New Aircraft not Showing

[ABZSpotter]

Tonight, a new Wizz Air with a Maltese registration 9H-WAG went into my local airport. It had hex code 4D241C.

Every flight tracker was showing it but not my or two other VRS sites along the route it came in on. I can only assume that the hex is outside the group allocated to Malta initially.

My VRS is on a dedicated raspberry PI. Does anyone know how or where to go to update the VRS to show these new codes even if the decode is not in the SQB?

[rikgale]

It should have shown up as an unknown aircraft on the screen, but not at all seems rather odd. Even aircraft not in the DB should be displayed on screen with a generic a/c icon.

My initial thoughts are:

a) are you running anything like tar1090 - so you can see you local traffic on a different interface - if it shows up on this, but not on VRS then defo a VRS issue.

b) what version of VRS are you running. If you are running V3.0.xx are you using the feed filter - do you have the hex, or range of hexs which includes this one filtered out.?

I have attached a screen shot of my VRS which shows the aircraft mentioned. This is one that VRS has pulled in the information for from online rather than being updated by myself.


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[Anmer]

It should have shown up as an unknown aircraft on the screen, but not at all seems rather odd. Even aircraft not in the DB should be displayed on screen with a generic a/c.

That's what I expected.  Can we confirm precisely what's meant by "showing"?

Today A7-BBF showed up on my Basestation as an "unknown" but when I launched VRS is was there with it's registration and type.

I assume that's because it have Lookup Aircraft Details Online checked under Data Sources?

[ABZSpotter]

Hi.  Thank you for your replies.  I will try to answer as best I can. I run two RPis, one has my VRS on it, the other has feeds to FR24, 360Radar, PIAware and ADSB Exchange.  Both Pis are fed by the PiAware Blue dongles (each Pi having its own). I also have a desktop that runs my SBS Puck and Basestation software.  The aircraft showed as an unknown on my SBS, but not on my VRS.  I never actually checked my other feeds to see if they were showing it, I just checked the main websites, which of course had it.  In fact, even after I had put in the code manually into the VRS SQB, the aircraft did not show on the map nor the list when it departed, and does not show on my report for yesterday.

I do not have "Lookup aircraft details online" selected as I put my own updates in manually.  I wish had now taken some screen shots, but thought it would be just a simple fix until I started looking.

The RPi VRS I am using is version 3.0.0 BETA and up to last night I thought it was all working OK.  The Feed filter is "enabled" and on the feed filter list I have "Block all ICAOs in list" but the only ones in the list are:
424A71
424A72
445566
45FE43
45FE4A
45FE4B
45FE4C
45FE4D
45FE4E
45FE4F
478B24
478B25
55D06A

So, no group blocks.

I do not have "Lookup aircraft details online" selected as I put my own updates in manually. 

I have attac in a screen shot of Wizz Air picked up by my VRS and there are no Maltese showing.  I see one is airborne for Keflavik from Rome this afternoon and so will route up the North Sea, so I should be able to see this.  If I do pick it up on my SBS but not my VRS, I will check my other feeds to see if they are getting it.

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[Anmer]

Thanks.

Are all your receivers sharing the same antenna?

[ABZSpotter]

No, they have separate Antennas.  The VRS has a better range antenna (don't know the type other than it came from the owner of 360Radar), and the other VRS works off a standard antenna that comes with the PiAware receiver.  Both of these are in the loft.  The SBS has an external antenna.  The pictures attached show the issue I have.  You can see 9H-WAT (hex 4D2428) on WZZ2BN quite away from my location to the North East on my SBS , ADSB Exchange feed and PiAware feed, but nothing is showing on my VRS feed.

Other aircraft show up as unknown if not in my SQB.  Also today on my VRS feed I have picked up the following Maltese:
4D220A 9H-QDG
4D21E9 9H-QAA
4D2127 9H-VCL

However, these are lower down in range than the latest Wizz Air Malta aircraft, so might it be that I need to update my SQB file (although I don't see why) or is there a file that needs amending to reflect the VRS seeing the new higher codes?


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[rikgale]

I do not have "Lookup aircraft details online" selected as I put my own updates in manually.

Should still show up as generic blank aircraft - even with nothing in the DB.

Yes check your other feeds - both ADSBx and Piaware should show you only your traffic. I have just had a run through the VRS options and there is nothing in there which might be the cause of your 'missing' airframe.

In fact, even after I had put in the code manually into the VRS SQB, the aircraft did not show on the map nor the list when it departed, and does not show on my report for yesterday

- to me this implies that that your VRS never recieved the data for it. Are you able to add your 2nd Pi as a reciever in your VRS, if you have not already done so. (Add a reciever as IP-of-PI on port 30005 BEAST/AVR format or 30003 SBS Basestation format - these are the default ports used by most decoders.)  Then you can swtich between the two to see if it is showing up on one reciever and not the other all from the comfort of VRS.


EDIT  -you replied while I was typing the above.   There is no file that needs updating to pick up these ICAO ranges - unless you filter out the ICAOs any messages with valid ICAO should be displayed in VRS. Can I suggest deleting all ICAOs from your feed filter and see if that makes a difference?

[Anmer]

You say you have an RPi running VRS.

What receiver is feeding it?  If it's the ProStick attached to it, I'd suspect the antenna or connections.  Or the ProStick.

The bottom line is the VRS feed is not getting as much traffic as the others.  With an external antenna, your SBS should get the better range.

If your VRS is pointing at your sqb file, as long as that has the aircraft data, no need to update anything.  VRS didn't show WZZ2BN so it can't check the sqb file.

[ABZSpotter]

Thanks, but I now think this is a VRS software issue. I looked at a friend's VRS and he wasn't picking it up either.  Also, just now, I looked at 360Radar on my phone and also the same area on FR24. You'll see in the attached screenshots that 9H-WAP shows on FR24, but not on the 360Radar VRS (it's not on the list page either).

As for my Pi not picking up 9H-WAG last night, it went right over my house on finals, so it most definitely would have been picked up. There must be something somewhere which ignores these codes as they may be being recognised as non-ICAO.

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[rikgale]

I dont think 'it's a VRS software issue'. I have tracked both aircraft on VRS (1 of which is blank in my DB) and I am currently tracking the one you screen shot in your last post. See bottom shot. 4D2424 = 9H-WAP

My version is 3.0.6 Beta if that's of any use.

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[rikgale]

Freedar - yes, sorry. Is also showing the same A/c and that also uses VRS

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[Anmer]

As for my Pi not picking up 9H-WAG last night, it went right over my house on finals, so it most definitely would have been picked up. There must be something somewhere which ignores these codes as they may be being recognised as non-ICAO.

I agree with Rik, I don't this is a VRS software issue.

Why not point VRS at one of your other receivers?  Wait until Basestation shows an unknown aircraft and then check VRS.

I can't think of any reason why VRS would "ignore" any aircraft message.

[rikgale]

Also Pipo's VRS is also shows the same a/c. (It's currently east of Dusseldorf) https://www.sluiskilvrs.duckdns.org/VirtualRadar/desktop.html

I concur the 360 Radar does not show the a/c, but that is the only place I can find that does not show the aircraft. - 360 Radar V2.4.2, SluiskilVRS V2.4.4, CornwallVRS V3.0.6 Beta, Freedar V3.0.? Beta

Tis an odd one

[rikgale]

What decoder do you use on the Pi?  Dump1090 / readsb / other
Have now put 2  and 2 together and your the fella that S92drive introduced to our ZT network. Hi!
So the images I showed do show the a/c going off scope at about FL130 and not coming back on take off, so it is being fed by a different feed and then when it drops out of range of that one and on to yours/S92drivers it stops being tracked.
As I get the direct feed from your decoder (same with S92driver) - it does make me wonder. I do not think this is a VRS issue and I wonder if it is a decoder issue. It would be odd to be a hardware issue if you both did not track this aircraft.
If it comes back I'll try and hook up into the data coming from yours and S92driver's feed in something that is not VRS and see if it is there in the data.

[ABZSpotter]

Hi Rikgale (and others)

First of all, thank you for all your suggestions.  It does seem weird that my receiver is getting practically all codes except those at 4D24** for some reason. I will go through my settings and see if there is something there.  I've been in touch with S92driver but his VRS was not on last night as he was away and cannot confirm whether he picked up the code or not. However his feed didn't send it to me.  Today, I received several unknown codes on my feed which I updated, so the setup is receiving OK.. I do find it strange that aircraft that landed before the Wizz Air was picked up as was the one after, so my receiver appears to be working fine.

I think I have dump1090, I don't recall setting up the others, but I followed the instructions S92driver gave me to get me up and running, so I suspect we have the same setup.

If I find anything in settings or any other