No waterfall after upgrade

I tried the upgrade in place to Buster a week or 2 back and something went wrong with the ansible update. Having read a few of the upgrade related posts since then, I suspect I might have gotten caught in a kitting problem that has since been resolved.

At any rate, I ended up downloading the preconfigured image from SatNogs and rebuilt the station (KO2F-Test) from scratch. I configured the new satnogs-setup basic stuff and the system reappeared in my satnogs dashboard.

I can schedule satellite passes, but I am not getting any waterfall, audio, or data back.

I found a pointer to the “Omnidirectional Station How To” paper, ran the cubeSDR app and reset my gain up to 17.

It didn’t change the results…

Any pointers?

Bob

Can you post the support output? (run satnogs-setup, go to advanced, then support).

This gives us an idea of your settings, and the versions of the various packages, which will help diagnose the issue.

73
Mark VK5QI

I had similar upgrade issues. I think the gain needs to go up closer to 30. I currently run 29.7 on my ID-724 station. I also run with an LNA. It seems to work but I’m waiting on user feedback to fine tune the gain.

Currently struggling with assigning a static IP address for my RPi. The old DHCPCD method doesn’t work with “buster” I am connected but via an address assigned by my router DHCP server.
Bob

Hi Mark,

Thank you! I saw the support data posted by others, but didn’t know how to generate it…

Generating support report. Please wait…
------------[ copy here ]------------
{
“versions”: {
“satnogs-client”: “1.3.1”,
“satnogs-client-ansible”: “202004031132”,
“satnogs-flowgraphs”: “1.1.1-1”,
“gr-satnogs”: “2.1.1-1”,
“gr-soapy”: “2.1.2-1”,
“gnuradio”: “3.8.1.0~rc1-2”,
“satnogs-config”: “0.10.1”
},
“state”: {
“is-applied”: true,
“pending-tags”: null
},
“system”: {
“distribution”: {
“DESCRIPTION”: “Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)”,
“RELEASE”: “10”,
“CODENAME”: “buster”,
“ID”: “Raspbian”
},
“pending-updates”: true,
“platform”: {
“system”: “Linux”,
“node”: “KO2F-Test-1”,
“release”: “4.19.97-v7+”,
“version”: “#1294 SMP Thu Jan 30 13:15:58 GMT 2020”,
“machine”: “armv7l”,
“processor”: “”
},
“memory”: {
“total”: 971059200,
“available”: 796344320,
“percent”: 18.0,
“used”: 110358528,
“free”: 507203584,
“active”: 234217472,
“inactive”: 161087488,
“buffers”: 23375872,
“cached”: 330121216,
“shared”: 6479872,
“slab”: 47910912
},
“disk”: {
“total”: 30496616448,
“used”: 3757158400,
“free”: 25453096960,
“percent”: 12.9
}
},
“configuration”: {
“satnogs_antenna”: “VHF Eggbeater”,
“satnogs_api_token”: “[redacted]”,
“satnogs_rf_gain”: “17”,
“satnogs_rx_samp_rate”: “2.048e6”,
“satnogs_soapy_rx_device”: “rtlsdr”,
“satnogs_station_elev”: “186”,
“satnogs_station_id”: “256”,
“satnogs_station_lat”: “38.555972”,
“satnogs_station_lon”: “-78.062523”
}
}
------------[ copy end ]-------------

Hi Bob,

Ok, I bumped my gain up to 29.7 and have scheduled a couple passes to see if that changes anything.

I’ll let you know what happens in a couple hours if things don’t get too busy.

Bob

First up, you need to have a look more closely at the wiki pages: https://wiki.satnogs.org/SatNOGS_Client_Setup#Basic_Configuration

satnogs_soapy_rx_device should be “driver=rtlsdr”
satnogs_antenna should be “RX” (the only setting valid for the RTLSDR)

Changing your gain isn’t going to solve it. If 17dB is what you determined was appropriate from the “Setting the Gain” instructions, then that should be fine.

73
Mark VK5QI

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Thanks Mark,

It is usually the little bits that cause these problems. I have made the changes and will post the result when the scheduled pass completes.

Bob

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Thanks Mark,

It would seem that configuring the right receiver and antenna options makes a really big difference. :disappointed:

I appreciate the pointer and will get the other 2 ground stations updated before Monday…

Bob, KO2F

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