Put my dongle on the Internet

[dongle]

Hi Chaps,

I've been very tied up of late and haven't logged on here in months. Today I made some network changes and am now able to make my dongle and old laptop operate a server that means I can check up on my dongle's performance across the Internet when away from home. Couldn't do this before because I had two subnets on the network before and the dongle's pc was not on the inner subnet and couldn't get through the outermost router.

Anyway, you can see the results from my E4000 + pre-amp and home brew ground plane. One day I might get back up into the loft and put on the RLT820 which should do better still.

Here it is:

http://92.233.198.194:8080/virtualradar/

I am in Newcastle upon Tyne, by the way.


Dongle

[mhm]

Not bad for a dongle.

[dongle]

Top to bottom the system cost about £40, and most of that was the E4000 dongle. The new 820 dongle which is lying in a drawer only cost about £7 from China. I checked that it worked on a netbook downstairs using the free software from jetvison and Virtual Radar and it worked great. I just haven' got around to getting back up in the loft since I got it before Christmas. if I'd started with that dongle the whole outfit would come in at about £25.

I reckon you'd have to go some to beat the performance you can get from one of these and some homemade bits and pieces.

EDIT:

When I checked the system this morning, I found the laptop had shut down overnight when windows did an update. I bloody hate the way windows takes over and shuts things down when Mr Microsoft decides it needs an update. It is up now at 0800 on 15th of April.

[mhm]

You can turn auto update of and do it when you are ready

[dongle]

You can turn auto update of and do it when you are ready

Yes - I need to do that. It's a pretty manky old laptop that has been out of use for about three years. Manages this job fine though.

Cheers

Dongle

[mhm]

My lappy is older than that. As long as it works I wont replace it, I only use it for virtual radar and databases at airports. All internet now done on tablet.

[IanH]

R820T dongle running on a Raspberry Pi using a modified version of Dump1090 (hopefully will become suitable for MLAT).

Virtual Radar Server running on Linux on a separate PC - I suppose I could try running on the Pi!

Internal mag base aerial in the loft.

Dongle = £10, Raspberry Pi =£30.

A bit of effort.

http://virtualradar.servehttp.com/VirtualRadar/GoogleMap.htm

[IanH]

Dongle

If you put a copy of Basestation.sqb in the Virtual Radar directory and point to it from Tools/Plugins, the registrations will show as well.

If you look here http://www.mantma.co.uk/pp_support.html, "Latest Populated 'Basestation.SQB' file for use with PlanePlotter." is the file to use.

Ian

[dongle]

Virtual Radar Server running on Linux on a separate PC - I suppose I could try running on the Pi!

Internal mag base aerial in the loft.

Dongle = £10, Raspberry Pi =£30.

A bit of effort.

http://virtualradar.servehttp.com/VirtualRadar/GoogleMap.htm

You're getting a good range there from an aerial in the loft Ian. maybe I should get the ladders out and put my R820 dongle up in the loft.

You seem to be about a hundred miles south of me from the way your planes are distributed. Of course you have a very busy sky from there whereas I only get the high fliers in that east west corridor which crosses the line from Liverpool to The Wash, and I get few planes south of that line except in funny atmospheric conditions when I can now and again see planes around Reading.

[IanH]

I'm on a slight hill so above houses when facing North West round to East. But South East blocked by the same hill!

So the distribution is skewed and I'm further away than you think. I'm in Nottingham, about 140 miles from Newcastle-on Tyne.

Between us we cover a pretty large area, overlapping nicely.

Ian

[dongle]

Dongle

If you put a copy of Basestation.sqb in the Virtual Radar directory and point to it from Tools/Plugins, the registrations will show as well.

If you look here http://www.mantma.co.uk/pp_support.html, "Latest Populated 'Basestation.SQB' file for use with PlanePlotter." is the file to use.

Ian

Hi Ian,

I followed the instructions and installed the file. I don't see any difference, except that when i start Virtual Radar, I don't get the error message that used to say it couldn't find the .sqb file.

When I mouse over a plane on the map, I often see erroneous route information. That still seems to be happening.

[IanH]

You've got registrations showing now (that's the effect of the basestation.sqb file).

If you click on one of the aircraft, it shows the route above the airplane list.

Ian

[IanH]

VRS from dongle using Raspberry Pi currently offline.

Instead testing the hardware setup in PlanePlotter for use as groundstation with MLAT.

I am currently using a test version of PP which seems exactly the same as it did when connected to an SBS-1e.

Once the testing with other users is complete, Bev from COAA will be able to decide whether the hardware combo is ok for groundstation use.  The dongle effectively becomes ethernet enabled and hence avoids long coax cable runs so long as 5v power can be provided to the Pi.