Virtually no traffic, ADS-B red

[alan_d]

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?

[exfirepro]

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

[alan_d]

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.

[Ian Melville]

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

[exfirepro]

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

[Ian Melville]

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..

[exfirepro]

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

[Ian Melville]

NP Pete.

[Admin]

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

[alan_d]

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?

[exfirepro]

Alan,

See here for an explanation from Lee.

http://forum.pilotaware.com/index.php/topic,1155.msg13786.html#msg13786

Regards

Peter

[Admin]

Thanks Peter I couldn’t find my own post!
In the next release I will convert the the codes to meaningful messages

Thx
Lee

[alan_d]

@ 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.

[Ian Melville]

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. 🤪

[Admin]

Hi Alan

When you say decent cable, can you clarify ?
Is this the juicybitz cable provided ?
I think this is 20awg

Thx
Lee