Topics

1

Technical Support / Dead Rosetta - SD card slot has come adrift - Updated

« on: March 30, 2024, 04:43:08 pm »

Some time ago I had some reliability issues with my 'powered by a Charge2' Rosetta, but these went away if I followed the mantra of pulling the USB port circuit breaker before engine shutdown, and not powering it up until after engine start. I was never really convinced that this really got to the bottom of the problem, but it's seemed to work for the last few months.

Out of the blue today the Rosetta just wouldn't work. USB or Anker battery, nada. All I'd get was three green flashes from the Bridge board, and a solid red light from the Pi, and nothing more. On the bench back at home I've found the problem, in that the outboard end of the SD card socket has come away from the Pi, leaving it hinged from the inboard end, so the poor bugger can't boot up and just sits there. I suspect a flakey SD socket connection has been the problem the whole while, and it's finally given up the ghost.

My soldering skills certainly aren't up to the job of reseating/replacing the SD card slot, so I'd welcome suggestions on options.

- can anyone replace the SD slot for me?
- has anyone a dead rosetta with a good Pi they'd sell me?
- is the right Pi still available to buy new?
- do PAW Towers offer a sensible trade in against an Fx?
- any other suggestions?

As an aside, I had to fly with a SkyEcho@ today in its place. My aircraft is certified ADSB out equippped so I was only using it in receive mode. Whilst it saw plenty of traffic, I remain convinced it's highly selective in what it does receive, as I flew above, behind, below and in front of a mate in another certified ADSB out equipped aircraft for two hours and it never saw him once, despite Vector showing his aircraft broadcasting loud and clear. I just can't bring myself to trust the SE2 the way I do the PAW.

2

Technical Support / Vector page not displaying the important bit!

« on: February 23, 2023, 05:51:40 pm »

I can't seem to get Vector to work, whichever browser I use.

Is it just me?

3

Technical Support / Flight missing from Vector.

« on: November 18, 2022, 04:38:53 pm »

Flight missing from Vector.

I flew for 45 mins on the 26th with both PAW and certified source ADSB-out via my Trig Transponder operational. I was given a squawk by the local radar service which was verified.

I saw at least two PAW ground stations on my SkyDemon chart, along with other traffic, and my SD track log was uninterrupted. There is nothing recorded for my aircraft on Vector for that day although the flights is visible on FlightAware, so ADSB-out was working as it should.

Now it's possible as this was the first and only flight since my complete re-installation of the software on my Rosetta that I could have cocked up entering my hex-id, I can't check this until tomorrow, but I'm surprised not to have seen data for my ADSB-out transmissions.

Any clues?

4

Technical Support / Dead PilotAware

« on: November 04, 2022, 05:18:17 pm »

My Rosetta failed to start up for the first time today. Despite swapping power from panel power to Anker, unplugging and re-plugging the power lead several times, it had resolutely decided not to play.

I have it at home now, with covers off, and the situation is as follows:

- when powering up the red led next to the power socket remains red
- the green led on the GPS module will flash once on power up
- the green led adjacent to the red one may flash once, but not every time
- I once saw something else flash green three times
- juggling the micro USB plug doesn’t affect the red led
- applying pressure in different places to the Briidge board may cause the red led to blink off and come back on again.

I’ve unplugged and reseated the bridge to no avail.

Any suggestions?

5

Technical Support / Bug in Vector when using MacOS Safari browser.

« on: October 28, 2022, 05:35:35 pm »

I'm encountering an annoying bug in the Vector display when using Safari under MacOS.

The 'Go' button appears to disable itself after the first press, meaning I have to refresh the page and re-enter the ICAO ID every time I wish to change the transmission type filter.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

6

Technical Support / Weak P3i transmission?

« on: March 05, 2022, 05:56:06 pm »

Hi,

I have PAW in the cockpit, and ADS-B out via certified Mode S-ES from a Trig Transponder, the source being a GNS430W.

Since the upgrade to the latest version (athough I can't put my hand on my heart and say it's definitely aligned with that) I've noticed that Vector is indicating that ground stations are barely picking up my P3i signals. I'm using PAW as a position/traffic source for two copies of SD and there has been no problem with track recording, nor is it failing to pick up and display traffic. This is definitely a new thing, and the location of the PAW has not changed. I would previously often get PAW detected at up to 60-80Km, with a good forward radial coverage.

Vector diagrams for the last 5 flights over two days as follows, PAW first and ADS-B out second.

Any ideas?

Graham

7

Technical Support / Helicopters depicted as aircraft in SkyDemon

« on: December 15, 2020, 02:39:15 pm »

When I use SkyDemon with a SkyEcho2, local RAF traffic targets are shown correctly as helicopters. With a second tablet running the same version of SkyDemon but linked to a PAW, the same traffic targets are depicted as aircraft. They are all ADSB-out targets.

Can anyone explain this? What am I doing wrong?

8

Technical Support / Unable to change GroupID

« on: November 22, 2020, 02:25:47 pm »

I’ve just updated to the latest 20201101 release, and while setting up a new profile, noticed that I wasn’t able to change the Group ID, it kept resetting itself to the value of the current profile I was modifying.

This might be a problem that predates the current release, I haven’t tried to change GroupID for ages.

9

General Discussion / METARs and Radar - why the inconsistent units?

« on: September 25, 2020, 05:21:46 pm »

It's bugged me (only a little, I'll admit) that despite the standard navigation unit for distance (rather than length) being nautical miles, PAW insists on using kilometres on the radar screen and traffic table. It's a mental translation that people shouldn't have to do, especially if trying to correlate with, say, a Traffic Service. We all know the brain goes to mush when flying.

I've just watched the YouTube on the METAR facility. It's great, but why are the colour codes based on miles, when the METAR themselves this side of the Atlantic are expressed metres?  Furthermore, are these nautical or statute miles?

It would take little effort to clean up these, and it would add a little polish, rather than grubby marks, to a great product.

10

General Discussion / Release notes for latest version.

« on: September 03, 2020, 09:22:04 pm »

I’ve updated to the latest release, but I only discovered it was available through word of mouth.

Apart from the new METAR page, I have no idea of the other enhancements and improvements, and can’t find anything on the website.

Where can I see such release notes, please?

11

General Discussion / Unsecured wifi and the problems it causes

« on: December 08, 2019, 10:53:30 am »

On more than one occasion I have had my tablet connect inadvertently to a PilotAware unit sitting in someone else's aircraft close by.

Yesterday I was starting up from departure from Leicester. My tablet connected automatically to what I thought was my PAW without me noticing, and I then struggled with it dropping out a couple of times. I ended up flying home with SD in 'Location Services' mode to dodge the problem Fortunately, I also have a smart phone mounted near the screen on which I use SD in 'Traffic' mode which seemed unaffected so at least I wasn't without traffic awareness on my journey home.

Later at home when reviewing the SD logs I noticed a spurious journey, emanating from Leicester Airport and heading directly from the parking area in a bent straight line out eastwards and extending to just outside the ATZ. This was timed at just the point when I was ready to taxi and struggling to get PAW to remain connected to SD.

Putting two and two together this must have been one of the helis next to where we were parked, and to one of whose PAWs my tablet had connected.

Is there any way you can get a message out to the community at large to a) apply a password to their PAW wifi b) set its power to the lowest workable level?

12

General Discussion / ModeS/3D

« on: December 10, 2018, 10:27:50 am »

How is the trial progressing? What's the expected availability date?

13

OGN-R PilotAware / Hypothetical question

« on: June 26, 2018, 01:31:20 pm »

I'm shortly to move house. The new place is effectively sitting on a ridge, which although only at c.400' amsl has a reasonably unobstructed line of sight in all directions from the top of the chimney. It's within a few nm of Welshpool airport, and will have a broadband connection of about 7mbps

What would be required to set up an OGN-R station? I'm reasonably technically minded, but I have no desire whatsoever to become a Linux expert, nor spend an inordinate amount of time and money on antennae, cabling etc. particularly as Mrs GB will have plenty of other little projects lined up placing priority demand on those limited resources.

Is there a single place I can look to give me an OGN-R primer?

14

Technical Support / Own aircraft shows up Red on Traffic page

« on: June 16, 2018, 06:45:14 pm »

Something that's bugged me for a long while....

I've checked that the Hex ID set in PAW matches that of my transponder. My Trig TT31 squitts ES ADS-B with a GNS430W providing a position source. I see 'CSA' in the 'MODE' field but no 'P' (which I assume is filtering doing its job).

I was led to believe that filtering of the HexID would suppress my own aircraft on the Traffic page, but there it is at the top with the 'D', 'A' and 'BR' fields in glorious technicolor (sic).

Is this normal behaviour?

I would add that a few weeks ago I did a long trip to Tuscany and back and I was regularly haunted by a bearingless warning at -100' or -200' which I can't believe was genuine traffic as I have the filters set to short range and very narrow. Since then I've upgraded to the latest release and that issue seems to have gone away, although I've only done a couple of hours since then. The Red me is still there though.

Tomorrow will be a better test as I'll be hacking back and forth on Project Propeller.

15

Technical Support / Latest (Feb 17) release

« on: February 25, 2017, 04:21:08 pm »

Can someone please point me to where I can download it from? The auto-download is failing and I want to try via USB.

The new website doesn't seem to have a link anywhere (nor any reference at all to the new release)

Thanks