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

[HermanZA]

Peter, I'm still seeing my pi hangs on DUMP1090, and then after a while the whole PI hangs/freezes. This happens after about 30 minutes uptime... initially had that, and suspected my cronjobs might be the cause, so commented that out... and it was better for upto 6 hours. Manually running the fr24.sh gets it going again, unless left too long. Any thoughts or suggestions? Maybe change the cronjob to something ridiculously short to as a process of elimination?
Suspected it overheated in the box today, so brought it down to cool off. Did the same, so I reloaded the mem card with everything (as per your write up) and it worked well for about 2 hours. Now starting the same crap again.
Also, how easy would it be to change the webserver port from 8080 to anything less common?

[Birdie]

Hi Peter,

@Birdie, just buy a RaPi and try it out, its easy with Peters perfect Tut

Greets from Hamburg,
Lorenz

I got 2 units of Raspberry PI & 2 DVB-T Dongles sitting on my desk. Will try it out.

[Birdie]

Peterhr, Thanks.

[peterhr]

Peter, I'm still seeing my pi hangs on DUMP1090, and then after a while the whole PI hangs/freezes. This happens after about 30 minutes uptime... initially had that, and suspected my cronjobs might be the cause, so commented that out... and it was better for upto 6 hours. Manually running the fr24.sh gets it going again, unless left too long. Any thoughts or suggestions? Maybe change the cronjob to something ridiculously short to as a process of elimination?
Suspected it overheated in the box today, so brought it down to cool off. Did the same, so I reloaded the mem card with everything (as per your write up) and it worked well for about 2 hours. Now starting the same crap again.
Also, how easy would it be to change the webserver port from 8080 to anything less common?

when it's hung do
df -h

see if any of the disks are out of space (maybe you need to send output from dump1090 and the FR24 feeder to /dev/null = a black hole) if we send it to /tmp.somewhere were writing it to a file in memory ... and we may be filling it (specificity we didn't pipe the dump1090 to /tmp because it seems output a lot of stuff and would fill memory quickly)

as for changing the port, google dump1090 and see if there is a parameter to do that

[peterhr]

Yep, Already ahead of ya and been planning the same thing in my head as I'm ordering two BBB's

Might even try to experiment using wifi to get some distance on higher ground... just to experiment and running on solar power

Like it!,
crank the whole thing antenna, pi, solar cell, 787 lithium battery up the mast all in one go

[HermanZA]

When its hang up, no PuTTy access either. So far so good ....

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs 3.6G 1.6G 2.0G 44% /
/dev/root 3.6G 1.6G 2.0G 44% /
devtmpfs 212M 0 212M 0% /dev
tmpfs 44M 220K 44M 1% /run
tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 88M 0 88M 0% /run/shm
/dev/mmcblk0p1 56M 19M 38M 33% /boot
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ uptime
19:51:34 up 2:52, 1 user, load average: 0.34, 0.33, 0.32

fr24.sh contents:
cd /home/pi/dump1090
/home/pi/dump1090/dump1090 --net --net-sbs-port 30003 --quiet > /dev/null &
cd ~
#
export FR24AUTHIP=83.140.247.20
/home/pi/fr24feed_arm-le_233s --fr24key=not.sharing.my.key > /tmp/fr24feed.log &


Lets see how it behaves during the night....
If it acts up again, shall I try: /home/pi/fr24feed_arm-le_233s --fr24key=not.sharing.my.key > /dev/null &
and see if it makes any difference in its behaviour?

[peterhr]

I think we need to keep an eye on /devtempfs - otherwise just see it it is running hot, etc.

You may need to put an hdmi cable on it to see if it logs anything to it's console as it dies or have a look if there's anything recorder in the wheezy logs (may be in /var/log but google to be sure)

By the way, you may notice I'm guiding people to find their own solutions once they get a feel for what they're doing ... the learn more that way.

This may be a just a little single board computer ... but it does have a full function operating system, just not as bloated as windows.

[HermanZA]

I was not too happy with DUMP1090 outputting to port 8080 (thats a squid-proxy port and prone to portscans and who-knows-what-else once you open it on your router/ADSL modem).
To change the port on which you can view DUMP1090:

Edit your fr24.sh file:
Command: nano fr24.sh

Look for the line: /home/pi/dump1090/dump1090 --net --net-sbs-port 30003 --quiet > /dev/null &
And modify it to: /home/pi/dump1090/dump1090 --net-http-port 8090 --net --net-sbs-port 30003 --quiet > /dev/null &
---> I changed the web interface from port 8080 to port 8090 (but you can change it to any other port that you like)

Save file.

Restart fr24.sh or reboot your Pi (Command: sudo - reboot)

--- Linux guru's please confirm my correctness here

[attigliano]

export FR24AUTHIP=83.140.247.20
/home/pi/fr24feed_arm-le_233s --fr24key=not.sharing.my.key > /tmp/fr24feed.log &

I have put in a 1 sec delay (sleep 1) else mi RaPi was hanging after a main power failure.

#
export FR24AUTHIP=83.140.247.20
sleep 1
/home/pi/fr24feed_arm-le_233s --fr24key=1234567890abcdef > /dev/null &

I only reboot one time every night at 02:20 UTC / 04:20 CEST

MY crontab:

@reboot /home/pi/fr24.sh
20 2 * * * /home/pi/fr24.sh

Poul

[peterhr]

I was not too happy with DUMP1090 outputting to port 8080 (thats a squid-proxy port and prone to portscans and who-knows-what-else once you open it on your router/ADSL modem).
To change the port on which you can view DUMP1090:

Edit your fr24.sh file:
Command: nano fr24.sh

Look for the line: /home/pi/dump1090/dump1090 --net --net-sbs-port 30003 --quiet > /dev/null &
And modify it to: /home/pi/dump1090/dump1090 --net-http-port 8090 --net --net-sbs-port 30003 --quiet > /dev/null &
---> I changed the web interface from port 8080 to port 8090 (but you can change it to any other port that you like)

Save file.

Restart fr24.sh or reboot your Pi (Command: sudo - reboot)

--- Linux guru's please confirm my correctness here

... on mine I can program my router to receive external traffic on one port and redirect it to another internally

I have put in a 1 sec delay (sleep 1) else mi RaPi was hanging after a main power failure.

#
export FR24AUTHIP=83.140.247.20
sleep 1
/home/pi/fr24feed_arm-le_233s --fr24key=1234567890abcdef > /dev/null &

I only reboot one time every night at 02:20 UTC / 04:20 CEST

MY crontab:

@reboot /home/pi/fr24.sh
20 2 * * * /home/pi/fr24.sh

Poul

The later script version puts
@reboot sleep 5;/home/pi/fr24.sh

this puts a 5 second sleep in before running the fr24.sh script only at reboot time

The delay is not needed at scheduled restart

[andyk1]

Ordered a Pi also since this may be another low cost solution and it could work with either. I see a lot of discussion about both the bbb (Beaglebone black) and the Pi ( Raspberry Pi) The possibilities are endless. Sounds to me the only limitations are software setup and a lot of you out there are working on it to make it stable. Now I'm wondering it the Cheap dongles are worth the effort or going with higher quality (Beast) modules the way to go. Wish I can find documentation on how FR setup there BBB using the Beast (Hardware and software set up) This really has me thinking now.

Andy - T-KTIK1

[peterhr]

Ordered a Pi also since this may be another low cost solution and it could work with either. I see a lot of discussion about both the bbb (Beaglebone black) and the Pi ( Raspberry Pi) The possibilities are endless. Sounds to me the only limitations are software setup and a lot of you out there are working on it to make it stable. Now I'm wondering it the Cheap dongles are worth the effort or going with higher quality (Beast) modules the way to go. Wish I can find documentation on how FR setup there BBB using the Beast (Hardware and software set up) This really has me thinking now.

Andy - T-KTIK1

I think the major part people on this thread have is that they have experienced getting the Pi (or BBB) solution working from the available building blocks supplied by others and can help new people coming onto the platform. The stability of the solution is really dependent on the quality of the building blocks we are using.

I do think it's worth doing the cheap Pi setup even if it's a just stepping stone to upgrading to a beast. The Pi solution is low cost and will allow comparative testing of antennas, etc even if a beast is in use later. Then once the beast has been bought the Pi can be re-used for another project.

Gunter who makes the beast boxes is presently making lots of Beast2 boxes with special software as the FR24 receivers that are being sent out free to people where there is need for more coverage.

Personally I think I'll keep the Pi going, but may use the BBB to add Android tablet functionality to the family room TV (with a wireless keyboard / touchpad)

[andyk1]

I think the major part people on this thread have is that they have experienced getting the Pi (or BBB) solution working from the available building blocks supplied by others and can help new people coming onto the platform. The stability of the solution is really dependent on the quality of the building blocks we are using.

I do think it's worth doing the cheap Pi setup even if it's a just stepping stone to upgrading to a beast. The Pi solution is low cost and will allow comparative testing of antennas, etc even if a beast is in use later. Then once the beast has been bought the Pi can be re-used for another project.

Gunter who makes the beast boxes is presently making lots of Beast2 boxes with special software as the FR24 receivers that are being sent out free to people where there is need for more coverage.

Personally I think I'll keep the Pi going, but may use the BBB to add Android tablet functionality to the family room TV (with a wireless keyboard / touchpad)

Yep I agree. My thought is to use what others have tested and perfected in hardware and software "including yours" both the pi or beagle together with the beast adding wireless wifi with yagi's on both ends for maybe 1500 feet or more distance to add a more portable solution on battery and solar as I said before. Either way it's just an experiment and plan on writing the details and plans including the step by step... hardware and software. what worked, how it worked and to whom the credit is deserved. Hopefully with maybe a you tube video if I have the time. I have 4 cheap $10 dongles that do the trick but am looking for more performance and data rate. The best I can get from the dongle is just a little over a 100 aircraft and maybe 320/sec before the data rate suffers. Oh I tried a cheap Radio Shack Satellite Amplifier (part number 16-2565) That was advertised somewhere to boost the 1090 MHz signal but it actually filtered it out to nothing coming in. It was supposed to boost from 950-2050mhz but doesn't so don't bother or I got a bad one. either way just letting ya's know. I saw this experiment on youtube also.

P.S. I haven't read if the beast or beast 2 can do wireless remote over wifi so that's why I'm thinking tethering the Pi or beaglebone and beast together. Eighter way will let ya's know which is better and why but am already guessing I know which

Andy T-KTIK1

[Jayant]

Hi,

I'm a newbie here, and am currently trying to build a Raspberry based unit which can be mounted on a rooftop right next to the antenna. I have a specific question regarding equipment shipping to India, since you got the entire kit from FR24 by mail. Was there any specific requirement to get the radio gear through customs here? Is a ham licence or any extra paperwork required? I'm planning on ordering a 1090 MHz antenna since I'm currently running off a magfoot whch comes with the DVB-T USB tuner, and that's pretty limited.

Would apreciate your inputs on getting 1090 MHz gear into India on mail order.

Thanks, and that's amazing coverage from Siliguri!

[peterhr]

Hi Jayant,

Welcome aboard.

Member HermanZA in Southafrica had a problem with his Raspberry Pi on the rooftop in that it overheated an stopped working - something to be aware of.