ADS-B on Raspberry Pi 2 problems

[gmp]

I thought I'd see how my RSP1 would compare with my RTL-SDR for ADS-B & feeding data into Flightaware, using a RPi 2 & Pixel OS (already working with RTL-SDR device & Piaware).

Early days but the RSP1 isn't sending MLAT data, which my RTL-SDR device was doing - it is only sending data for ADS-B or 'Other'.

As far as I know, I currently have the following settings:

sdrplay_dump1090 --dev-sdrplay --quiet --net --oversample --forward-mlat

(Not entirely certain whether I enter the above BEFORE running 'sudo ./SDRplay_ADS-B_RPi_0.1.run ' or after, so none of it may be doing anything). The 'guide' also refers to pressing 'y' to start sdrplay_dump1090 - no idea when in the running order this needs to happen, as it's too late once it's started!

Also, I'm not clear whether I need to unplug the SDR between changes. So far, just been using CTRL-C to stop it then run the above 'sdrplay_dump......' line to restart it.

I also seem to be unable to connect to port 8080 to see the Dump1090 output - I can see it on a Windows machine with Virtualradar but I prefer to access the Dump1090 output on my Mac.

Is there a setting somewhere that I've missed?

Currently, I seem to have more questions than I have answers.


Thanks,
Graham

[thansen]

Not sure you can use this for anything, but here is my experience with RSP1 and ADS-B.

Regarding MLAT, I could not get it to work in the beginning, the solution for me was to upgrade from an RPi2 to RPi3, The RPi2 seems to run short of CPU power.

You should only run "sudo ./SDRplay_ADS-B_RPi_0.1.run" once to install the SDRplay software, once it is installed, you can start sdrplay_dump1090 by typing sdrplay_dump1090 followed by the arguments you want to use, an example "sdrplay_dump1090 --dev-sdrplay --quiet --net --interactive --fix --mlat"

You don't need to unplug the SDR between changes.

I am also not able to connect to port 8080 to see dump1090 output, have tried to figure out why, but was not able to get it working.

Hope this is helpful.

[gmp]

Thanks for the info - I'll give it a go sometime, although I don't plan to upgrade my ADS-B to a RPi 3 just yet - I'm using a spare RPi 2 for the purpose, which works perfectly adequately with a RTL-SDR dongle. Strange about the 8080 output. I don't like the VirtualRadar ouput much - the vertical lines connecting than plane 'image' and the plane's details make the screen overly cluttered. I also usually use a Mac, so need to turn on a PC to check what's happening output-wise.

For now, I've gone back to my old setup with an RTL-SDR. Not 100% sure why but it outperforms the RSP by a considerable margin with ADS-B. I suspect it's the antenna connection - with my RTL-SDR I have a direct connection using the antenna base/ lead that came with it - I've changed the antenna, though, so it's better tuned than the one provided. With the RSP 1, I had to use an antenna adapter to get it to fit the one on the RSP - at these frequencies, this probably makes the system very lossy. Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do about it at present short of buying a new antenna with the correct connector, which I don't plan to do.

Thanks again,
Graham

[thansen]

You can remove the vertical line (Altitude Stalk) in VirtuaRadar.
Yes it could be nice to be able to connect directly to the Pi on port 8080 instead of using VirtualRadar, Maybe it will be fixed in later releases.
What kind of range do you see with the RTL dongle?

[gmp]

Thanks for the tip about the stalk - I'd only noticed/ looked at the options for Virtualradar program.

With the RTL-SDR, I can see planes up to about 150 miles away, subject to terrain. About 1% are between 150 - 200 miles away, with the odd one beyond that. The system is nothing special - a piece of household mains wire in a mini-mag mount base, cut to about 1/4 wavelength, sitting on a piece of metal about the size of a biscuit tin lid, high up in my loft. I use a RPi2 plugged into a wifi router to connect to my internet connection. It could be improved, but that would mean spending money on it. As I only run it because the kit would otherwise be gathering dust in a drawer, I am loathe to do so.

I just thought I would see if changing the RTL-SDR dongle for the RSP1 would improve things. It didn't, making it worse instead!

With the RTL-SDR, I seem to be able to access it either on port 8080 or with Virtualradar, which was unexpected.

Regards,
Graham

[sdrplay]

If on a RPi2 I would not use --oversample as, although this should improve long range performance, it will be at the cost of CPU (could be 50% extra) - it shouldn't be a problem on the RPi3 however.

Best regards,

SDRplay Support