My VHF ID 568 station stopped working

1

My 568 VHF station stopped working. I tried the usual reboot the RPi check the ID and API Token etc.
Everything appears to be working as normal but after I have scheduled some observations and later I see my list of observation for vetting, I see only a speaker icon and no waterfall icon. I select the observation for vetting but there is no waterfall or audio.

In desperation I downloaded, verified the integrity and flashed a new RPi image on a brand new virgin micro SD card according to https://wiki.satnogs.org/Raspberry_Pi_3 and https://wiki.satnogs.orgā€¦ and /SatNOGS_Client_Ansible#Updating_SatNOGS_ā€¦

Everything went as per the book. I updated & upgraded the RPi. I remembered to ā€œApplyā€ the changes I made in satnogs.setup.

In the client install setup I noticed running $ cp -r production.dist production then $ vi production/inventory/hosts, I had 10.1.1.66 but my RPiā€™s WiFi IP is 10.1.1.161 so I changed it to .161

Also $ ansible-playbook -i production/inventory -K site.yml did not work.

It returned ERROR the playbook: site.yml could not be found. (in red)

Running journalctl -u satnogs-client.service showed no errors.

Iā€™m clearly out of my depth here and donā€™t know how to diagnose this further.
A push in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
73 Bob vk2byf

2

More on the above frustrating problem
I ran on the RPi3B+
$ cd /tmp
$ satnogs_fm_demod.py --rx-sdr-device=rtlsdr --rx-freq=444000000 --file-path=./audio-out.ogg --waterfall-file-path=./waterfall.dat
It found the rtl-sdr and it created the 3 files mentioned

I tested the rtl-sdr with gqrx and it works fine.
I was able to ā€˜pingā€™ the network
I added SATNOGS_NETWORK_API_URL https://network.satnogs.org/api/ as this set-up field was empty.
I ran $ less /var/log/supervisor/satnogs-error.log there was no such file.

Everything works normally but there is no waterfall or icon after the observation.

I tried almost everything. I surrender to the experts. Iā€™m convinced itā€™s software not hardware.
Putty will not allow me to cut and paste. I followed the suggested method, click & drag then paste but it pastes whatever was on the clipboard before. There is no opportunity to copy.

I assume I can reuse the old station ID 568 and the old API with the newly created image SD card?
A push in the right direction would be very much appreciated. Iā€™m not a programmer.
73 Bob

3

Please check for files present in /tmp/.satnogs/data and /tmp/.satnogs/data/incomplete! If there are files please donā€™t reboot! If youā€™re waiting for files to be uploaded to the observations before your reboot: youā€™re lost, because /tmp is in RAM and this is cleared on a reboot each time!

$ ls -al /tmp/.satnogs/data
$ ls -al /tmp/.satnogs/data/incomplete

There is a special sequence necessary to copy and paste on Windows hosts that I donā€™t recall, unfortunately!

4

There are files in ```
$ ls -al /tmp/.satnogs/data

directories in blue no files

satnogs satnogs .
root root ā€¦
satnogs satnogs files
satnogs satnogs incomplete

$ ls -al /tmp/.satnogs/data/incomplete
satnogs satnogs .
satnogs satnogs ā€¦

Re copy & paste in Putty, Iā€™m running Linux Mint. Gave Windows the flick a long time ago.

5

lol, alright, ok, didnā€™t expect that :smiley:
So C&P should be as easy as mark the text with depressing left mouse-button, release, change application and paste with using the third mouse button (often emulated by depressing mb1&mb2 synchronously)

6

I had files in there earlier when I ran satnogs manually from the /tmp/ directory.
It created a /tmp/audio-out.ogg file, a /waterfall.dat file and a iq.dat file.

No luck with the 3rd mouse button, the wheel.

Thanks for your help, Iā€™ll get back to you in the morning. My wife is demanding my time at the moment.

73 Bob

1 Like
7

I scheduled some observations last night and today I ran
$ sudo ls -la /tmp/.satnogs/data
It returned 6 lines like this
-rw-rā€“r-- 1 satnogs satnogs 4100 May 18 15:52 receiving_waterfall_676539_2019-05-18T15-52-03.dat

One for each scheduled observation but when I go to vet the observation I see a speaker icon, no waterfall icon and when I select the observation for vetting I see no waterfall. Not an empty waterfall but no waterfall at all.
I did have it all working once and then it suddenly stopped.

Thanks for trying to help, 73 Bob vk2byf

8

Finally figure out how to do a screenshot for the above Putty screen in Linux

image

Bob

9

Please try the following:

$ python -c "import matplotlib; print(matplotlib.__version__)"

It should return the matplotlib version installed on your RasPi!

10

First I tried as you have it typed above and I got an error so I left off the _ after the word version and tried again and got this.

image

Thanks for helping Patrick

11

Ok, you are still having problems with copy and paste I guess!?
Anyway: there are two underscores each!

Iā€™ll have a look at Putty also, maybe I can clarify that issue. If not, try using a simple terminal and ssh to connect to the piā€¦

12

I think I have fixed my problem. A typo in my SATNOGS_NETWORK_API_URL address.
ID 568 is back on line. Now I will try to get my UHF system ID-724 working again. Thank you all for your patience an willingness to help a newbi.
Thanks Bob vk2byf

1 Like