SBS-3 and ACARS

[Roadrunner]

Further to my recent message. I have had to completely stop and restart my PC 2 times before I was able to use BaseStation again. It would appear coinsidental that at the time I changed the size of the ACARs information box on screen from corner to full screen and then back, all the detail suddenly dropped out of the screen and at the same time basestation stopped plotting aircraft. I also noted that my Netgear Bridge (3001) had changed from a green (connected) to Red (unconnected) and I had lost ethernet connection to SBS3. As I say if this was the cause of everything or the end result I dont know, except my bridge has worked perfectly without faults since I got it.....
anyway, have visitors tonight so must shut down and show an interest. Will have another look again tomorrow..
Regards
Mike

[Mature68]

Hi

Sorry Anmer i am running  both sbs1 and sbs3 

Brian

[Anmer]

I can change the ACARS Messages window dimensions OK.  But there's never any messages there.

[Mature68]

Hi Anmer

Have you got a outside aerial you can put on to check acars with
If you update all you should get message showing when you start basestation.


Brian

[stonosnr]

I've got refurbishment work going on in my Radio Shack at present so everything is stripped out for at least a couple of weeks. I decided to upgrade the firmware in the meantime, although have no aerial connections to test it with. I definitely selected the Beta 115 firmware, it went in fine, I changed the exe, file, booted up, but of course no aerials, no traffic. I did notice however that the firmware stayed @ 114! I tried again, same result. Did the other members who experienced this anomoly solve it, or is it a gremlin in the Beta version? I decided to leave well alone until I can reconnect everything back up properly again.

Thanks Peter

[Anmer]

Did the other members who experienced this anomoly solve it

Yes, by removing the USB cable from the SBS-3, reconnecting it and then restarting Basestation.

I'm still not getting any ACARS messages and no data on port 30008?

[stonosnr]

I'll try that tomorrow then. I put it back in the loft out of the way but once the decorator starts steaming the old paper off, I'll get out of his way and experiment! So we are saying that if I reconnect next time by USB, then it will read the firmware number correctly? All my aerials and Ethernet terminate in a cupboard under the stairs within the work zone, so there is no way of testing it even if it comes up with 115, but understand that you have had no luck so far anyway. I'll keep in touch with my old laptop in the meantime!

Thanks

Peter

[Anmer]

You can only update the firmware using USB not Ethernet to connect to the SBS-3.

Did you use USB?

[stonosnr]

Yes, definitely USB, all my ethernet cables come down from the loft in a pipe duct, and are rolled up in the cupboard at the end surrounded by wet paint! It took about 8 minutes to do the firmware upgrade, the title screen shows the new version of the exe. file, but the firmware version is stuck on 114. Once the builders get going again this morning, I'll retrieve the SBS-3 from the loft and find a suitable magmount which for 2m which might stir up the ACARS bit.

Peter

[Roadrunner]

Hi there,

I did my upgrade using the USB and also just got v114 showing. However, I set BS for ethernet operation then shut BS down and disconnected the usb cable, on reboot using the ethernet connection it showed 115 on the debug screen and then I noticed it was also showing the same on the startup screen.

Mike

[Roadrunner]

Attached is copy of the startup screen after upgrade. Note that at the top it shows the new firmware/version and below shows the older (but still latetst non beta version)


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[Mature68]

Hi

Your two pics are showing that you have updated your software and firmware ,what are you looking for
a thing to tell you it is a beta version.
It dont tell you it is a beta version.


Brian

[Anmer]

I left the ACARS frequencies running overnight and found some messages this morning.  I assume the lack of messages is related to my antenna and position.

Other than proving that the SBS-3 v115/Basestation v170 combination can receive and present "decoded" ACARS messages, I'm not too sure how useful the data is in its present form?  But this is a "beta" release and I'm sure Kinetic would welcome feedback both on performance and functionality.

Maybe, as with Basestation, Kinetic is hoping that third-party developers will grasp the opportunity and release useful add-ons.  On the other hand, Kinetic may be looking for ideas to enhance this feature itself.

The following are "early user suggestions" and I'm sure others have better ideas and in time, new ones will evolve.  But it's a start.

My first observation is the way the ACARS window displays.  It opens with an empty list but with a scroll bar.  As I (and others discovered) the list appeared empty whereas scrolling to the bottom we found some rows of data.  New messages are added to the bottom of the list.

This morning I had an empty list but with a handful of messages at the bottom of a long scroll?  So why the many empty rows at the top?

I've added some comments to the attached screenshot and thought of a few more so I'll repeat here:

1. Why does the window open with a scroll bar when there are no messages?
2. Don't display empty rows.
3. Option to sort, move and hide columns
4. "Decode" the messages?
5. Save data to an ACARS database similar to the Basestation.sqb
6. Plot non-ADSB aircraft to the Basestation map and highlight as such.
7. Where available from the Basestation.sqb file, display the aircraft owner and type.
8. Add a date column
9. Add departure and arrival airport columns.
10. Cross reference ACARS Flight Number to Mode-S Flight ID.  e.g. BA2936/BAW2936
11. Select a row to open a pop-up window similar to the Basestation Aircraft Details window where one can view all current session (and optionally, historical) messages for the selected aircraft together with aircraft header such as owner, type registration and links to online photos.
12. Right click on a row to centre and select the aircraft on the Basestation map (if available) .

Googling "ACARS Decoders" will provide a handful of products, most of which appear to have reached the end of the development life cycle some years ago.  Maybe they were overtaken by Mode-S receivers and software but some illustrate what could be possible.

I think Kinetic has a great commercial opportunity to "merge" the ACARS and Mode-S data and take full advantage of the 4xSDRs in the SBS-3.

Please feel free to add your own ideas or challenge others.

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[Mature68]

Hi

Acars at work on SBS3

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[stonosnr]

Hi Guys

Been a bit poorly today, so only just got around to the tip that you need to D/C then R/C the USB lead to register the firmware upgrade. It worked here, but haven't been able to try and actually receive any ACARS, I'll get around to that perhaps by the weekend.
Thanks to all who helped

Peter