Track file format

[Richard W]

It had to happen sooner or later, my ground station south of Northampton received it's first pings, 146 from G-ZERO, as evidenced by the track file.  I am using a Moonraker whip on a mast above my house as the P3i aerial, and I would like to determine detection range.  What is the format of the track file, in particular the $PFLAA record, please.

[JCurtis]

It had to happen sooner or later, my ground station south of Northampton received it's first pings, 146 from G-ZERO, as evidenced by the track file.  I am using a Moonraker whip on a mast above my house as the P3i aerial, and I would like to determine detection range.  What is the format of the track file, in particular the $PFLAA record, please.

Still waiting for someone to fly-by Cambridge, it's on most days depending on the weather, I may have to check the RX is working OK at this rate.

[bnmont]

Well my PAW classic has been running a full week now just east of Sandy.
Recieved a few pings earlier in the week then more last night and again this morning.I believe these to be FlyUK planes going into and departing from Long acres farm Sandy.
Also saw on SD Andy Fell's ADSB output as he flew Sandy - Bourn.
So how do I go about finding out who's plane these pings were from?

[JCurtis]

Well it seems whilst I was making a cuppa I received 12 packets, so downloading the log to see if I can work it out.  Should be in there somewhere!

[bnmont]

Jeremy I was working on site near Six Mile Bottom a week ago travelling along A14, was tempted to put PAW in van and see if I could collect the discount!

[JCurtis]

Jeremy I was working on site near Six Mile Bottom a week ago travelling along A14, was tempted to put PAW in van and see if I could collect the discount!

Offer is still open as no one claimed it yet, although in the sprit of things I suppose the 'winner' should be airborne?

[exfirepro]

No wonder nobody is getting any P3i traffic if everybody is running base stations LOL

Not exactly flying weather up here today either - heavy rain and low cloud again! Maybe tomorrow, though looks a bit windy.

Regards

Peter

[JCurtis]

No wonder nobody is getting any P3i traffic if everybody is running base stations LOL

Not exactly flying weather up here today either - heavy rain and low cloud again! Maybe tomorrow, though looks a bit windy.

Regards

Peter

Mine will probably stay as a base station for a while, don't get to fly very much at the moment as too much other stuff going on.  I need to do a proper antenna mount for the office roof anyway for some other bits and bobs I'm tinkering with.

[Richard W]

So how do I go about finding out who's plane these pings were from?

Well, that was the point of my original post.  First you download the relevant track file, and open it with a text editor.  If your PAW and the pinger were both set to the same Group-ID (eg PAWGRP), then the aircraft ID will be bracketed by the '#' character, so search for #.  Otherwise, I do not believe that it is possible to spot a PAW record, but I would be pleased to be proved wrong.

[Admin]

Richard, you are correct regarding the # to identify the other PilotAwares, when in the same group
In the next release we will be adding more info into the track file to indicate what type of packet was received.

We will probably also put some diagnostic info as well, this is very useful when remote debugging

Thx
Lee

[JCurtis]

Richard, you are correct regarding the # to identify the other PilotAwares, when in the same group
In the next release we will be adding more info into the track file to indicate what type of packet was received.

We will probably also put some diagnostic info as well, this is very useful when remote debugging

Thx
Lee

I tried the search for the # but didn't find who I saw.  After messing around with the 20Mb file I narrowed it down to callsigns where there were less than 14 messages but there was still a few of those.  Perhaps wait the new firmware to make it easier, happy to install test software if needed too.

I'll be tinkering a little tomorrow sorting out some antenna stuff, seriously wondering if it would be easier to put a small ex marine radome on the top, that would confuse a few people!

[Deker]

It had to happen sooner or later, my ground station south of Northampton received it's first pings, 146 from G-ZERO, as evidenced by the track file.  I am using a Moonraker whip on a mast above my house as the P3i aerial, and I would like to determine detection range.  What is the format of the track file, in particular the $PFLAA record, please.

Hello Richard,
That was me
Are you near Byfield / Cannons Ashby?
I went for a quick bimble yesterday before the showers really set it - I seen a "contact" ahead and close.... where is he? where is he?...strain eyes to read the relative height and #idnumber# on my SD...oh 1100ft below ...ah, he's on the ground :-) which is about spot on as I was at 1,600ft QNH with the ground being about 450ft above sea level.
Had me going for a few seconds with eyes on storks looking for you....  I think when PAW is in ground mode it should only transmit GROUND ( ID and reg number) so that it is immediately clear that it is in fact a ground station.
I did try to make a screen grab but was busy making sure I didn't collide with your ground station 

Would be good if SD would have a setting to allow the adjustment of the font size, (maybe related to the threat level) at the moment it's far too small to read quickly.
Glad to be your first contact, it all works very very well and everyone should have a PAW in their aircraft.
(Mode C please Lee to blow Flarm out of the water ;-) )

Cheers,
Deker.

[brinzlee]

Any news on the TRK reader. I heard that version 0.1 was being released soon. I had 56 packets received today (Southend on Sea) with 3 CRC fails. But it wasn't connected to my SkyDemon so presumably the TRK file won't have recorded the information.

[Richard W]

Lee, please could you throw a little light on the current file format?  For the following record :-

$PFLAA,0,1266,2844,757,1,C3E566!#G-ZERO#,47,,60,,8*3F

I would guess that the third and fourth fields, 1266,2844, are position relative to 'me', and the fifth, 757, is the altitude.  All in metres?  If so, I detected G-ZERO at 9k, and lost him at 6k, not too bad for a broadband monopole with indifferent wiring.

[JCurtis]

Lee, please could you throw a little light on the current file format?  For the following record :-

$PFLAA,0,1266,2844,757,1,C3E566!#G-ZERO#,47,,60,,8*3F

I would guess that the third and fourth fields, 1266,2844, are position relative to 'me', and the fifth, 757, is the altitude.  All in metres?  If so, I detected G-ZERO at 9k, and lost him at 6k, not too bad for a broadband monopole with indifferent wiring.

Could well the same as documented in this...
http://www.gliding.ch/manuels/flarm_dataport_v3.00_en.pdf