Topics

1

Technical Support / Own position without GPS fix

« on: September 14, 2018, 07:37:46 pm »

Just a thought.. Assuming that those interested in PilotAware are a bit tech savvy, I would think many are feeding a GPS signal into their transponder so they too are transmitting their position through ADS-B Extended Squitter. That may well be an independed GPS signal of much higher quality than the dongle/rosetta can provide.

If this is the case, then I'd think PilotAware can use the plane's own ADS-B signal to establish position, even if the GPS dongle fails to provide a decent fix. You already need to fill in your 24-bit identifier anyway, so when you receive your own transponder, it will have your exact position included.

This way you may have redundancy in GPS location.

What do you think?

2

Technical Support / GDL90 vs Flarm

« on: June 24, 2018, 02:03:44 pm »

This morning I updated PAW to the latest release, to play with GDL90. I'm using EasyVFR on a Samsung tablet.

When I use the Flarm interface, planes close by are displayed red, and planes that are further away are shown in green.
When I switch to GDL90, all planes are displayed in red. Even airliners at 35K feet 

Which device marks the planes as safe/dangerous? Is this something done by PAW, or does EasyVFR make that decision? If EasyVFR, could there be an issue with the GDL90 stream that prevents EasyVFR from making the right call?

EasyVFR displays 'GPS Fix' and shows altitude, direction and speed of other planes in both modes.

3

General Discussion / Support for classic systems?

« on: June 20, 2018, 09:57:55 pm »

In the early beta days , PAW required a different RPi and bridge board. I bought those early on. Those became obsolete after new functionality was added and a new bridge board was required. A couple of software versions later, support for the old hardware was gone and we needed to buy new hardware. Which I did. I now have a fixed install in my plane, and it works very well.

Now Rosetta comes in, with RPi 3 and some extra's. 3rd generation in just over two years. More features, more processing power required. This begs the question: How long before my current hardware will be declared obsolete? What commitment for ongoing support for the now-classic hardware can existing users expect?

4

Technical Support / Traffic in sight, does not show up

« on: February 18, 2018, 08:55:50 am »

Yesterday I flew with PAW fully installed for the first time. My flight was together with two other planes in visual range, less than 1 mile separation, sometimes alongside, both with active Mode-S.

Commercial ADS-B traffic showed up fine, up to 100 miles away. But the Mode-C/S traffic that flew right next to me did not trigger any warnings. Mode-C detection was set to the suggested settings in the manual (2000ft, short range).

While flying I couldn't browse to the PAW (busy flying, not a technical issue), but on the ground I could see a long list of traffic, including mode C and CS traffic.

Any ideas?

5

Technical Support / Suitable battery pack?

« on: February 07, 2018, 10:05:38 am »

Wondering if there's recommendations for a suitable battery or power pack to supply autonomous power to PAW in flight?

I've ran a test with a brand new, fully charged XTORM XB200L 6700mAh Power Bank to see how long it would power the PAW, running the latest 20180129 software. I expected (hoped?) to get about 4 hours out of it, but it ran out at 2:15 hours  . Either I'm dealing with 'marketing mAh's'  or something is off.

What are others using, how much time does it give, and are there any tip and tricks to reduce power usage to prolongue the battery life?

6

OGN-R PilotAware / No PW anymore?

« on: September 09, 2017, 09:38:33 pm »

I just looked at the OGN map to see status of my OGN node. The local software tells me my station name is 'PWHLaken'. But on the OGN map it's now 'HLaken' where it used to be 'PWHLaken' as well. Did this change in recent releases?
More weirdness, it actually seems to change from time to time. On top of the map I see:
Maximum Signal Strength - HLAKEN - Since 31/03/2015 (V6 Air Protocol)

On the map it has just changed back into PWHLaken again??

It seems to be a caching issue. Sometimes the map shows PWHLaken and software version 0.2.5. Other times it shows HLaken and 0.2.6
Still the name has changed

7

Technical Support / Connection to USB GPS lost after running for a day

« on: September 06, 2017, 08:25:08 pm »

Yeaterday I received my bridgeboard and built the PilotAware system using the latest image. All seemed to work OK, except it suddenly lost GPS connectivity. The system log shows what appears to be a resource conflict. Unplugging and re-inserting the USB GPS resolves the issue (for now).

Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
(19:18:02) BMP-I2C   : HW_OK
(19:18:01) GPS-USB   : Connected to /dev/usbp4
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
(19:17:56) GPS-USB   : Startup
(19:17:56) GPS-USB   : Disconnected
(19:17:56) GPS-USB   : Device Disconnecting
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
(19:17:48) HTTP      : Parent->pid(3125) +++++ Child Exited Bad +++++
(19:17:48) HTTP      : Parent->pid(3125) kill(3125)=0
(19:17:48) HTTP      : Parent->pid(3125) htdocs/logging.cgi send() Error: 32 Broken pipe
(19:17:48) HTTP      : send_pthread(): pid 1267 : Broken pipe
(19:17:48) INTERNAL  : PilotAware received SIGPIPE Continuing
(19:17:42) ADSB-USB  : Connected
(19:17:36) GPS-USB   : Select/Read Timeout=0 Count=-1 errno=Resource temporarily unavailable
(19:17:16) GPS-USB   : Select/Read Timeout=0 Count=-1 errno=Resource temporarily unavailable
(19:16:56) GPS-USB   : Select/Read Timeout=0 Count=-1 errno=Resource temporarily unavailable
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
(19:16:36) GPS-USB   : Select/Read Timeout=0 Count=-1 errno=Resource temporarily unavailable
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
(19:16:16) GPS-USB   : Select/Read Timeout=0 Count=-1 errno=Resource temporarily unavailable
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
(19:15:56) GPS-USB   : Select/Read Timeout=0 Count=-1 errno=Resource temporarily unavailable
Use of uninitialized value $eth0_ip in concatenation (.) or string at htdocs/index.cgi line 152.
(19:15:36) GPS-USB   : Select/Read Timeout=0 Count=-1 errno=Resource temporarily unavailable
(19:15:16) GPS-USB   : Select/Read Timeout=0 Count=-1 errno=Resource temporarily unavailable
(19:14:55) GPS-USB   : Select/Read Timeout=0 Count=-1 errno=Resource temporarily unavailable
(19:14:35) GPS-USB   : Select/Read Timeout=0 Count=-1 errno=Resource temporarily unavailable
.... more of these...

8

General Discussion / Unit gets colder after a long time running

« on: November 21, 2015, 08:30:19 am »

My unit in an all-aluminium case gets fairly warm when running for a few hours. Nothing to be worried about, just quite warm.

However, if I run the unit for longer than a day or so, the case becomes much colder! I can hardly feel it is on anymore. It still works just fine, EasyVFR shows ADS-B traffic, a nice 3D fix, just as always. It just seems like it is using a lot less energy.

Anyone else seeing this? If so, perhaps Lee can check if any non-vital processes stop after several hours or so?
This has been with PAW versions from early October and includes the most recent version.

9

General Discussion / Very nice enclosure

« on: October 23, 2015, 09:20:11 pm »

I came across a very nice all-aluminium enclosure for the RPi. The board fits very well inside, and the aluminium helps to cool the USB ports that heat up from the DVB-T and WiFi adapters. It comes with two thermal pads that are originally meant to make a thermal connection between the CPU and RAM on the RPi and the cover of the enclosure. The chips don't get hot at all, so I placed the thermal pads on top of the USB ports to thermally connect them to the cover.

The result is a sturdy, fully RF-shielded box that gets only luke warm after several hours of running. Only drawback thusfar is that the ARF shield will not fit without some modification. It is made in Lithuania and can be ordered through eBay, link on the site : lukse.lt/uzrasai/2014-10-raspberry-pi-b-case-is-now-available

Here's a picture of my enclosure with DVB-T, WiFi and USB GPS attached and running PAW: