We are happy to announce public beta testing phase of MLAT based on Raspberry Pi receivers.
If you would like to participate, please make sure you have the following:
- Raspberry Pi B+ or Raspberry Pi 2
- DVB-T USB receiver with antenna
- Fairly good location to install the antenna
Local tests were performed on RPi B+ and RPi2 with Raspbian OS, but it still may work on older models and/or other OS.
Current plan is to provide the decoder software through our APT repository in order to simplify update process.
First you will need to configure the repository, importing our keys and adding the repository URL:
Code:
$ gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 40C430F5
$ gpg --armor --export 40C430F5 | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
Add this line to /etc/apt/sources.list:
Code:
deb http://repo.feed.flightradar24.com flightradar24 raspberrypi-beta
Then update the cache and just run regular install command:
Code:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install fr24feed
The package provides everything required to run the decoder software, including modified
dump1090 utility which is forked from Malcolm Robb's branch but has several improvements for FR24 MLAT. It may be incompatible with other MLAT software if you use some.
After installation, please run the sign-up wizard even if you already have the sharing key:
Code:
$ fr24feed --signup
You will be asked for a sharing key, whether or not you want MLAT enabled and for your exact position. Please carefully input the antenna's position, including altitude, because it's important for MLAT calculations. Other sign-up steps remain the same as before.
After sign-up process is complete, you may start feeding data by issuing:
Code:
$ sudo service fr24feed restart
As usual you may monitor the app status by:
Code:
$ sudo service fr24feed status
[ ok ] FR24 Feeder/Decoder Process: running.
[ ok ] FR24 Stats Timestamp: 2015-07-01 07:55:45.
[ ok ] FR24 Link: connected [UDP].
[ ok ] FR24 Radar: T-XXXX12.
[ ok ] FR24 Tracked AC: 2.
[ ok ] Receiver: connected (3313 MSGS/0 SYNC).
[ ok ] FR24 MLAT: ok [UDP].
[ ok ] FR24 MLAT AC seen: 5.
Please note that you won't see the immediate result on FR24 map. The reason for that is that we want first to evaluate the data and configure our smoothing filters appropriately as normal errors for RPi MLAT can easily be around 10km (this is due to non precise system clock of RPi). That will take some time, but we will all benefit from having smooth trails instead of ugly jumps.
Thanks!