New Station in test EXTRPI617611

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Built a new station from an old Pi3B and FlightStick, and trying out different antenna and locations.  Will bounce up and down as I do. Stormy out at the moment though, so not today.

Clear view to the horizon from West to NW, and getting aircraft out to 400-500Km on the approach to Auckland International. Hills about 2 degrees up in other directions, and mostly blind in these directions, so will try to get higher.  Just needs some power further up the hill.

[Runway 31]

You get good range out over the sea with nothing to get in the way

Alan

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Yes, the house has a great sea view, from West to almost NW (305), and I have had signals out to 250NM with the antenna sitting in the window. The house has a poor view in other directions though.

Moved 40m up the hill to small shed, gaining about 10m altitude, but then getting a slightly worse angle to the NW lane. Here I've seen out to 262NM directly West at flight level 400. I've seen 255NM to the WNW, but there is a gap between ~170 and ~200.

I can move even further 50m up the hill to my comms tower,  gaining another 10m ,  and have a better view to the North, but this will reduce my NW sea view slightly.  I need to run a new cable to test this location. 

I can also get higher to the North East, gaining another 20m, but it would be a very long cable run. I might be able to run off batteries and solar, and wifi back. I would be looking down on the comms tower.

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Precariously mounted ground plane antenna using 32mm conduit, and getting good range to the NW now, and better to the WSW.   Still on the shed, where there is power and network.

Put the FightStick close to the antenna and ran 10m USB cable to the pi effectively getting an active antenna.  Tests with even short lengths of LMR400 were quite lossy, and worse than they really should be. The cable has been in my shed for some years, so I suspect a bit of corrosion, even though a cable test shows them to be ok.

[Runway 31]

You are getting good results with your trials

Alan

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Offline to make some changes.

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back on, but sitting on the wall while I sort out a new location to test.

[Runway 31]

Its doing ok located there

Alan

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Despite the large metal bracket right beside the antenna :).  It was nearly as good sitting in the house window, and the house is 10m lower.

When it was about 3.5m above the shed, I got better coverage North West, through East and around to the South West. It was just on a couple of sections of 32mm plastic conduit, and was swaying in the wind. With the storm coming, it needed to come down.

I want to try it on my comms tower.  I don't want to disturb the existing services on the tower though, so I am sorting out an enclosure and a new run of ethernet cable, so I can use PoE to the Pi. I have everything I need, but the weather needs to cooperate.

The range has been less during the last few days. We have had a lot of rain, and I have been getting line of sight distances (estimated 220NM). In slightly better weather, I was definitely getting refraction over the horizon and seeing about 50NM more than I should.

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Can the pi keep a copy of what it is sending to radarbox in a local log or DB?

It would be helpful to plot the distance and direction for the station as I move the antenna about.

It would also be interesting to record the change in the atmospheric refraction over the year, and against the weather. Such tables exist for microwave links up and down New Zealand, but not out to sea.

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I look to be going offline every now and then, but the aircraft movements are still being shown.  Then the offline status goes away, and the status graph shows green again, as if I was never offline. Seems to be increasing in frequency, so I have restarted the rbfeeder

[Runway 31]

Unfortunately I dont have a good enought knowledge of Linux to answer your logging query

Alan

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I'll find a way. 

Down at the moment anyway. Had gales yesterday, which took out our power and closed the airport for a while. Power is still out. ~80Knot winds. House was shaking.  Lots of lightning and huge hail.

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Got power back. Didn't come online immediately though. The Pi couldn't see the FlightStick until I unplugged and plugged it back in.

The pi clock was way out too, though it did sync back up a shortly afterwards.

[Runway 31]

You are getting some fearsome weather!!

Alan