iGrid connection to hotspot flakey - Solution is to open on hotspot page

[JCurtis]

You have 12 channels to choose from.

Actually you don’t. For 2.4GHz based WiFi only channels 1, 6, and 11 don’t overlap with other channels.  With 5GHz, unless you up the bandwidth by bonding, none of the channels overlap.

[russp]

Clearing the cache simply removes all hotspots as candidates for connections
It will not remove them from the list of candidates, so the procedure should be as follows

clear cache
refresh
select desired hotspot in dropdown list
enter password
<save>

This will mean that this will be the ONLY hotspot considered as a candidate for connection
if this is not the case - then I have a bug

when a connection is made then the list will highlight the selected hotspot in green

Please let me know if the above procedure does not work for you.

alternately, do I misunderstand, and the problem is that Dynon is swamping the WiFi channels and not allowing other hotspots to be visible ?

The 'Refresh' button has no effect at all, whether one has 'cleared cache' or not - the SkyView connection is the only one that shows up.

This goes back to the issue explained above - you have to have the hotspot page open on your iphone/ipad for PAW to see the hotspot - if you do it will connect automatically to the phone - if you dont it will always offer you SkyView and only SkyView - at leas
t that has been my experience.

[Young_C]

Hi all,
I had similar problems trying to connect PAW to my iphone hotspot today after installing my PAW wifi dongle.

The network screen on the PAW interface seemed to be only showing the Skyview wifi as an available network. After many attempts at clearing cache, refreshing and phaffing about, I managed to get my iphone to show as an available network and connect to it using my password. I then hit SAVE! After this I could see iGRID / GSM showing green on the home / RADAR pages. So I was happy it was all working.

However I then powered everything off and went through the normal startup process only to find the iphone was missing again (nothing seemed to have been saved) and only Skyview was showing.

At this point I gave up and went flying!

Next time I will try the advice above to ONLY consider my iphone as the hotspot and see if I can get it to connect automatically. Otherwise it is not practical to have to manually connect each time PAW is powered up.

Best regards,
Chris.

[exfirepro]

Just glad I use a Samsung! 

Best Regards

Peter
(Guardian of the ‘Galaxy’) 

[Admin]

Next time I will try the advice above to ONLY consider my iphone as the hotspot and see if I can get it to connect automatically. Otherwise it is not practical to have to manually connect each time PAW is powered up.

Hi Chris,
Which version of pilotAware are you running ?
We found an issue with connectivity of some dongles being intermittant, and put out a fix on 20220626

Regarding the Hotspot - we cannot fix the iPhone I am afraid.
Some iPhones will only allow a client to connect IF the iphone has the hotspot page open.

Finally, it is not clear to me - did you try to connect to the dynon Wifi, or are you simply saying that you see it listed in the table.
If the Dynon is not an Internet hotspot, please do not try to connect to this, and if you have at somepoint, clear this from the cache and start again

Thx
Lee

[Young_C]

Hi Lee,
Yes I was running version PAW 20220626.
No I didn't try to connect to Skyview, it was just the only wifi that PAW was listing as available. I hoping that if I follow your procedure the PAW will always ignore Skyview and only show as available / connect to my iphone hotspot.

Thanks,
Chris.

[Admin]

Hi Lee,
Yes I was running version PAW 20220626.
No I didn't try to connect to Skyview, it was just the only wifi that PAW was listing as available. I hoping that if I follow your procedure the PAW will always ignore Skyview and only show as available / connect to my iphone hotspot.

Hi Chris
Can you confirm whether or not your iphone was on the hotspot enable page
Thx
Lee

[Young_C]

Hi Lee,
I cannot be certain. I think during all the phaffing about I might have left the iphone on the hotspot page and that might have been when it finally showed on PAW and I was able to connect.
I will check more carefully next time and see whether this is indeed the determining factor.

If so then this is liveable with, since I can put my iphone onto the hotspot page before starting up my engine.

Best regards,
Chris.

[Admin]

Hi Chris

The annoying thing about the iphone hotspot, is that you cannot get any definitive information.

If I have my iphone on the hotspot page it ALWAYS connects
Annoyingly, if I do not, it sometimes connects

this latter behavior also does not seem consistent across all iphones/ios combinations
if you search the web you will see lots of reports on this all with conflicting information

right now, I would say put it on the hotspot page, await the connection, then all is well

Having spoken to Ashley this morning, I have seen (yet) another way.
If I swipe up on my iphone and click in the centre of the top left box (connections)
I can make the phone discoverable - this also works without going to the hotspot page

Thx
Lee

[exfirepro]

Hi Lee,
I cannot be certain. I think during all the phaffing about I might have left the iphone on the hotspot page and that might have been when it finally showed on PAW and I was able to connect.
I will check more carefully next time and see whether this is indeed the determining factor.

If so then this is liveable with, since I can put my iphone onto the hotspot page before starting up my engine.

Best regards,
Chris.

Hi Chris / All,

That’s good practice in any case. I normally have mobile hotspot disabled on my (Android) phone, so have got into the habit of switching to the Hotspot Screen and enabling the Hotspot, then starting the engine, before powering up PAW and checking that it is showing on the Hotspot Screen, ‘closing’ the phone and checking my PAW Home (or RADAR) Screen to confirm full function connectivity as part of my pre-flight checks.

Best Regards

Peter

[russp]

As the OP I thought I'd do an update - I'm now able (thanks to the steers in this thread) to connect relaibly and easily to my ipad as a hotspot WHILE using it as the screen for skydemon. The trick is to use the swipe down up settings screen and then long touch the wifi/bluetooth box to bring up the connections page - see images attached - tap and hold the wifi - connect to pilot aware then tap outside the box to go back. NOW tap the hotspot and it will connect to the PAW. No need for a phone except to set up the network on the PAW the first time - selecting ipad as the hotspot.

[Young_C]

Hi all,
Some feedback from my flight yesterday using PAW with iGRID. I followed the advice to open and leave my iphone on the hotspot page and this worked well. PAW was able to connect to the iphone automatically. Thanks.

BTW One other feedback, I found the buttons on the RADAR display almost impossible to use in flight. It was quite bumpy yesterday and the buttons are very small on my ipad so with my fingers (not particularly fat!) it was very difficult. See attached screenshot showing buttons in question.

Regards,
Chris
G-RVAH.

[PCKnight]

A lot of trials and errors with this. Ipad running SkyDemon, Uavionix ADSB out, Pilot aware rosetta running latest software.

There is no automatic connection to IGrid via the iPhone 13 hotspot. If I look at the list of WiFi hotspots that the Paw is seeing it will include the Uavionix if I have switched it on and  on a good (or bad ) day it picks up the WiFi signal from the HP printer in the ATC Tower. If I switch the iPhone to the hotspot page the iPhone will appear as a hotspot. I can then select it and it appears to be stable as long as the phone is on the hotspot page. I am not sure it will remember everything for next time but I will try it tomorrow and report back. The iPhone being open on the hotspot page seems critical to success
Peter

[Admin]

The iPhone being open on the hotspot page seems critical to success
Peter

This is a security feature of your iPhone
Thx
Lee

[PCKnight]

I agree. I now know how to get the WiFi connection to work every time.

The iPhone has to be open at the hotspot page. If it is then the PAW will select the iPhone Hotspot automatically and ignore all other Hotspots that may be around. This is when using an iPhone 13 running 15.6.1.

I did find that the network connectivity was a bit poor showing the orange tab but that was probably when at 4000 over rural bits. When it went green extra traffic would spring up and the tab would indicate Atom1 or Atom 2 which I assume is the server it happens to find. I was a bit surprised that I could not maintain a signal for longer as it is a fibreglass aircraft with, presumably, line of sight to the telecom mast.