Topics

1

OGN-R PilotAware / Grafana Receivers Offline?

« on: November 29, 2021, 11:06:11 pm »

Hi Lee,

The Grafana display at the link below appears to be offline.

http://grafana.glidernet.org/d/000000001/receivers?orgId=1&var-receiver=Radley

It was quite a useful diagnostic tool for stations as it tended to show clearly when one or other receivers had checked out (as occasionally happened).

Any thoughts as to what has happened to that service?

KRs
Chris

2

OGN-R PilotAware / Cannot get clock to sync to correct time

« on: March 29, 2021, 10:50:11 pm »

I was having problems with PWRADLEY not being reliable and not connecting to aprs.glidernet.org:14580 (not connected). Grafana which has been reliably showing a daily heartbeat had started flat-lining :-(.

I rebuild OGN-R from scratch using the full distribution and set it up as usual. However on restart the time/date initialises to 2021-03-05. I was expecting it to periodically sync to NTP but the utility datetimectl status showed no NTP. How should the time be set up and what status should I expect. It also cannot connect to Grid.

This is a Pi3 which I suspect has a different time default to Pi2.

Any thoughts, please.

3

Technical Support / Not seeing OGN-R MLAT traffic on PAW via ATOM

« on: February 06, 2021, 02:26:04 pm »

Hi Lee,

I'm trying to get MLAT traffic to appear on a new PAW Rosetta. I'm running the Rosetta temporarily as a ground station co-located with OGN-R PWRadley.

PWRadley is showing MLAT traffic in the traffic list.

The PAW is connecting to the ATOM, receiving airfield information and METARS - all very good but no MLAT traffic visible on Rosetta.

As an example M-ETAL came overhead at low level and I was able to watch it on the OGN-R radar all the way to landing in the west - but no visibility of it at all on PAW radar.

Do I need to register either the PAW or the OGN-R to see MLAT aircraft.

Best regards
Chris

4

OGN-R PilotAware / Mixed Lat/Long in OGN-R tracking file and Antenna Pattern Feature

« on: October 26, 2020, 05:50:19 pm »

Hi Lee,

OGN-R Version Sat 24-Oct-2020.

In my track file today I have some records which have Lat/Long and others Long/Lat (it is consistent for any particular aircraft). The Long/Lat ones put the aircraft at several thousand miles away. File attached. Any thoughts, please.

Interesting to see the AntennaPattern ranges of 0 35 95 110 157 118 0 0 0 0. How do I interpret these as I have no idea how good the outside aerial really is and would like to know.

Best regards Chris
PWRadley

5

OGN-R PilotAware / OGN-R 20191101 Not auto installing onto 20191008

« on: November 03, 2019, 10:26:34 pm »

As at 03-Nov-2019 Currently running OGN-R 20191008. Laster version appears to be reporting as 20191101, This is not auto-installing. There is an error message about a missing file when trying to use the manual update script, Normally this all works as expected, Any thoughts? (system has been restarted).

Last few lines of update script output......

2019-11-03 22:24:30 (1004 KB/s) - ‘/tmp/OGN-PAW.latest.version’ saved [9/9]                                                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
##################################################                                                                                                                                                                                           
Installed version=20191008 Remote version=20191101                                                                                                                                                                                           
##################################################                                                                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
Creating Backup Data                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
tar: Removing leading `/' from member names                                                                                                                                                                                                 
tar: /var_org/lib/zerotier-one: Cannot stat: No such file or directory                                                                                                                                                                       
tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors                                                                                                                                                                                     
Bad command return, exiting                             

6

OGN-R PilotAware / Version 20190707 Uplink range

« on: July 12, 2019, 05:06:22 pm »

Hi Lee,

Quick question about this release.
The visibility of the aircraft being rebroadcast over the uplink seems to be limited to around a range <16kms - previously I thought this was much further out. This being the case (snapshot attached) I might suggest that this is a rather small circle (unless the 'circle' is an elongated ovoid favouring the forward direction of travel). At 15kms two aircraft heading towards each other at 125kts will not appear on the screen for long giving little warning - they will suddenly appear and be gone. A typical range I might be using on SkyDemon en route is about 20-30nm which is about the range I would like to know about. If the aircraft are  already identified their position could be broadcast. I appreciate there is a desire to limit the RF chatter but I'd much rather get an overview of what was ahead (and left and right) - such as a swarm of gliders so that I was forewarned, especially if as happens one goes in and out of the range of a base station and they all disappear! If they have been seen at any point on the screen then one is forewarned. If aircraft are already close-by I want to be looking out of the cockpit, not down at the screen.

The MLAT and uplink are a brilliant addition to PAW. I'm sure Keith would agree - more ground stations are still needed - excellent work so far - more volunteers needed! Their coverage radius is pretty good with the transmit power available. Reception and getting a reliable two-way link in a metal plane can be much more of a challenge when positioning the aerials. This is often at the front to enable PAW to give a good forward view (but where much of the local ground around can be obscured). In terms of OGN-R any ground station in range in any direction would be just as valuable. Is any thought being given to an approved omni-directional aerial that could be affixed (installed) to say the underside of a plane or other solutions? This would greatly increase the effectiveness of the ground network especially in areas of fewer ground stations. This would reduce the number of drop-outs and increase effective coverage which I suggest will be essential to keep ahead of the game.   

Keep up the great work
KR
Chris

7

OGN-R PilotAware / Version 20190418 and GS-OGN PAW Flag Missing

« on: April 22, 2019, 11:55:58 am »

My OGN-R is co-located with my PAW which I use as a ground-station (when not airborne) to check the OGN-R and PAW.
In PAW Radar display, my GS-OGN flag is not appearing (other notifications in that area are such as G-BNNZ +20nm did appear whilst checking). I normally use the GS-OGN Flag to check that the OGN-R is broadcasting.
OGN-R Traffic confirms that it is connected to the PAW and rebroadcasting to it; the PAW Rx count is incrementing quickly as expected and the PAW Radar shows MLAT traffic; the PAW Traffic screen also shows the rebroadcast MLAT transmissions being received.
Is there any reason why the GS-OGN flag is not currently being triggered in PAW (2019018 4.14.79-v7+), OGN-R 20190418?

8

OGN-R PilotAware / Latest Version 20190403 and vrs

« on: April 05, 2019, 05:09:48 pm »

Lots of Mode-S MLAT being detected with location calculated but not currently being transmitted to my vrs. Is it possible to add these into the port 30103 feed as I think I'm only seeing the Flarm/OGN/PAW traffic atm. Ideally it would be good to see this; the Mode S MLAT and ADS-B traffic in vrs as the positioning onto a map is good. I can see all these in PAW Radar of course (and an excellent display it is too). Great work. Is there any way to check what 1090 traffic is being sent to 360Radar?

9

OGN-R PilotAware / OGN-R Traffic Stats

« on: September 10, 2018, 04:46:09 pm »

I thought this might be interesting to the PAW and OGN-R community. I'm manually logging the daily traffic seen from my OGN-R station RADLEY (Abingdon, Oxfordshire) located between the Brize and Benson zones. The attached graph shows the daily variation of aircraft/gliders recorded in this area (a few days are not recorded or no traffic was observed due to poor weather). Over the period from May-Sept 2018 a total of 5,415 aircraft were observed. This was from 888 unique aircraft (many of which passed through on multiple days - they are only counted once per day even if making multiple passes) - peaking at over 200 during some afternoons. The graph is a reminder that the daily traffic can vary enormously and in some cases there can be a lot of it in a relatively small corridor (and concentrated at popular times of day). If ever we needed a reminder of why we are doing this, this may encourage our efforts on conspicuity in general and OGN-R in particular, in order to get the best possible continuous PAW coverage in the air. On several recent trips the PAW + OGN-R has helped highlight traffic ahead and been a useful addition to situational awareness and flight safety.

The biggest peaks have tended to coincide with Gliding Competitions. A useful source of possible Glider activity can be found at https://glidingtasks.co.uk/ although it can be updated quite late if the weather is marginal.
 
Chris

10

OGN-R PilotAware / OGNRANGE offline at the moment

« on: August 04, 2018, 12:18:27 pm »

Sadly the very useful http://ognrange.onglide.com appears to have been taken offline with the following message to users.

"Sorry everybody but the new google maps pricing makes this service temporarily unavailable. I will keep collecting data and work on a solution when I get time."

Anyone any suggestions to help get this tool back online or helpful alternatives?

Chris

11

OGN-R PilotAware / Rosetta and OGN-R

« on: May 14, 2018, 07:04:52 pm »

Any changes expected/needed/possible to the OGNPAW ground stations following the Rosetta uplift (such a processor upgrade)? Does the OGNPAW code roughly follow the latest PAW build or is it a completely different fork (and something that may well be left on a legacy software and hardware build given the need to get Rosetta launched quickly).

Looking forward to seeing the 978MHz Wx receiver being added to PAW.

Keep up the good work
Chris

12

Technical Support / Error Message every 5 mins in Log file "mount : can't find /boot in ......."

« on: March 02, 2018, 03:32:32 pm »

Hi Lee,

In the PilotAware Log file (20180129) I am getting a mounting error message repeated every 5 minutes. The PilotAware appears to be operating as expected. Any idea what this is reporting?

This is the sequence of events in the log after a system reboot (earliest event at the bottom as in the log).

(15:09:30)......etc etc
mount:  can't find /boot in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
mount:  can't find /boot in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

# ...REPEATED AT  5 MINUTE INTERVALS

mount: can't find /boot in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
(15:04:17) FILESYS           : Mount RW
mount: can't find /boot in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
(15:04:17) FILESYS           : Mount RO

#Rebooted system. All as-expected initialisation messages. Then the message above.

Best regards
Chris

13

OGN-R PilotAware / New OGN Build 07-Aug-2017 not firing up RTLSDR on Pi B+ V1.2

« on: August 16, 2017, 05:20:09 pm »

I was using the June version successfully but have rebuilt using the latest 07-08-2017 OGN build. All loads as expected until the point where you run ./do-cfg.sh. All the standard questions are fine but when it comes to initialise and test the RTLSDR it just drops through all the gain tests in less than a second without actually doing anything.

If you manually run the test using, for instance, the command
sudo ./gsm_scan --ppm 1 --gain 50
the test returns nothing and it returns immediately to the command prompt.
Interestingly if you omit the sudo then you get a 'Segmentation Fault' message returned. The earlier build did not require the sudo in order to work correctly.
Any thoughts please?

(the earlier build still works so nothing wrong with the equipment and I've repeatedly rebuilt the 07-08 image from scratch on different memory cards with identical results. The RTL is visible in the USB list.).

14

General Discussion / Multiple Wifi Networks in the Cockpit

« on: May 20, 2016, 05:23:27 pm »

Hi Lee,
I dropped a message to Admin on the topic of multiple wifi Networks appearing in the cockpit as a result of work I am doing with FASVIG. I suspect that you may not have picked it up. Would it be better if I posted the note here instead?
Cheers
Chris
ps. Looking forward to the release of the next batch of shields for PAW hoping I can get one.