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

[gariac]

[This message is intended as a suggestion for Trigger, related to his message #479].

Hi Trigger,

You may try inserting the three following options in the script line invoking dump1090:

dump1090 --enable-agc --gain 34 --aggressive ... ... --net ... ...etc.

The first relates to the automatic gain control of the RTL2832U chip, the second controls the R820T tuner gain (you can try with different values), the third enables more error correcting features (at the cost of some extra CPU power). The rest of the line should be the same as before. Running dump1090 with the --help option will give you some extra information.

Hope it helps,

I've found the aggressive feature to give me false hits. In fact, I run mine --no-fix since I rather not have any errors in the database.

The Raspberry Pi is just barely has enough horsepower for dump1090. The Beaglebone Black would be the way to go if you started from scratch. i don't find much difference between Arm A7 and A8, so I suspect any of the older Beagleboard SBC would be fine. Dump1090 takes about 25% of the CPU cycles on A7 or A8 cores.

[YSWG]

Not using a Raspberry Pi, but using Ubuntu on a desktop PC. I've had the very random false hits with dump1090 running on aggressive (was slightly higher without it), on Windows 7, rtl1090 gave me far more false hits. I'm looking into both Raspberry and Beaglebone, for low cost and low power usage.

[peterhr]

I've found the aggressive feature to give me false hits. In fact, I run mine --no-fix since I rather not have any errors in the database.

The Raspberry Pi is just barely has enough horsepower for dump1090. The Beaglebone Black would be the way to go if you started from scratch. i don't find much difference between Arm A7 and A8, so I suspect any of the older Beagleboard SBC would be fine. Dump1090 takes about 25% of the CPU cycles on A7 or A8 cores.

DUMP1090 is using about 65% of my Pi processor and typically shows between 75 - 85 planes at any one time. (the FR24 feeder takes about 8% of the CPU)

I need to get the BBB out again to make a new image, I did do this before but the BBB is more work than the Pi to get going for several reasons
1. Finding the correct OS version to download to run on the BBB is a PITA,
1a. it downloads as a .tar.gz file (how many beginners know what to do with that when they've just seen windows before ... [you use 7zip])
1b. everything talks about using dd to transfer the image to the SD card - again your windows user wont know what to do, a passing mention is made of the windows method but it is really centred on linux for linux users.
1. SSH seems not to be enabled on the prebuilt images - this means it needs to be linked to a monitor and keyboard to do the initial config ... no big deal but needs a micro HDMI cable to do that config - something else to buy.
2. On the first build I did I found my BBB USB port could not supply enough power to run the 820T dongle - so had to run the dongle through a powered USB hub (another purchase)

Once wheezy was working the setup was the same as doing the Pi.

Admitted the Pi is lower powered than the BBB - but it is sufficient for the job. I wouldn't want to run anything else on it at the same time so the lower power really isn't a problem. That said - having the second core in the BBB processor would run two processes at one time.

I disagree that the BBB is the way to go when starting out - mainly because the BeagleBone start-up documentation for it is so poor in comparison, people will give up in frustration before achieving anything.

But do feel free to take over the other BBB + dongle thread ... http://forum.flightradar24.com/threa...-FR24-(Wheezy)

[Andres]

The Raspberry Pi is just barely has enough horsepower for dump1090. The Beaglebone Black would be the way to go if you started from scratch. i don't find much difference between Arm A7 and A8, so I suspect any of the older Beagleboard SBC would be fine. Dump1090 takes about 25% of the CPU cycles on A7 or A8 cores.

At least in my case, RPi is a good option. It works fine, CPU load is mostly below 60%. It was reasonably simple to configure (thanks to peterhr document, jayant posts and many others' contributions here and in the RPi forums) and inexpensive. Of course, suitability for specific cases is dependent on many factors; and other options may be preferrable for you.

[loplo]

Guys,
did anyone manage to link the dump1090 to the Basestation software?
There's not so many information regarding this on the web.
Any input is appreciated.

[SAFlyer]

Guys,
did anyone manage to link the dump1090 to the Basestation software?
There's not so many information regarding this on the web.
Any input is appreciated.

I agree 100% - I too am desperately looking for a solution!!

[t-kclt2]

I don't use Basestation so I have little "interest" in this, but I did do a quick test.. Basestation is communicating with dump1090 just fine and is receiving messages from it, yet "test failed" is what I got after a minute. It received numerous messages according to Netmon (and they look OK to me), so not sure what else it expects or needs to make this successful. Here's just one packet that came back from dump1090:

.MSG,8,111,11111,AD1137,111111,2014/03/07,17:32:38.767,2014/03/07,17:32:38.771,,,,,,,,,,,,..MSG,8,111,11111,ACA9C 4,111111,2014/03/07,17:32:38.781,2014/03/07,17:32:38.774,,,,,,,,,,,,0..MSG,8,111,11111,A3B4 B5,111111,2014/03/07,17:32:38.787,2014/03/07,17:32:38.777,,,,,,,,,,,,..MSG,8,111,11111,AD66B 0,111111,2014/03/07,17:32:38.794,2014/03/07,17:32:38.778,,,,,,,,,,,,0..MSG,8,111,11111,A27F D6,111111,2014/03/07,17:32:38.799,2014/03/07,17:32:38.780,,,,,,,,,,,,0..MSG,7,111,11111,AD66 B0,111111,2014/03/07,17:32:38.820,2014/03/07,17:32:38.785,,16725,,,,,,,,,,0..MSG,7,111,11111 ,A94B08,111111,2014/03/07,17:32:38.828,2014/03/07,17:32:38.787,,35000,,,,,,,,,,0..

[SAFlyer]

I got dump1090 to feed Basestation using the excellent modesmixer program which sends the correct format to Basestation. It is also capable of combining multiple input streams and sending to a single or multiple outputs

[Jayant]

Just a general heads up for those who are compulsive "latest-version" guys. Malcolm Robb has released version 1.08.2302.14 of dump1090 on 24th February. From what I have seen of the changes, it probably won't affect the Pi users, though there are some housekeeping and bugfix updates. I've updated it on my Pi and tested it. Working fine, no glitches for the past several hours. But, as the wise men said - if it ain't broke, there's probably no need to fix it!

Also done some work on the coco antenna. I was using a 12-element one, and have now built and switched to an 8-element coco. The performance is pretty much the same in terms of range. So the extra 4 elements are probably not really much use, considering the fact that there are likely to be errors in cutting and assembling elements by hand, and the complete lack of tuning gear. In fact the errors in the longer antenna probably negate the extra gain. Now for more height!

[loplo]

Guys, is there a way to populate a database with all the flights "seen" by the pi?

[HermanZA]

I'm sure some of my fellow ADS-B guru's might have a better solution, but here is what I am doing:

Receiver is a dongle on a Linux box running Dump1090. My PC connects to it and retrieves data for Virtual Radar Server. I downloaded the global DB from Gatwick Aviation Society, but it does not contain ALL the AC. Whenever I get an unknown one, I use Active Display Lite and enter the ICAO code, it does a lookup, if not found, I pop over to airframes.org and get it from there. Then just manually enter the details and save it to the DB. I presume if you do purchase Active Display, it can also connect to your Dump1090 and automatically update unknows.

My Virtual Radar checks all hits against the DB and displays info accordingly. The DB is also used for other software plotting.

But I guess there might be an easier method out there....

[andyk1]

All working fine with dump1090 and RPi except I still have the problem of only seeing a few aircraft. I did a back-to-back check with rtl1090 on a Windows PC with the same antenna and same dongle within a short time frame. The rtl1090 was seeing 80+ aircraft and plotting in VRS, but as soon as I ran up the RPi the number dropped to less than 20. I can see a plot from the Rpi by using the RPi's IP address in my browser. Am I missing something somewhere?

I also have to do ifup eth0 to get the RPi to talk to the router every time I re-boot.

Any simple instructions for getting the RPi with Peter's image to connect via wireless? I'll post a bunch of questions and error messages over the weekend once my brain has stopped frying

Yes as the comment above... You may need to manually set your gain settings. Mine is set to about "--gain 33" In auto gain I see only a few. I have no idea why some see all aircraft in auto settings and some of us have to set a gain value. I suspect it has something to do with how our antenna is constructed.

[andyk1]

[This message is intended as a suggestion for Trigger, related to his message #479].

Hi Trigger,

You may try inserting the three following options in the script line invoking dump1090:

dump1090 --enable-agc --gain 34 --aggressive ... ... --net ... ...etc.

The first relates to the automatic gain control of the RTL2832U chip, the second controls the R820T tuner gain (you can try with different values), the third enables more error correcting features (at the cost of some extra CPU power). The rest of the line should be the same as before. Running dump1090 with the --help option will give you some extra information.

Hope it helps,

Yes Trigger!!! This is approx... How mine needs to be set up. I have 4 Dongles and each needed to have different gain settings (just slightly) to get the max range.

Andy

[loplo]

I'm sure some of my fellow ADS-B guru's might have a better solution, but here is what I am doing:

Receiver is a dongle on a Linux box running Dump1090. My PC connects to it and retrieves data for Virtual Radar Server. I downloaded the global DB from Gatwick Aviation Society, but it does not contain ALL the AC. Whenever I get an unknown one, I use Active Display Lite and enter the ICAO code, it does a lookup, if not found, I pop over to airframes.org and get it from there. Then just manually enter the details and save it to the DB. I presume if you do purchase Active Display, it can also connect to your Dump1090 and automatically update unknows.

My Virtual Radar checks all hits against the DB and displays info accordingly. The DB is also used for other software plotting.

But I guess there might be an easier method out there....

I don't want to keep an extra Windows PC running just for the database and the VRS. VRS is a pita on rpi, struggling with it since two days.

[HermanZA]

I have 4 Dongles and each needed to have different gain settings (just slightly) to get the max range.

Andy

How do you go about in combining the ADS-B data from them, or do you do it on DUMP?