Virtual Radar Server - Trouble shooting!

Turned on "All Altitudes" - and changed nothing else (so still only 2 entries in "initial settings"), and now I have a Splatter (albeit in a horrible colour)!
upload_2017-5-10_16-32-2.webp
 
BTW: Now tracking something between 50 and 80+ (almost 90 at one point) planes according to the flights at the time.
So, the performance with the co-linear at about 5-6m above the ground is now roughly similar - but better to the North & West because of fewer buildings in the los - to what it was at about 4m, with the amp, at the end of the garden, and without, I hope, blowing up the dongle this time.
 
Splatter still going and building well - range rings @ 25 nm intervals. There were just over 90 planes tracked at around 18.30.
upload_2017-5-10_20-47-41.webp
 
Great stuff! You can change the colour of the jaggies using menu - options then the map tab

The most aircraft Ive ever seen is 18!
 
Analoguesat said:
Great stuff! You can change the colour of the jaggies using menu - options then the map tab
The most aircraft Ive ever seen is 18!
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Yup, changed colour of the jaggies via the menus, which explains the differences in colour between the 1st & 2nd screen shots. 18 planes would be a very poor "catch" around here - but then this is probably the busiest area for commercial flying in the UK!

Now, or at least sometime in the near future, I will try to put together a short summary of the various stages of the processes involved in setting up and sorting out the s/w.

Also, I would like to explore a few more options for using the SDR dongle for both tracking planes and for other things - but have to accept that with most comms being digital and encrypted it will be very difficult because I'm not very "techno" and there could be a need for substantial "investment" in time in kit and time in order to make any real "progress". Realistic suggestions would therefore be most welcome! :D

NB: one of the areas that I do want to explore is the military comms scenario in the UK - being that I like going to airshows and have a decent scanner which I will connect to the discone which is mounted on the same mast as the co-linear (NOT a recommended way of doing things, but I don't want to try to put up another T&K bracket to support the discone somewhere else - not that I have many options for doing that anyway).
 
FWIW, this is what I just got with the settings like those in post #172 - but, several times this morning, I have seen the tracking number hit just over 100
upload_2017-5-11_10-7-54.webp
 
Analoguesat said:
Plenty of ideas for projects here:

http://www.rtl-sdr.com/
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A/S

Thx, that looks very interesting - but, now and having had a quick look at that forum, I think I need to figure out which "direction" would be most interesting, and what I would need to do/buy/understand (in as far as I can - and the "understanding" bit will be "difficult"!) to explore them.

BTW, as far as this thread is concerned, I'm now getting a lot more "hits" and regularly getting 80+ planes at busy times and more than 100 at peak times like 8am and 4.30pm.
 
@jeallen01 someone I know on the 360 radar group had a similar problem with their noo elec txco dongle.

He had it setup at family's house and it just stopped, turns out the dongle looks "stained" he swapped it over for a new one he bought with him, as he came down for yeovilton air day.

How's your dongle doing now?
 
The "jaggies" are caused by terrain blockage of your receiving antenna, the higher you can get it the less problems you would have with the jaggies. (funny)

I see a sharp dip in the due South direction then a sharp spike in the South South Easterly direction. (in the direction of Paris)

And a big dip in the North West with a big spike to the East South East, this could be due to something BIG in the way and then a clear shot in those directions.

A good look with some powerful binoculars in those directions, or a Google Earth shot, would maybe give you an idea on what may be in the way.

I don't know if you can go higher with the receive antenna but it could help, you would get better results.
 
TBH I haven't run it much over the last few weeks due to doing other things entirely - including the on-going experiment with the Cheap Office 2016 Pro Plus (still seems fine, although the price has risen to nearer £16-20 if you want to buy it now)

As for the old dead dongles (I have 2!),there were no external marks on them after they died - but I haven't taken the lids off to see if I can see any internal damage.

As for the guy in the 360 Group, it would be interesting to know just what his antenna setup was like as that may give a clue as to what has been happening.

OTOH, Nooelec appeared to blame the failures on transients getting onto the coax cable from the PSU with an excuse along the lines of, effectively, these dongles aren't as robust as consumer sat kit, and I quote:

"Satellite receivers tend to use highly integrated IC solutions and are produced in volumes orders of magnitudes higher than our SDRs :) They tend to be far more resilient, actually (though that's a generalization, there are a vast array of sat receivers out there).


I wouldn't say the NESDR is generally susceptible to transient voltages, but when there is possible 10+V DC on the RF input, even in short bursts, you are looking for trouble."

In my case, there should definitely not have been any DC voltages on the input because I inserted a DC blocker unit rated at >>10VDC (probably nearer 60V) between the coax /13V DC inserter and the dongle input.

So make what you will of the Nooelec comment as I have heard nothing from them since early March and they never actually requested the return of either of the failed units.
 
Terryl said:
The "jaggies" are caused by terrain blockage of your receiving antenna, the higher you can get it the less problems you would have with the jaggies. (funny)

I see a sharp dip in the due South direction then a sharp spike in the South South Easterly direction. (in the direction of Paris)

And a big dip in the North West with a big spike to the East South East, this could be due to something BIG in the way and then a clear shot in those directions.

A good look with some powerful binoculars in those directions, or a Google Earth shot, would maybe give you an idea on what may be in the way.

I don't know if you can go higher with the receive antenna but it could help, you would get better results.
Click to expand...
Chris will tell you more but I understand his altitude is low (around 30m) and his town has reasonably high hills to the North & South - but, of course, there are also low spots in places in those too. My location is a similar altitude, and I get smilar effects because of all the buildings around the house, even though the terrain is reasonably flat - OTOH, raising the antenna to around 15ft (mean) from the ground did give a marked improvement.
 
My aerial is about 2.5-3 meters above ground level.

At some point I will try and raise the aerials up, just that I was having a conversation with a friend about the dongles just suddenly stopping, I mentioned about your dongle @jeallen01 it seemed his "other" setup had suffered from the same fate.

I have asked him about the setup, still waiting for him to get back to me.
 
OK, after a year or so I'm back on track, and still no luck overlaying the map with spiky stuff. I'll post my map menu I have in VRS's options, and perhaps you guys can show me where the magic button is to allow the overlaying of the coloured, height-dependent spikes :confused

VRS Map.webp
 
Map options. I don't see any way you do the overlaying, seems to be just for setting your colours.

Map.webp

Map General.webp
 
Best I can achieve is add circles.

Circles.webp
 
From memory, you need to set your longitude and latitude in VRS, then it should be able to show the spikes.

I no longer have my VRS server running, only the raspberry pi feeding data in.
 
Chris1979 said:
From memory, you need to set your longitude and latitude in VRS, then it should be able to show the spikes.

I no longer have my VRS server running, only the raspberry pi feeding data in.
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That had been done Chris, corresponding to the ticked "Show Current Location" in the box above.

I spent ages before with this problem; looks to be unlikely to resolve itself in a hurry.

Thanks anyway.
 
Llew said:
That had been done Chris, corresponding to the ticked "Show Current Location" in the box above.

I spent ages before with this problem; looks to be unlikely to resolve itself in a hurry.

Thanks anyway.
Click to expand...


Are you running vrs under windows or linux?

And do you have the web admin plugin installed?
 
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