PilotAware
British Forum => Technical Support => Topic started by: alan_d on February 17, 2018, 10:34:05 pm
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Flew with my PAW today, first time since upgrading to the new version.
I flew Cranfield > Turweston and back again, and there were loads of aircraft around.
Only 1 was reported on PAW (with RunwayHD) - IIRC a green 'dart' icon.
As a further test I parked parallel to the runway at Luton Airport this evening - only 1 aircraft reported in RunwayHD, and another briefly while I was watching the 'Traffic' screen.
ADS-B is red most of the time, but the numbers are increasing when I refresh - was 319 after I landed earlier,
I'm not aware I changed any settings since it last worked.
I even tried another SD card with a fresh install of 20180129 on it - no improvement.
Any suggestions on what I need to check? Can someone point me to a download for the older PAW version to try that again?
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Alan,
You can do a ‘factory reset’ by following this link...
http://forum.pilotaware.com/index.php/topic,1150.0.html
....but before you do we’d be better to try to find out what is going on, as the update in itself shouldn’t have caused your PilotAware to stop working. What version did you update from? Did you do the update by USB stick? If not, which method did you use?
Can you power up your PilotAware and post screengrabs of the Home and Configure Screens please, so we can try to check what is going on.
Regards
Peter
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You can do a ‘factory reset’ by following this link...
http://forum.pilotaware.com/index.php/topic,1150.0.html
Surely this is essentially the same as the fresh install I already did to another SD, which didn't help?
What version did you update from?
The July 2017 one.
Did you do the update by USB stick? If not, which method did you use?
No, Ethernet.
Can you power up your PilotAware and post screengrabs of the Home and Configure Screens please, so we can try to check what is going on.
Attached. The Home screen was after landing after flying a circuit at Cranfield, with loads of other aircraft around. Note the uptime, but nothing received. Later it changed to 319 ADS messages recieved, but still red (and no traffic seen in RHD).
Config screen taken just now.
Also - it seems very slow loading these pages, sometimes they don't load at all, and I have to stop and refresh.
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Looks to me as is your SDR dongle or antenna is faulty, as I would suprised if there was zero traffic the ADS-B within range of Cranfield. I am guessing you were insde when you took that screenshot as you are connected to a LAN? If no ADS-B traffic is received for a few seconds it will turn back to red, so you may have had a brief window to capture thoise 319 signals.
You have also got some rather odd settings, not that any of the following will stop you seeing ADS-B targets. If you are flying why set as a ground station? Mode C/S for bearing less targets is turned off, not an issue in it's self but most people will have that on one of the other settings so that get alerts for bearing less targets (nav software also needs to be configured to show these). If you do turn it on 500' is a very tight window, I would start much wide until I know all is working. You also have not inserted the hex code or registration for your aircraft.
I would try a different antenna first
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Hi Alan,
I agree with the majority of Ian’s comments above, though the screenshot indicates that your SDR dongle is present and from your earlier post you say you did receive ADSB traffic after taking the screenshots, so it must have been working at that point. That doesn’t of course mean that it couldn’t be faulty. As Ian has suggested, it could be an antenna issue. You can test this by replacing the ADSB antenna with a short length of thin wire carefully inserted into the dongle in place of the antenna. It is perfectly normal for the ADSB ‘light’ to swap from green to red and back in response to traffic.
Of more significance is the entry in the ‘Uptime’ line of the home page ‘Throttled=0 x 5005’ which indicates that the PilotAware is suffering from an undervoltage restriction, probably because it is getting an inadequate power feed. How are you powering it? It needs a supply capable of providing 2.1 amps without dropping the voltage below 5.1 volts.
You also need to set your configuration properly as per the manual, and I would also suspect there may be an issue with the settings in your Navigation system, such as ‘show (aircraft) within vertically’ being set to a tight limit, which will stop high level traffic showing. The settings on the PAW Configure Screen BTW primarily control Mode C/S (except for the Audio Warning Range selection, which is for ADSB / P3I).
Regards
Peter
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I agree with the majority of Ian’s comments above, though the screenshot indicates that your SDR dongle is present and working and that you did receive ADSB traffic within the period.
Don't know where you get that from Peter msg=0(+0) is pretty clear to me that at the time of the screenshot nothing had been received from ADS-B
I did see the throttled error, but ran out of time to search for the translation..
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Sorry Ian,
I was answering from memory -as you know, the screenshots disappear while typing the reply - and got confused with the earlier post. I have just corrected that part.
Peter
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NP Pete.
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Hi Alan
Yes this us reporting a under voltage issue
Also what sdr is used ?
That does not look like one of ours, could it be the cause of an additional current draw ?
Please describe power source and power cable
Thx
Lee
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Thanks for the pointers.
I'm using an unbranded powerbank - the same one that worked fine previously. I'll check what voltage it's providing.
The SDR is the standard one that came with the PAW kit. Initially (at Cranfield) I was using it with a different pigtail and antenna, and at Luton with the standard magmount that comes with the kit - but no change.
The strange settings that Ian mentioned were when playing with stuff while at Luton - will change back.
@ Ian - wasn't connected to a LAN at any time recently. Home screenshot was in the aircraft at Cranfield. Config was at home yesterday evening.
Can you advise how to make sense of the 'Throttled=0 x 5005’ (or whatever) messages?
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Alan,
See here for an explanation from Lee.
http://forum.pilotaware.com/index.php/topic,1155.msg13786.html#msg13786
Regards
Peter
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Thanks Peter I couldn’t find my own post!
In the next release I will convert the the codes to meaningful messages
Thx
Lee
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@ Lee - yes that would be helpful.
PAW on bench in workshop.
When running from the PowerBank, voltage measured from the 2nd USB port on it is 5.2v.
There is a fan in my case. With it connected, throttled=0x50005 - voltage measured on pins 1&3 (from the left) of JP2 on the bridge board are: 4.86v
With the same PowerBank, but fan removed, still have throttled=0x50000 and pin voltage is 4.88v - so the additional load from the fan drops it a bit, but it's still not happy without it.
Running from a bench PSU set to 5.14v, it reports about 700mA most of the time (no fan).
Voltage on bridge P1&3 is 4.82v
Still have throttled=0x50005
BUT - this is via a chopped cheapo USB cable to bench PSU (didn't want to chop up the decent one that came with the PAW)
Decent cable with bench PSU @ 5.14v: (connected to chassis-mount USB, to bench PSU): throttled=0x50000, pin voltage 4.83v
So still not perfect.
Bench PSU @ 5.27v via decent cable: throttled=0x0, pin voltage 4.98v - so the extra 0.1v here helps. Bench PSU has a 1.5m cable so there will be some voltage drop.
Running from Pi Battery board (that no-one liked in another post!)
throttled=0x0
Voltage at board 2nd USB socket (while PAW loading the other): 5.09v - on this board the output are in parallel. On the PowerBank above they are independent with different current ratings, so I think the 5.2v on it is not representative of the feed to the PAW.
Voltage at pins, 4.9v - seems happiest on this! :)
Same, but with fan connected again, still throttled=0x0, pin voltage 4.86v
I'll try the Pi battery at Luton to see if I get any more traffic reported. None at home (2m from airport!)
So it seems the PAW is *very* fussy about voltage, a 0.1v drop in the supply is enough to make it complain.
Is the Pi3 as bad? I'm involved with a project using Pi3's in remote locations fed from 18850 cells via cheapo 5v regulators (intended for RC gear) which output ~5.03v with NO power issues.
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So it seems the PAW is *very* fussy about voltage, a 0.1v drop in the supply is enough to make it complain.
Correction. The Raspberry Pi is very fussy, and in this application are giving ut a good workout. 🤪
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Hi Alan
When you say decent cable, can you clarify ?
Is this the juicybitz cable provided ?
I think this is 20awg
Thx
Lee
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Is this the juicybitz cable provided ?
Yes.
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Test at Luton this evening shows no further power errors, lots of ADS messages being recorded (600+), but very little traffic (most 3 lines) in the traffic page, and only 1 or 2 aircraft appeared in RunwayHD for the last 10 seconds or so before they landed!
Took a few screenshots, can upload them if needed. Any logs of interest I should check?
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This seems to confirm Exfirepro’s 5th post of this thread, that you have the vertical limits within Runway HD closed down sufficiently to only see the landing traffic for 10 secs or so. Also, if you only had three lines of traffic in the traffic log, this suggests a lull in received traffic, so a relatively quiet time in the skies over Luton.?
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Or a duff antenna
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This seems to confirm Exfirepro’s 5th post of this thread, that you have the vertical limits within Runway HD closed down sufficiently to only see the landing traffic for 10 secs or so. Also, if you only had three lines of traffic in the traffic log, this suggests a lull in received traffic, so a relatively quiet time in the skies over Luton.?
It's set to 40,000'
There was an aircraft landing every minute or two. I stayed about 20.
Or a duff antenna
If so I'd not have seen the ~600 received messages, surely?
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I'm next due to fly on Wednesday, so would like to get this working before then, if possible.
Assuming the dongle or antenna is faulty, can anyone point me to a suitable dongle (preferably on Amazon with next-day delivery!) that is known to work with the PAW?
SMA connector is preferable.
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Or a duff antenna
If so I'd not have seen the ~600 received messages, surely?
If they were very local and strong signal, you may have, like when an aircraft is on short final.
Why don’t you try Petes idea to remove the antenna cable and stick a short length of wire in the dongle. Costs nothing. 5” should do, even a straightened paperclip. If that is an improvement we can make a quick dipole from the antenna cable( assuming issue of is not plug end).
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If they were very local and strong signal, you may have, like when an aircraft is on short final.
That's possible. I was parked here: https://goo.gl/maps/hy2xsRnvMFN2
Why don’t you try Petes idea to remove the antenna cable and stick a short length of wire in the dongle. Costs nothing. 5” should do, even a straightened paperclip. If that is an improvement we can make a quick dipole from the antenna cable( assuming issue of is not plug end).
Will try that, thanks.
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Follow-up.
I've now tried 3 different antennas and a 'bit of wire'.
I spent about an hour parked next to the runway at Luton, at least 30 flights came and went in that time, of which 4 or 5 were reported as traffic in the 'Traffic' screen - but only there for a few seconds then gone.
None were reported in RunwayHD. (I had 2 devices connected to show both at the same time).
Only 303 ADS messages received in total (PAW powered up before I left home). No power complaints, good GPS fix.
I can't believe that 3 different antennas are faulty, or the 'bit of wire' also - so have to assume the dongle is deaf.
Screenshots attached - any other ideas?
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Can you try and put the ADSB receiver on a USB extension to see if it helps? Could be swamped with noise and it’s a quick test.
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Hi Alan
Lets ask Dave Styles to ship a replacement SDR this is just too weird
I will email Dave
Thx
Lee
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Hi Alan
Lets ask Dave Styles to ship a replacement SDR this is just too weird
I will email Dave
Thx
Lee
Thanks, hopefully that will solve it.
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Replacement receiver arrived today.
Connected via my pigtail > SMA cable and case mounted SMA antenna - over 51 thousand ADS messages received in 16 minutes uptime sitting at home, and 10 lines of traffic on the traffic page :)
So looks like the SDR was faulty. Will try with RunwayHD shortly.
Thanks Lee & Dave for arranging the replacement parts!
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Hi Alan,
Glad you’ve got it sorted at last.
Regards
Peter
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As a further test I parked parallel to the runway at Luton Airport this evening - only 1 aircraft reported in RunwayHD, and another briefly while I was watching the 'Traffic' screen.
Do also remember that at least half the commercial aircraft still do not have ADS-B, they only carry Mode C or S. Even many very new B-787s are only carrying C/S.
Not sure how Runway HD deals with Mode C/S detection, but from experience the conflict aircraft has to be quite close for PAW to mention it. (I have my setting on ‘close contacts only’...
R
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The only major airline in the UK I see regularly without ADS-B is FlyBe.