JTK – Notes and Ramblings Things we have found …

5/30/2022

Updates and a new RTL-SDR

Filed under: Home Automation,RTL-SDR — Tags: , — taing @ 5:53 pm

Time for some updates and to add the new RadarBox 978 MHz radio. The system is still Raspian based on Buster. Keep in mind the initially the RTL-SDR for ads-b data is device 1(RTL2832U) and the weather station data is on device 0(RTL2838UHIDIR).

I’ll take these things somewhat in the order originally installed. readsb(our option over the other dump1090 alternatives) can be updated using the same bash script that was used for the install. Be sure to keep your current /etc/default/readsb file.

sudo bash -c "$(wget -O - https://github.com/wiedehopf/adsb-scripts/raw/master/readsb-install.sh)"

tar1090(an improved web page to display your data) can be updated much like readsb using the original install script.

sudo bash -c "$(wget -nv -O - https://github.com/wiedehopf/tar1090/raw/master/install.sh)"

FlightAware is updated from your site’s My ADS-B Stats page. Once on your stats page, click on the gear and choose update.

Instruction for updating ADSBexchange can be found on their github page. The short answer is a bit of command line:

curl -L -o /tmp/axupdate.sh https://github.com/adsbxchange/adsb-exchange/raw/master/update.sh
sudo bash /tmp/axupdate.sh

FlightRadar24 should update from its repository with apt-get.

Updating graphs1090 is once again as simple as running the original install script again.

sudo bash -c "$(curl -L -o - https://github.com/wiedehopf/graphs1090/raw/master/install.sh)"

I found nothing on the RadarBox site regarding updates so I left it alone for now.

At this point everything should work as before with ADSBexchange, FlightAware, FlightRadar24 and RadarBox all still working.

Now it is time to update the serial numbers on the dongles, add the new 978MHz dongle and update the existing config files to work with that info. I used the notes at dump978-fa install instructions to set the serial numbers of the dongles. The RadarBox flightstick instructions also show how to update the serial numbers. I also updated /etc/rtl_433/rtl_433.conf to point to my new device with serial number 433(rtl_eeprom -s 433) for the LaCrosse Weather Station.

I then continued to follow the dump978 instructions.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y dump978-fa
sudo sed -i -e 's/RECEIVER_OPTIONS.*/RECEIVER_OPTIONS="--sdr-gain 43.9 --sdr driver=rtlsdr,serial=978 --format CS8"/' /etc/default/dump978-fa
sudo systemctl restart dump978-fa

Then a quick install of the ADS-B exchange UAT/978 feed client following the github instructions.

sudo bash -c "$(wget -q -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/adsbxchange/adsbexchange-978/master/install.sh)"

A quick edit to /etc/rbfeeder.ini to enable UAT/978MHz and a reboot and we are in business.

http://<pi-ip>/tar1090/
http://<pi-ip>/ax978/
http://<pi-ip>/radar/
http://<pi-ip>/graphs1090/
http://<pi-ip>:8754/

https://flightaware.com/adsb/stats/user/xxx
https://www.adsbexchange.com/myip/
https://www.flightradar24.com/account/feed-stats/?id=xxxxx
https://www.radarbox.com/stations/xxxxxx

12/4/2020

More Flight tracking – adding RadarBox

Filed under: General,RTL-SDR — Tags: , — taing @ 5:55 pm

Radarbox.com is another flight tracking site similar to FlightAware, ADSB-Exchange and FR24. Instructions for feeding to Radarbox can be found at https://www.radarbox.com/sharing-data. Like most of the similar sites, feeding will get you an upgraded account for free. If you are already feeding others it is as simple as downloading and running a bash script.

Once you download and run the script a new repo will be added and their custom feeder app will be installed. Once their feeder starts running you can use sudo rbfeeder --showkey to see what your “key” is. A quick visit to the Radarbox website to create an account then “claim” your system at http://radarbox.com/raspberry-pi/claim and you are good to go.

4/1/2020

Updates to flight tracking

Filed under: General,Home Automation,RTL-SDR — Tags: , — taing @ 3:21 pm

After not changing the pi for the outdoor temp/humidity I2C sensor, I decided to use the Pi 3 to replace the older Pi 2 that was doing the ads-b flight tracking and feeding on FlightRadar24. This started with rtl_433 already and installed and working as described in an earlier post. rtl_433 is not required but having installed it I’m sure rtl_sdr is installed and the udev rules for the dongle are already in place. I decided to try readsb instead of dump1090-fa. And dump1090-mutability is now marked as maintained.

I found automated scripts for both dump1090-fa and readsb. The script for readsb seems to have worked. I have the webpage at both http://<host>/radar and http://<host>:8080. Script archived here.

The enhanced tar1090 web interface is installed next. The new interface can be seen at http://<host>/tar1090.

Adding a bit of config info:

Set your location with sudo readsb-set-location 50.12344 10.2342.

sudo pico /etc/default/readsb to edit the main config file.

In the case of more than one RTL-SDR dongle in the Pi you may need to modify the line RECEIVER_OPTIONS="--device 0 --device-type rtlsdr --gain -10 --ppm 0" for the correct device number.

sudo pico /usr/share/readsb/html/script/readsb/defaults.js to edit the default webinterface config.

sudo pico /etc/default/tar1090 to edit the tar1090 web interface configuration. A restart with sudo systemctl restart tar1090 is needed after any changes.

Next we’ll add PiAware so we can feed FlightAware some of our data.

wget https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/files/packages/pool/piaware/p/piaware-support/piaware-repository_3.8.1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i piaware-repository_3.8.1_all.deb

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install piaware

sudo piaware-config allow-manual-updates yes

If you are upgrading/replacing and existing site you can use piaware-config feeder-id 12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789abc to set the site id. You will need to restart the service after making the change.

Confirm your FlightAware feed at https://flightaware.com/adsb/stats. You can make an account and update your position. The service status can be seen with sudo service piaware status.

Next we will add ADSB Exchange feeder:

sudo apt-get install git
sudo rm adsb-exchange -rf
git clone https://github.com/adsbxchange/adsb-exchange.git
cd adsb-exchange
sudo bash setup.sh

If that is successful you should be able to find yourself at https://www.adsbexchange.com/myip/

Now we can add the ADSBX stats package for feeders:

cd /home/pi
git clone https://github.com/adsbxchange/adsbexchange-stats.git
cd adsbexchange-stats
chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh

Flightradar24 instructions from their forums are not 100%. The contents of the script referenced does not completely match the manual steps. There are alternative but similar instructions in a different forum post.

sudo apt-key adv --recv-key --keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net C969F07840C430F5
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

then add the following line to the file (/etc/apt/sources.list)

deb http://repo.feed.flightradar24.com flightradar24 raspberrypi-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install fr24feed
fr24feed --signup
sudo systemctl restart fr24feed.service

There might be a warning you that there is no dump1090 installed and that one will be installed by fr24feed when it starts. This did not appear to happen.

You can monitor status for the fr24feed with fr24feed-status or at http://<host>:8754.

Next we add graph1090 following the install instructions in the readme. The graphs are then available at http://<host>/graphs1090 or http://<host>/pref.

The graph1090 instructions recommend reducing the number of sd card writes for a pi. Below with reduce the writes to once every 10 minutes.

sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/07-dirty.conf <<EOF
vm.dirty_ratio = 40
vm.dirty_background_ratio = 30
vm.dirty_expire_centisecs = 60000
EOF

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