Author Topic: Shobdon ATOM Station failure  (Read 2117 times)

Moffrestorer

Shobdon ATOM Station failure
« on: June 26, 2020, 10:53:47 am »
Hi Keith and Lee,

The installation at Shobdon has been down for about 2 weeks. Initially appeared to have no Flarm reception at all. It has been completely off air for several days as not showing up on the OGNRANGE sites. Plugging in an HDMI monitor yesterday it is clear that the unit doesn’t boot up fully. See screenshot.

Advice please on how to get it up and running again?

Thanks,

Chris

Moffrestorer

Re: Shobdon ATOM Station failure
« Reply #1 on: June 27, 2020, 08:06:17 am »
OK, so I’m guessing that the SD card has somehow become corrupted. Presumably we need to download the latest disk image from the pilotaware.lode site and start again. Will the auto software updates then be reapplied once the Station is back up, to the latest iteration?

Thx,

Chris

exfirepro

Re: Shobdon ATOM Station failure
« Reply #2 on: June 27, 2020, 08:48:55 am »
Hi Chris,

I didn’t comment on your earlier post yesterday as it was addressed to Lee and Keith and I presumed Lee would check via the Grid to see what was showing and get back to you. Surprised neither has replied - I know they have both been extremely busy recently.

Based on your comment re the system not fully booting when monitored via HDMI, and in the absence of any other advice, I would agree that your best option is a fresh software reinstall. Once set up and reconfigured, the auto updates should resume ‘automatically’ ( :-X).

Regards

Peter

Admin

Re: Shobdon ATOM Station failure
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2020, 11:56:05 am »
We have not heard from Shobdon since June 18, is the airfield operational
I am wondering if everything is powered down ?

Thx
Lee

Moffrestorer

Re: Shobdon ATOM Station failure
« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2020, 12:56:09 pm »
Hi Lee,

Shobdon reopened Saturday 6 June, and thereafter on each Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It is unlicensed on the intervening days at present and only useable by based aircraft or those with a new “ out of hours Permit”. This includes gliding as it was really quite busy with aerotows when I visited on one of those days.

I can confirm that the OGN-R unit was powered up and the timer operating when I spoke to the FISO about the initial reports of nil Flarm reception. I was informed of the problem by a gliding club member on 16th June.

Thx,

Chris

Keithvinning

Re: Shobdon ATOM Station failure
« Reply #5 on: July 08, 2020, 04:03:19 pm »
Tom Galloway inserted a new card in Shobden today.
I checked the system as it is now on the grid and we can log on to diagnose the fault.
The problem is that the SD card allocated to the Flarm antenna cannot be seen.
This is because the installation was a very early one with the dongle in a not so waterproof enclosure
This means that the dongle has got wet and failed.
The solution is to change over to coax and have the Flarm dongle in the warm
We will also at the same time put in a 1090 antenna so that we can detect mode-S and also be a feeder for 360 RADAR.

Moral of the story

1 Get your station upgraded to the latest ATOM GRID software so remote diagnostics can be done
2 Don't use powered USB extenders unless you are sure that the dongle won't get wet. This one lasted 2 years.
3 update to 1090 antenna

Keith