Installing and running Piaware
Intro
A little fun project using a Raspberry Pi Zero W and a DVBT stick running the flightaware software.
Make sure (if it is your first) to have a set including connectors and a poweradaptor with 5.1v output.
If you plan for a mobile setup, make sure the powerbank provides the 5,1v output.
Since i'm on a budget i start out with the Raspberry Pi Zero W
Getting started
Put the Raspberry together, much like lego.
Download the software from flightaware
wget http://piaware.flightcdn.com/piaware-sd-card-3.8.1.img.zip
Unzip the file and cd into the piaware-sd-card-3.8.1.img folder (yes it is a folder..)
Check for your SD card
lsblk
Mine seems to be /dev/mmcblk0 device which is mounted at /media/phenixops/disk
mmcblk0 179:0 0 15G 0 disk └─mmcblk0p1 179:1 0 15G 0 part /media/phenixops/disk
Make sure the card contains NO files, they will ALL BE LOST WHEN YOU CONTINUE!
From the folder, copy the image to the card using dd
phenixops@phenix:/home/phenixops/Downloads/piaware-sd-card-3.8.1.img# dd bs=4M if=piaware-sd-card-3.8.1.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 conv=fsync
Configuring the Wifi
After the image has been copied (you might have to reseat the SD card) you can edit the configuration to enable wifi
Edit the piaware-config.txt file you will find on the sdcard
vi piaware-config.txt
Set your SSID/Password
Change the part with the wireless-ssid and wireless password to what goes for your network
wireless-ssid YourSSID wireless-password Blablabla
(Make sure you enter the details of your phone's hotspot if you want to take it outside..)
Next pop out the SD card and put it into the Raspberry Pi
Checking the network
Login to your wifi router and check for the newly added addres
Make sure it is broadcasting 802.11n as the Raspberry Pi does not support other protocols
Enable SSH
In the bot folder create a file called ssh
/boot# touch ssh
Reboot the Raspberry. ssh will become available after the restart
You can login with
user: pi pass: flightware
Change the password to a better one as it is a default
Troubleshooting
setting the feeder id
Somehow this is not set right upon install, i found the solution
sudo piaware-config feeder-id 7a3b295a-489e-4b91-9c9d-4c778e71c925
User your own, you can find it using:
piaware -showtraffic
Bad Tuners
Unfortunately my first attempt to setup did not work, while the software was doing it's task. No messages were being send to the flightaware server. It took me quite some time to check if things were in the right place. Ports available, processes being started. I spend quite some time to test everything and documented it. When i posted a message to the flightaware forum, wiedehopf pointed out that the tuner on my dongle does not work on the 1090 band.
So i was happy to find out there was nothing wrong with my setup yet i really wanted to see things working. But it became a free crashcourse on Piaware and troubleshooting is fun.
These tuners will not work. Check using rtl_test
Fitipower FT0012 Fitipower FT0013