airtraffic

Author Topic: Setup help?  (Read 6494 times)

Offline mburch

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Setup help?
« on: September 06, 2024, 14:40:21 UTC »
Wondering if anyone might be able to give me some guidance on getting my setup working.

I bought the Canakit package with a Raspberry Pi 3B+, power supply, and enclosure, and the recommended Nooelec USB SDR.

First I tested the Pi with the default Raspbian installation, just to make sure it was working - no problems there.

Spent a weekend mounting an antenna in my attic and wiring a new outlet, thinking I was about to get online.

Then I installed the LiveATC card image. Now the Pi goes through its whole boot process and shows a login prompt, but the device seems to crash within about 1 second after the login prompt appears. The display just goes completely dead and my HDMI monitor shows "input disconnected". This repeats every time if I cycle power to the board.

Is it possible I have the wrong hardware? If there's a different Pi model I should have bought, I can give it a try, but I don't want to just throw parts at the problem without reason.

Or - is it possible to install the LiveATC services on top of a default Raspbian installation? I'm not really a unix guy, but I am an engineer and I can follow instructions, if anyone has an example I can follow.



Offline RonR

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Re: Setup help?
« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2024, 13:59:03 UTC »
Have you tried contacting LiveATC directly?  That might be the best way to go to get your questions answered.  You can do that by going here:

https://www.liveatc.net/ct/fcontact.php

I hope this helps.

Offline mburch

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Re: Setup help?
« Reply #2 on: May 18, 2025, 15:18:06 UTC »
Revisiting this thread with a status update. LiveATC support has stopped answering my emails, so I'm hoping someone here might be able to help.

I bought a new Raspberry Pi 3B+, this time connected to my home network via Ethernet so I can work around the mystery problem with video. I went all the way back to the beginning, following LliveATC's emailed instructions exactly, starting from the installation of their custom software image and proceeding onward.

I got all the way up to the "test rtl_airband" step with no issues. I have an SDR plugged in and connected to a VHF antenna. This is what it gives me:

Warning: devices.[0]: assuming device type "rtlsdr", please set "type" in the device section.
Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Enabled direct sampling mode, input 2
[R82XX] PLL not locked!
Disabled direct sampling mode

 122.975                                                                     

 -48/-48 
 -47/-48 
 -47/-48 


I have no frame of reference to know if that's correct, but it looks like it's doing something.

The next step, where I run rtl_airband in the background and then attempt to connect to the feed URL they gave me, gives a 404 error.

I also went through the steps for installing check_ice, which went without incident. However, running it always results in the Pi rebooting:

Feed is DOWN - restarting
Warning: devices.[0]: assuming device type "rtlsdr", please set "type" in the device section.
Connection to liveatc.local closed by remote host.
Connection to liveatc.local closed.


At this point I believe I have faithfully followed all the instructions provided, but it doesn't work and I can't get ahold of support. I'd really like to get this working, so I'm hoping that someone has some suggestions! Thanks in advance.

Offline RonR

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Re: Setup help?
« Reply #3 on: May 18, 2025, 19:18:18 UTC »
Hey,

Check your email inbox for a reply from Support...

Ron