Up & Running

[Roger Iveson]

I have built my first unit. Got it up & running today when finally received the correct dongle from China. I have tried  several dongles which are supposed to contain the Ralink 5370 chipset. Be aware not all of them work. Managed to connect to my iPad after following the instructions on the forum. I have been able to see the high level traffic overhead on Sky Demon. As this is my first unit I have not been able to verify the operation of the ARF module.
Next I need to try it in the Plane. I fly out of Bagby so would be interested to hear from anyone with Pilot Aware in the Vale of York area.

[Richard]

Roger.
   I Have also a newly completed PilotAware I flew with it Yesterday (Sunday 16th August 2015) It worked well. As I flew All you can see is traffic with ADS out put (Mainly heavy jets going into Leeds.)

I'm Based at Sherburn. May-be we could Arrange to be in the same area or meet for a coffee one weekend (Sunday is best for me) My Aircraft is an Europa XS G-IRPW

Richard.

[Joerg]

Hi all,

I fineshed the PilotAware today. After small problems with
the license (I still don´t know what went wrong) it works fine

Next step for me is to go flying. But the weather in northern Germany is bad since days.

Joerg

[Roger Iveson]

Hi Guys,
I hae been doing some testing on the ground of my PilotAware. Not had any time to test it in the air yet. I have checked the output of the ARF on a Comms radio & its pinging away on 869.4 Mhz, so looking good. I need to get another one up & running now so we can check it between aircraft.
Richard, I some times drop into Sherburn to visit the cafe. Not sure when I can meet up with you on a Sunday, next few Sundays I am busy, but it would be nice to meet. I have attached a picture of the high level commercial traffic transitting over my location & a picture of my completed PilotAware.

[Richard]

Roger
   The weather is set to be unsettled at the mo. So yes it would be good for a coffee some where. May be Beverley!!!

I we'll send you my phone no In a PM. So when you have a free Saturday afternoon or a Sunday.

Richard.

[Martyn M]

Hello All,

Just got mine up and running (although only in the car at the moment as the weathers too c**p to go flying  ).

I couldn't see any traffic to start with until I realised I hadn't altered the Skydemon "Show within Vertically" setting in the navigation options to 40,000ft then the sky was filled with Airliners!.

So it's worth double checking all the settings first before getting out the big hammer!!

Cheers

Martyn

[onkelmuetze]

Had my unit up&running two weeks ago, but I found the wireless adapter to be running damn hot.

After testing for days on my office desk, wireless connection started to brake off from time to time, getting worse over time. Finally - I could not establish the connection anymore, Pi got stuck on starting the host.
I tried to plug the adapter into my computer - it was doing fine - but not with the Pi, no clue why and how that happened.

Got a new adapter yesterday (different brand, 10€ instead of 3€) and a new license from lee - its now up & running again. temperature of the adapter is still warm, but not as bad as before.

[Admin]

Had my unit up&running two weeks ago, but I found the wireless adapter to be running damn hot.

After testing for days on my office desk, wireless connection started to brake off from time to time, getting worse over time. Finally - I could not establish the connection anymore, Pi got stuck on starting the host.
I tried to plug the adapter into my computer - it was doing fine - but not with the Pi, no clue why and how that happened.

Got a new adapter yesterday (different brand, 10€ instead of 3€) and a new license from lee - its now up & running again. temperature of the adapter is still warm, but not as bad as before.

Hi Seb,
What is the new adapter, can you post a link.
I presume it is still the RT5370 chipset ?

I have also had 2 dongles (out of 40) fail in the way you describe, running hot, then dead.
I had these units running permanantly for days.

Thx
Lee

[onkelmuetze]

yep, still RT5370 chipset:

This one is the first one I ordered, the one that died:

http://www.ebay.de/itm/261864458728?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

and this is the new one:

http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B006Q35000?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

The price difference is not as bad as I had in mind.

The DVB-T-Stick i use (http://www.ebay.de/itm/291043445588?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT) is also running quite hot, but it is still working. I decided to put DVB-T and WLAN side-by-side into the Pi's USB-ports instead of stacking them, so they do not heat up each other.

[Roger Iveson]

I managed to get up in the air on Sunday night with one of my Pilotaware units.

I set it up on the ground, everything fine. I was using my iPad mini mounted in its mount on the front panel of the Eurostar. Everything was fine until I got up into the air, then I kept losing GPS on the iPad. I was constantly having to reset. The iPad was mounted in Landscape orientation & operating on internal battery. Has anyone else had this problem? Is it better to mount the iPad in Portrait orientation?

[Admin]

I managed to get up in the air on Sunday night with one of my Pilotaware units.

I set it up on the ground, everything fine. I was using my iPad mini mounted in its mount on the front panel of the Eurostar. Everything was fine until I got up into the air, then I kept losing GPS on the iPad. I was constantly having to reset. The iPad was mounted in Landscape orientation & operating on internal battery. Has anyone else had this problem? Is it better to mount the iPad in Portrait orientation?

Hi Roger,
Sorry to hear that, some questions :-

1. Power, can you explain how you are powering PilotAware ?
2. Is PilotAware on a dedicated power supply, or shared with something else (eg iPad) ?
3. Are you using a cellular or WiFi iPad
4. Are you using an external GPS device (Bluetooth), if so which one ?

Thx
Lee

[Roger Iveson]

Lee,
It could be the power supply to the pilotaware. I am going to power it differently next time. I was using a cheap 12v USB power adaptor which was causing interference to the radio when I connected it up.

It worked fine in my car when I have tried it. The iPad mini is a cellular version, so using the internal GPS. I was using the iPad on internal battery.

It was early evening when i managed to get to the airfield so didn't get much time to fault find, hope to get another chance later this week.

Regards
Roger

[Admin]

Hi Roger
How about the USB cable ?
this also makes a big difference

Were you using a different power setup in the car ?

I wrote quite an extensive analysis here
http://forum.pilotaware.com/index.php/topic,9.msg121.html#msg121

Thx
Lee

[EricC]

I have made mods to tidy things up a bit before airborne trials.
Used two short usb leads to reposition the adsb and satnav receivers.
All works very well on the ground.
Regarding the adsb aerial at what range do we need to be
able to receive adsb for safe separation?
At the moment it is quarter wave with a range of 100 nm.
I will try one eighth wave and check the range.
Guess 20nm would be adequate.

[EricC]

Reduced the aerial to 1/8 wave.
From loft window near Blackpool able to see
returns as far south as EGBB.

Much safer in flightdeck and smaller.