacking replacement base-files ...
        Processing triggers for man-db ...
        /usr/bin/mandb: can't write to /var/cache/man/2302: No space left on device
        Processing triggers for install-info ...
        Setting up base-files (7.1wheezy2+rpi1) ...


        Processing triggers for man-db ...
        /usr/bin/mandb: can't write to /var/cache/man/2413: No space left on device
        Setting up perl-base (5.14.2-21+rpi2) ...
        W: Operation was interrupted before it could finish

        I'm using an 8GB card, which I thought would be sufficient. Am I missing something in the process, or doing something unnecessary? It seems I read folks here using 2GB cards and getting things working.

        Any help would be appreciated.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by glen4cindy View Post
          Hello,

          /usr/bin/mandb: can't write to /var/cache/man/2302: No space left on device

          /usr/bin/mandb: can't write to /var/cache/man/2413: No space left on device

          I'm using an 8GB card, which I thought would be sufficient. Am I missing something in the process, or doing something unnecessary? It seems I read folks here using 2GB cards and getting things working.
          Any help would be appreciated.
          Hi,

          In all probability, you could indeed be running out of space. The Raspi images are usually 2 GB in size so it will only show up as 2 GB after the initial installation, even if your physical SD card is an 8 GB one. However, as you say, people have run the setup on 2GB cards so you should be OK even with 2GB. Nevertheless, you can try this.

          What you need to do is to expand the file system to fill the entire SD card. You may have missed this step. This can be done easily by running the raspi-config utility which usually runs on first boot automatically. You can run this manually too, if you missed out on this step initially. Here's what the raspi-config documentation says:

          Running raspi-config another time
          Following the first boot, your raspberry pi will boot into the command prompt or desktop (you choose in raspi-config). You can run it at any time after that from the command line or in a terminal window by typing (case sensitive):

          sudo raspi-config

          Then use this option:

          expand_rootfs - Expand root partition to fill SD card
          The usual distribution images are 2 GB. When you copy the image to a larger SD card you have a portion of that card unused. This option expands the initial image to expand to fill the rest of the SD card, giving you more space. You need to reboot the Raspberry Pi to make this available. THERE IS NO CONFIRMATION - SELECTING THE OPTION EXPANDS THE PARTITION.

          Hope this helps.

          PS: Aside to Peter - You may want to add this step to your set-up guide. I think it's missing in the write-up.

          Best
          Jayant
          Last edited by Jayant; 2014-01-05, 06:56.
          T-VABB7 | RTL dongle + Raspberry Pi + dump1090 + Bulgarian 5dBi collinear

          Comment


          • Agreed, another problem is that this brings raspbian wheezy up to date - this now requires a 4gb card (it used to run on 2) and introduces the problem of the new kernel RTL drivers. I'm waiting for delivery of a second pi then I'll update the doc. In the meantime if the RTL drivers do cause a problem - it may be easier to use the image on the Google drive that holds the focus and not do the wheezy updates.

            Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Jayant View Post
              Hi,

              In all probability, you could indeed be running out of space. The Raspi images are usually 2 GB in size so it will only show up as 2 GB after the initial installation, even if your physical SD card is an 8 GB one. However, as you say, people have run the setup on 2GB cards so you should be OK even with 2GB. Nevertheless, you can try this.

              What you need to do is to expand the file system to fill the entire SD card. You may have missed this step. This can be done easily by running the raspi-config utility which usually runs on first boot automatically. You can run this manually too, if you missed out on this step initially. Here's what the raspi-config documentation says:

              Running raspi-config another time
              Following the first boot, your raspberry pi will boot into the command prompt or desktop (you choose in raspi-config). You can run it at any time after that from the command line or in a terminal window by typing (case sensitive):

              sudo raspi-config

              Then use this option:

              expand_rootfs - Expand root partition to fill SD card
              The usual distribution images are 2 GB. When you copy the image to a larger SD card you have a portion of that card unused. This option expands the initial image to expand to fill the rest of the SD card, giving you more space. You need to reboot the Raspberry Pi to make this available. THERE IS NO CONFIRMATION - SELECTING THE OPTION EXPANDS THE PARTITION.

              Hope this helps.

              PS: Aside to Peter - You may want to add this step to your set-up guide. I think it's missing in the write-up.

              Best
              Jayant
              Thank you very much. I will rewrite the original image to the card, and try these steps first, then start the guide, because as you say, it is missing.

              Another thing, unless I am missing something, the command "ipconfig" returned an error. I simply ran it immediately, as the guide stated after logging in. I was able to find the IP address by looking at the DHCP table in my router, however.

              Comment


              • Ipconfig is for windows, ifconfig for linux.

                The image on the Google drive has the feeder software, etc installed - it just needs the fr24.she script updated and root file system expanded.

                Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
                Last edited by peterhr; 2014-01-05, 07:36.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by peterhr View Post
                  Ipconfig is for windows, ifconfig for linux.

                  The image on the Google drive has the feeder software, etc installed - it just needs the fr24.she script updated and root file system expanded.

                  Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
                  Ok, So, Let me understand, I do not need to follow the guide on the Google drive as I have been doing? I guess I am still a little lost here!

                  I'm not quite sure how to update the fr24.she script as you say above.

                  But, if I am understanding what you are saying here, I can load the image, plug in the NooElec R820T SDR USB Dongle, attach my Antenna, Network cable, and I'm in business?

                  I'm guessing the fr24.she script will have something to do with the key that needs to be added to feed for FR24 as well.

                  Sorry, if I'm being redundant.

                  But, I have been following the guide, step by step, and am currently stuck at the point where it says:

                  Now build dmp1090 executable, and this is what the response is from the RasPi:

                  pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cd ~
                  pi@raspberrypi ~ $ git clone git://github.com/MalcolmRobb/dump1090.git
                  fatal: destination path 'dump1090' already exists and is not an empty directory.
                  pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cd dump1090
                  pi@raspberrypi ~/dump1090 $ make
                  make: Nothing to be done for `all'.

                  Comment


                  • Load the image
                    use putty to login to the pi
                    do 'raspi-config' to expand the file system to the size of your sd-card
                    reboot (so linux knows what you have done)
                    get the fr24.sh.txt file from the google drive
                    on the windows PC exit that and add in your sharing key
                    leave the file open in notepad
                    reconnect to the Pi
                    do
                    "nano fr24.sh"
                    delete all the content from the file [on the pi] then make sure you are at the top of the now empty file and make sure you're in the mode if you type something it gets inserted [we do need the file empty at this stage]

                    switch back to notepad and do control-A control-C to copy the content of the edited file into copy/past buffer

                    go back to putty then right click to paste everything from copy/paste buffer in.

                    Then we need to save the fr24.sh script by pressing control-O and exit by pressing control-X

                    now if you do "./fr24.sh" you should be up and running

                    I would still read through the guide though since it does say why we have done what we have done and if something is not working you can stop dump1090 and fr24 feed jobs and run them up in a more interactive way to try to see what's not working.

                    The recent changed to the wheezy kernel have caused us problems ... we do need to do the rewrite to take them into account. In the meantime I'll check if I did put ipconfig in the doc (easy mistake to make)

                    Comment


                    • Update: Pi with other PSU, no dongle : No network activity
                      Pi with other PSU, with dongle : dump1090 working fine in interactive mode, yet no network activity.
                      Conclusion: network controller has gone for a loop. Agree?

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by HermanZA View Post
                        Update: Pi with other PSU, no dongle : No network activity
                        Pi with other PSU, with dongle : dump1090 working fine in interactive mode, yet no network activity.
                        Conclusion: network controller has gone for a loop. Agree?
                        If you can access it using Putty then the network interface is OK, if not it's failed
                        ... if it has failed the putty could be revived by use of a USB network device (I'd probably replace the Pi and get a USB network device and use the old one for something else)

                        Comment


                        • Pi is not accessible via PuTTy can cant be ping'd, neither can it ping out on the network.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by peterhr View Post

                            now if you do "./fr24.sh" you should be up and running
                            Thanks!

                            I am now up and running!

                            Live.PNG

                            Now, I am going to try to build this antenna:



                            So I will be able to see more planes. I have an only the antenna that came with the Dongle, attached to an extension cable, outside on my roof, but, it still isn't seeing much.

                            Comment


                            • You will be amazed at the difference, I'm running a 12 element version and can receive A/C to 160 nautical miles, and my antenna is only on a pole attached to the side of my shed at present. I have other houses on three sides as well. A small tip - always check each section as you make it as if one section does short out it will always be in the middle ! I have used CT100 coax with a copper sheath and soldered my joints, but this is getting very hard to find now.
                              The cable that comes with the dongles is very high attenuation as well.
                              John
                              T-EGMC14 -- RTL2832U / R820T+ Raspberry Pi + Dump1090 with home made 8 element colinear 12m above ground level.

                              Comment


                              • Hi
                                I've done a new version and would appreciate it if an existing user would test this doc by doing a new build on a spare SD card.

                                You might find it will run on a 1Gb card (maybe try it on a bigger card without running the expansion ... that can always be done later)

                                06-Jan-2014 V2 Doc Here -


                                No saved image yet, but I am running it live on a 2Gb card (link in my sig) - ignore the section of the doc about deploying from the image file.
                                Last edited by peterhr; 2014-01-07, 07:26.

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