No signal, not even noise on any observations

I had some problems with my satnogs installation so I downloaded a new image two weeks ago, since then I have not been able to get any signal in the observations.

I have satnogs on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Plus Rev 1.3 with the latest version and an RTL-SDR plus LNA which is working perfectly (tested with rtl command line tools and sdr#).

One example of observation is this: SatNOGS Network - Observation 7428307

Can anyone think of anything I could be doing wrong?

The gain seems to be too high, try lower values.

Also can you generate and copy paste here the support report, check the second yellow box in this wiki page on how to.

I’ve tried multiple gains, even 0, that gain value worked perfectly ( SatNOGS Network - Observation 7253658 ) until now.

Here it goes my support report:

{
“versions”: {
“satnogs-client”: “1.8.1”,
“satnogs-client-ansible”: “202209101521”,
“satnogs-flowgraphs”: “1.4-1”,
“gr-satnogs”: “2.3.4.0-1”,
“gr-soapy”: “2.1.3.1-1”,
“gnuradio”: “3.8.2.0-14”,
“satnogs-config”: “0.13.2”
},
“state”: {
“is-applied”: true,
“pending-tags”: null
},
“system”: {
“date”: “2023-04-17T09:49:46.439454+00:00”,
“distribution”: {
“DESCRIPTION”: “Raspbian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)”,
“RELEASE”: “11”,
“CODENAME”: “bullseye”,
“ID”: “Raspbian”
},
“pending-updates”: false,
“platform”: {
“system”: “Linux”,
“node”: “satnogs”,
“release”: “6.1.21-v7+”,
“version”: “#1642 SMP Mon Apr 3 17:20:52 BST 2023”,
“machine”: “armv7l”
},
“memory”: {
“total”: 966750208,
“available”: 740405248,
“percent”: 23.4,
“used”: 166973440,
“free”: 396382208,
“active”: 126210048,
“inactive”: 376598528,
“buffers”: 29392896,
“cached”: 374001664,
“shared”: 733184,
“slab”: 41172992
},
“disk”: {
“total”: 31178534912,
“used”: 4268490752,
“free”: 25588240384,
“percent”: 14.3
}
},
“configuration”: {
“satnogs_antenna”: “RX”,
“satnogs_api_token”: “[redacted]”,
“satnogs_dev_args”: “rtl=0,buffers=32,buflen=16384,bias=1”,
“satnogs_post_observation_script”: “/usr/bin/rtl_biast -b 0”,
“satnogs_pre_observation_script”: “/usr/bin/rtl_biast -b 1”,
“satnogs_rf_gain”: “49.6”,
“satnogs_rx_bandwidth”: “1024e3”,
“satnogs_rx_samp_rate”: “1024000”,
“satnogs_soapy_rx_device”: “driver=rtlsdr”,
“satnogs_station_elev”: “10”,
“satnogs_station_id”: “1343”,
“satnogs_station_lat”: “43.3804059”,
“satnogs_station_lon”: “-3.8537428”
}
}

Try the following settings, they are working on my SatNOGS station that also has a LNA connected.

SATNOGS_SOAPY_RX_DEVICE="driver=rtlsdr"
SATNOGS_RX_SAMP_RATE="2.048e6"
SATNOGS_RF_GAIN="22.9"
SATNOGS_ANTENNA="RX"
SATNOGS_DEV_ARGS="biastee=true"

And just to be sure, do you have a RTL-SDR v3 with the Bias T enabled option active.
In the past there where v3 also models that didn’t have the option.

Good luck and please share you results.

Jan - PE0SAT

Settings set… will have to wait for the results.

As for the bias T, as I said, the rtlsdr is well tested with sdr# on windows and with the rtl suite on this Pi (in fact on the dead times its used to send data to flightradar24…)

Nothing… :_(
SatNOGS Network - Observation 7433501

Please share your configuration after the changes that where proposed.

If the setup works fine with SDR# then there is an error somewhere in the configuration.

{
“versions”: {
“satnogs-client”: “1.8.1”,
“satnogs-client-ansible”: “202209101521”,
“satnogs-flowgraphs”: “1.4-1”,
“gr-satnogs”: “2.3.4.0-1”,
“gr-soapy”: “2.1.3.1-1”,
“gnuradio”: “3.8.2.0-14”,
“satnogs-config”: “0.13.2”
},
“state”: {
“is-applied”: true,
“pending-tags”: null
},
“system”: {
“date”: “2023-04-25T12:57:36.034148+00:00”,
“distribution”: {
“DESCRIPTION”: “Raspbian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)”,
“RELEASE”: “11”,
“CODENAME”: “bullseye”,
“ID”: “Raspbian”
},
“pending-updates”: true,
“platform”: {
“system”: “Linux”,
“node”: “satnogs”,
“release”: “6.1.21-v7+”,
“version”: “#1642 SMP Mon Apr 3 17:20:52 BST 2023”,
“machine”: “armv7l”
},
“memory”: {
“total”: 966750208,
“available”: 792891392,
“percent”: 18.0,
“used”: 118325248,
“free”: 543350784,
“active”: 68452352,
“inactive”: 291983360,
“buffers”: 22224896,
“cached”: 282849280,
“shared”: 724992,
“slab”: 32849920
},
“disk”: {
“total”: 31178534912,
“used”: 4360036352,
“free”: 25496694784,
“percent”: 14.6
}
},
“configuration”: {
“satnogs_antenna”: “RX”,
“satnogs_api_token”: “[redacted]”,
“satnogs_dev_args”: “rtl=0,buffers=32,buflen=16384,bias=1,biastee=true”,
“satnogs_post_observation_script”: “/usr/bin/rtl_biast -b 0”,
“satnogs_pre_observation_script”: “/usr/bin/rtl_biast -b 1”,
“satnogs_rf_gain”: “22.9”,
“satnogs_rx_bandwidth”: “1024e3”,
“satnogs_rx_samp_rate”: “2.048e6”,
“satnogs_soapy_rx_device”: “driver=rtlsdr”,
“satnogs_station_elev”: “10”,
“satnogs_station_id”: “1343”,
“satnogs_station_lat”: “43.3804059”,
“satnogs_station_lon”: “-3.8537428”
}
}

Please share some log information sudo journalctl -f -u satnogs-client -n 512

And I would advice to remove all your RTLSDR settings an go back to basic settings, here an example.

satnogs_station_elev: '10'
satnogs_station_id: '1343'
satnogs_station_lat: '43.380'
satnogs_station_lon: '-3.853'
satnogs_soapy_rx_device: driver=rtlsdr
satnogs_dev_args: biastee=true
satnogs_rf_gain: '22.9'
satnogs_antenna: RX
satnogs_rx_samp_rate: 2.048e6

I will get that logs as soon as I get another observation running, for now there are lots of errors from an unestable connection, but nothing related with soapy or the sdr.

I will try to revert to that settings but I’ve already worked with that the firsts times after the new image.

Thanks!

SatNOGS Network - Observation 7468194

No difference… :_(

Apr 25 14:20:02 satnogs systemd[1]: Stopping SatNOGS client...
Apr 25 14:20:02 satnogs systemd[1]: satnogs-client.service: Succeeded.
Apr 25 14:20:02 satnogs systemd[1]: Stopped SatNOGS client.
Apr 25 14:20:02 satnogs systemd[1]: satnogs-client.service: Consumed 46.165s CPU time.
Apr 25 14:20:03 satnogs systemd[1]: Started SatNOGS client.
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1521]: Found 1 device(s):
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1521]:   0:  Realtek, RTL2838UHIDIR, SN: 00000001
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1521]: Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U OEM
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1521]: Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: rot_init called
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: initrots4_dummy: _init called
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: rot_register (1)
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: rot_register (2)
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: dummy_rot_init called
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: rot_open called
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: dummy_rot_open called
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: rot_get_position called
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: dummy_rot_get_position called
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: rot_get_position: got az=0.00, el=0.00
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: rot_set_position called az=285.29 el=0.01
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: rot_set_position: south_zero=0
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: rot_set_position: range problem az=285.29(min=-180.00,max=180.00), el=0.007014(min=0.00,max=90.000000)
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: rig_init: rig does not have rx_range!!
Apr 25 14:38:48 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: network_open: hoststr=127.0.0.1, portstr=4532
Apr 25 14:38:57 satnogs satnogs-client[1529]: Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Apr 25 14:38:57 satnogs satnogs-client[1529]: [INFO] Opening Generic RTL2832U OEM :: 00000001...
Apr 25 14:38:57 satnogs satnogs-client[1529]: Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Apr 25 14:38:58 satnogs satnogs-client[1529]: [R82XX] PLL not locked!
Apr 25 14:38:58 satnogs satnogs-client[1529]: [INFO] Using format CF32.
Apr 25 14:38:59 satnogs satnogs-client[1529]: Allocating 15 zero-copy buffers
Apr 25 14:50:31 satnogs satnogs-client[1484]: netrigctl_close: done status=Command completed successfully
Apr 25 14:50:32 satnogs satnogs-client[1596]: Found 1 device(s):
Apr 25 14:50:32 satnogs satnogs-client[1596]:   0:  Realtek, RTL2838UHIDIR, SN: 00000001
Apr 25 14:50:32 satnogs satnogs-client[1596]: Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U OEM
Apr 25 14:50:32 satnogs satnogs-client[1596]: Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner