New ground station

[peter.seddon]

Hi all.
I've now upgraded my OGN receiver at Morecambe to PAW (Cheers Keith for the hardware)
Being new to this, I'm a glider pilot, how do I know it's working. OGN has spot the gliders which shows on line receivers,
is there anything similar for PAW ground stations. Also I'm reading about licenses, do ground stations need one?
All help gratefully received.

[exfirepro]

Hi Peter,

I’m a member of the PIlotAware Engineering Team and run PWBalerno from my home in West Edinburgh.

No licence needed for your OGN-R station as it’s a safety service to the flying community.

You can normally view your station coverage using OGN Range http://www.ognrange.onglide.com This is the best for checking coverage as the maps build up over time and are selectable to for example ‘today’, ‘last 7 days’, etc. but they are having a bit of a problem at the moment due to Google Maps new pricing policy. It will hopefully come back on line shortly.

You can see ‘live’ coverage using www.glidertracker.org - very useful once you get it set up to your local site.

Grafana www.grafana.glidernet.org is also useful for background data, but it only updates once every 24hrs (usually during the night).

You can also see current data by logging in to your local host pages http://ognpaw.local.8080  8081 or 8082 , (though with mine I have to log in via my router 192.168.0.x.8080 etc). One of the pages has a link near the bottom to a live data file (I’d need to log in to check which and I’m not at home at present).

Keep us posted on progress.

Best Regards

Peter

[peter.seddon]

Hi Peter
I get the usual data from 8080 and 8081 for flarm and 8082 reports the following so I assume it will send and receive data as the service is running.

Version 20180802 : Date 2018-08-23 13:03:46 : Station PWMorecam
P3I Packets=0
ICAO   Type   Dist(KM)   Alt(FT)   Uplink

I hope this weekend to update the site a UKBRW for Walney island and the Lakes Gliding Club so that will be two more stations to add to the list.

[Moffrestorer]

Hi Peter,

Excellent news and great to see OGN-R coverage extending further up the West coast.

I now see your station PWMorecam showing up fine on the map on glidertracker.org This shows you are correctly registered on the OGN APRS servers. If you touch on either end of the PW station name it gives information of the software version, CPU temperature etc. If PAW or Flarm/ OGN tracker equipped aircraft fly within range they will show up on this program and you will see their tracks. In “settings” for the glidertracker program I generally set Select and Track to 12hrs so I can see who passes by within that timeframe.

You can use the OGN range tool (via the OGN web-site) to show cumulative coverage for your OGN receiver by typing in Morecambe or by touching the station symbol on the map of the range tool web-page, and similarly, PWMorecam to get the PAW coverage. It may take a week or two for sufficient coverage data to accumulate dependent on how much traffic passes within range.

The Upgrade instructions, that you will have followed, list various diagnostic pages, ognpaw:8080, 8081 and 8082. These give a wealth of info regarding radio performance but is very technical and may not mean a lot to you in practical terms.

The 8082 page lists real-time reception of Flarm and PAW contacts and whether a rebroadcast of the Flarm data actually takes place. Unfortunately this info doesn’t get saved so unless you happen to be looking at the page when a rebroadcast actually takes place, you will probably never capture the event! At the foot of the 8081 page you can select short or long listing of aircraft that were detected including GPS coordinates.

I went and flew near/over my station in the Eurostar with PAW when gliders were aloft, and within range and in this way it was much easier to prove the system worked satisfactorily as I saw the gliders/Flarm traffic on my Nav program display, as well as the ground station symbol.

I hope this helps.

PS. Just seen Exfirepro Peter’s response. As he says, no licence needed as we are using a licence free band in the radio spectrum.

[Ian Melville]

PS. Just seen Exfirepro Peter’s response. As he says, no licence needed as we are using a licence free band in the radio spectrum.

That is not the reason there is no Licence fee. The PAW software requires a licence, not for the use of the radio. OGN-R is not PAW, but a taylored OGN station with the same radio board as used in older PAW (thought the Rosetta version will also work). As Peter said, it is deemed to be of benifit to the wider community and a safety enhancement. So to encourage take up it is free of a software licence, which may have been tricky to apply anyway.

[Moffrestorer]

Peter, Ian,

Please accept my apologies re: the free software licence for OGN-R stations granted by PAW on safety grounds. I’d interpreted Peter Seddon’s original post that he was querying the need for a radio transmitting licence!

[peter.seddon]

PWMorecam now up and running with it's new aerial installed on the side of the house with a pole to give it a 10 foot height extension to see more of the sky. Two aerials one for PAW one for FLARM.

[Ian Melville]

Nice one Peter, welcome to the club.

[exfirepro]

Hi Peter S,

I flew past yours yesterday morning on my way back to East Fortune from a private strip near Rossall Field - Transmitting both PilotAware and FLARM. I went right over Lancaster at about 1500 - 2000 ft, then on towards Morecambe Bay, Arnside and the Lakes. I would have expected you to see me for a longer stretch of the route, so you might need to look at improving your antennas. Best to monitor for a while and see how things go first though.

Keep us posted.

Best Regards

Peter R

[peter.seddon]

When you flew past yesterday the aerials were in a temporary position about 10 ft off the deck, so shadowed by the surrounding houses.
They're now at about ridge level about 30 ft above the deck so should see more sky. See if there's an improvement next time you're over.

Cheers
PeterS

[exfirepro]

That would explain it. We’ll see how the picture builds up over the next few weeks - now OGN Range is back up and running it’s easy to keep check.

Best Regards

Peter R

[Keithvinning]

Great work Peter
The North West has been a bit low on stations at first but now three in a row. We are on a bit of a roll any more takers?
Remember the electronics are for free.

Keith

[peter.seddon]

I've still got UKBRW to upgrade, I was hoping to have it done by now be the chap is moving the aerials and the electronics so it will be done soon.