PilotAware
British Forum => Technical Support => Topic started by: Smaragd on September 02, 2018, 07:45:27 pm
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While in the past the PAW connection to my Nexus tablet (running EasyVFR) has been totally reliable, over the last few flights I have had quite a few dropouts and difficulty in reconnecting. The PAW is clearly still working, as audio warnings are being generated. Out of the aircraft at home it seems totally reliable. I was looking at the Network Settings page this evening and noticed that the Mode is set to G whereas the PAW Operating Instructions give Mode B. I am not aware of having changed the setting - what is the difference between Mode B and Mode G and which should I be using? I also wondered whether a higher power setting might overcome the dropout problem - I currently have 20mW set - though my tablet is only 30cm or so from the PAW. Any advice?
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Hi
Please provide your track file for us ro investigate
Do you connect using pilotaware, flarm or GDL90?
Finally do you have battery saver mode disabled on android?
Thx
Lee
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Hi Lee,
Thanks for offering to help; track file on its way shortly by email. Around 10 Android disconnects and reconnects on this particular flight. Some, but certainly not all, reconnects might have been me trying to reconnect manually, but I gave up after a while. I take GPS data from the PAW and use the "FLARM" input to the Nexus tablet. Battery saver mode is disabled - and in any case the EasyVFR display continues to work.
Regards,
Trevor
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Sorry, list track is greater than 512k - how do I send?
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Hi Smaragd,
Easiest way is to put the track file in ‘Dropbox’ and post a link allowing access to the file. See www.dropbox.com or look for the app.
Regards
Peter
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Sent - correctly, I hope!
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Hi Trevor
I have taken a look, and I can see that PilotAware is trying to talk to your android device, but the android device is not responding. I found a similar strange issue on Android using my Galaxy Tab A 7", after googling I found someone suggested removing the WiFi Access Point (forget PilotAware-xxxxxx) then re-connecting, this did seem to make an improvement.
What connection method are you using from EasyVFR to PilotAware ?
GDL90 ?
FLARM ?
- TCP ?
- UDP ?
Trevor do you use the same power supply when testing at home versus usage in the plane ?
Do you use a dedicated power supply in the plane, ie not using both USB ports of Aux or Battery ?
Thx
Lee
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Thanks for looking, Lee. My PAW power source in the aircraft or at home is a Power Walker (10000, I think), solely feeding the PAW through its IPad output. I connect EasyVFR to PAW as per PAW Operating Instructions 20180129 pp13-16 with "Use FLARM GPS as EasyVFR GPS" set to OFF and vertical proximity 3000ft.
The system has been beautifully stable for the last year or more. I noticed that as long as I switched on PAW before EasyVFR, the PAW would connect without my having to do anything in Nexus Settings/WiFi. But over the last month or so it's been reluctant to connect in the first place without going into Nexus Settings/WiFi, and sometimes reluctant even then. I've tried forgetting PAW and reconnecting, which worked on one occasion when it was particularly reluctant, but it still dropped out later in the flight.
As I noted in my OP, I have PAW Network Settings Mode G rather than the Mode B called for in PAW Operating Instructions. I'm not conscious of having made a change, so presumably must have been told to do that at some stage. Is it relevant?
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Hi Trevor
You could try setting back to B to see if that has an effect - it is quite possible that this has an effect on your tablet.
thx
Lee
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Will do.
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I tried changing back to B and still got dropouts. Also found I was having dropouts at home. So decided to replace the wifi dongle - so far it's been OK, but haven't tried it in flight yet.
One point I noticed while testing: on p26 of the PAW operating instructions the function of the lights on the Bridge is noted - "The red LED on the right-hand side of the Radio Bridge will also flash. When the unit has loaded the software, and booted up the normal state is for the Red LED on the Raspberry Pi to be permanently on. On the Radio Bridge the red light will give single flashes and the Green LED will pulse in groups of 4 flashes." What I get, when the system has settled down, is a single flash (1/sec?) from the RH red Bridge light. For the LH pair of Bridge lights, most of the time, a red flash followed by 3 green flashes, though occasionally it's RRGR or RGGR, and sometimes for extended periods a steady green and no red. None of this appears to affect the functioning of the PAW or its transmission of data to the Nexus. Are these variations in any way significant for the user?
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20180520 should have a constant green LED on the bridge
The hotspot home page will report any interfaces at fault
So please check the home page
If you are indoors it is most likely a GPS issue
Also, does the home page report any power throttling ?
Thx
Lee
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Thanks Lee. No report of interfaces at fault. As for power throttling, I don't know what to expect as a report - where and how will it appear, and what would it mean?
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Hi Trevor
Can you please post a full screenshot of your homepage ?
Thx
Lee
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Screenshot attached.
Trevor
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Hi Trevor,
Nothing obvious from the Home Page shot, though the number of satellites (4) is ‘borderline’. It would only take one to drop out and GPS position could get shaky to say the least.
The ‘Power Throttling’ Lee was referring to is reported at the extreme RHSide of the ‘Uptime’ Row -In your case, Throttled=0 x 0 indicates ‘no power issues’ reported.
The other potential issue is running 20180520 on an old Raspbian Kernel - which can occur if Updates have been carried out to an ‘older’ unit via USB stick only - though your Kernel is pretty up to date.
I notice in an earlier post you say you are running EasyVFR with ‘Use FLARM GPS as EasyVFR GPS’ set to ‘OFF’. This means that EasyVFR has to use the internal Nexus GPS, which could be the issue. Have you tried ‘Use FLARM GPS as EasyVFR GPS’ set to ‘ON’, which then forces EasyVFR to take both positional and traffic data from PilotAware. Worth a try.
Regards
Peter
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Thank you Peter. The screenshot was taken from a run this evening indoors, so not surprising that the number of satellites is low.
I'll try running EasyVFR GPS from the PAW. One thought though; if WiFi communication with the PAW is lost, does that mean EasyVFR is without GPS or does it default to the Nexus GPS?
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I think you would need to manually reselect the ‘Use FLARM GPS’ to ‘Off’ to get EasyVFR to revert to the tablet GPS, so you might be best testing over familiar territory just in case. Worth trying though!
Regards
Peter
p.s. just noticed the question hasn’t been asked - Is this a 2013 version Nexus 7? We did have a run of connectivity issues with older 2012 Nexus 7s, but these were sorted a while back. If you want to read about them search ‘Nexus 2012’ from the Forum Home Page and let us know if any of it seems relevant (though probably unlikely as yours was running well until recently).
p.p.s. What if anything changed?
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I think you would need to manually reselect the ‘Use FLARM GPS’ to ‘Off’ to get EasyVFR to revert to the tablet GPS, so you might be best testing over familiar territory just in case. Worth trying though!
Regards
Peter
p.s. just noticed the question hasn’t been asked - Is this a 2013 version Nexus 7? We did have a run of connectivity issues with older 2012 Nexus 7s, but these were sorted a while back. If you want to read about them search ‘Nexus 2012’ from the Forum Home Page and let us know if any of it seems relevant (though probably unlikely as yours was running well until recently).
p.p.s. What if anything changed?
Peter, thanks again. In response to your points/queries, in order:
Yes, tried it, it's necessary to manually reselect "Use FLARM GPS" to off.
Nexus purchased in 2014, and has communicated satisfactorily with PAW (until recently), so probably not a 2012 one. I did change WiFi mode from G to B at Lee's suggestion the other day (and because that's what the PAW Operating Instructions say, in spite of your Jan 1 2018 message), but I've just changed it back to G.
What if anything changed? As explained in my original post, after many months of perfect operation I was getting dropouts of communication between PAW and Nexus, which were becoming more frequent and more difficult to reconnect. The PAW continued to give normal audio messages. At first i though it was working perfectly at home (and thought there might be some interference problem in the aircraft environment), but as dropouts grew worse I was getting them at home as well. So I have replaced the wifi dongle. Over 3 hours today at home, I had 2 dropouts of about 15 sec, with automatic reconnection; I haven't had chance to try it in the aircraft yet.
Regards,
Trevor
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Flew for 2 hours today, back to the normal perfect behaviour from PAW; assume it was a faulty wifi dongle.