RasPi for DeFli – Abbreviated Install instructions

RasPi for DeFli INstallation instructions – (Select Helium Miners)

If you are going to be using a Raspberry Pi (RasPi) 3B or 4B, you are in the right place to successfully get your DeFli Network Ground Station up and running. for those of you are converting a Helium miner, these instructions only apply if you have one of the following – (SenseCap, RAK, MNTD, Helium OG, Pisces, Nebra (RasPi, not the RockPis) and potentially any others that my have used a Raspberry PI. If your board looks different than the board pictured, this is not the instructions set for you.

Getting Started

If you raspberry pi is inside of a Helium miner, remove it from the case and detach any radio boards that may be connected. Then, follow the instructions below to get your Raspberry Pi operating with the DeFli software. You may want to purchase a case or reuse the case you have for your Raspberry Pi, boards need protection from the elements, pets, etc…

WRITING THE IMAGE THAT WILL RUN YOUR DIY BUILD FOR DEFLI

You will need to download Balena Etcher or use another program to write the image file to your Micro SD card.

Second, you need a copy of the IMG file that you will be writing to the SD card. You can download the IMG file that I created, here. Download and save this to your computer.

  1. Connect your MicroSD card to your computer and verify that it shows up in your list of available drives.
  2. Open Balena Etcher
  3. Select “Source from File” and select the file that you downloaded for your RasPi for DeFli
  4. Select your Target (this is the destination where you are writing the image). Please, double check to make sure you are writing to the SD card and nothing else. What ever you select as target will be formatted and overwritten with a Linux file, so this is extremely important.
  5. Once you start the process, it may take 10-20 minutes, maybe longer depending on the speed of your computer. If your computer balks at the end and says it needs to eject a disk because it is unreadable, that actually may be a good sign – MacOS and Windows don’t really like bootbale Linux images when they read them and spit them up LOL

TIME TO ASSEMBLE YOUR RasPi FOR DEFLI

Plug the RTL-SDR into the usb port of the RasPi board and install your antenna. Your Micro SD card will slide into the opposite end of the RasPi with the writing of the card facing out, so if you don’t see the label of the card, you have it oriented in the wrong direction.

Last, plug your power cord into the USB-C slot and wait for a couple of minutes, at this point, you are almost done.

THIS IS THE FUN PART – RasPi FOR DEFLI

What you will need:

  1. Check your router and find out the IP address of your RasPi – it should show up as a recently connected device. The IP address will likely be something like 192.168.1.xxx or 10.0.0.xxx. Write that down.
  2. Next, we need to login to the command line of the board and enter a couple commands.

Below is how to initiate an SSH instance so you can tell your RasPi for DeFli what you want it to do.

SSH ubuntu@192.168.1.xxx

The image is setup with a Username “ubuntu” and password “raspberry” (Note: Linux is case sensitive, so both must be lowercase letters in order to match.)

After a few seconds, you should be presented with a Command Line Interface (CLI) for giving commands to your RasPi for DeFli. If this is your first time running things from the command line, don’t worry, it gets easier. I will include a list of commands below to help you cut and paste what you need. But first, we need to tell your RasPi for DeFli where it is located.

CLAIMING YOUR TERRITORY

In order to be to send your location to DeFli, you are going to paste command into your Command Line Interface to announce your location. Make sure to keep the exact GPS coordinates you send saved, because you will need to paste them in your wallet as well.

Go to LatLong.net and put int he address where you are installing your DIT Build for DeFli.

Taking the example above, we are going to edit the below command for our LAT and Long in order to announce our Miner to the network. Remember, you need to use your Latitude and Longitude, the example below is just a visual aid.

sudo readsb-set-location 34.200495 -106.482928

Once you have entered your location, press Enter.

NOW WE NEED TO TELL OUR RasPi FOR DEFLI WHERE TO SEND DATA

Still at the Command Line, you need to edit the below code to start sending data to the DeFli servers:

nc <your Pi IP address> 30002 | nc 77.68.73.29 30001

Remember to edit for your IP address. Then, hit enter.

NOW FOR THE COOL PART!! LET’S GO SEE WHAT AIR TRAFFIC YOU ARE SEEING!

In your web browser, go to – http://your IP/tar1090/ If all is going well, you should see a map and some air traffic.

Here are some other links you can check out:

  1. Graphs – http://YourIP/graphs1090/

COPY/PASTE GUIDE REFERENCE GUIDE FOR COMMAND LINE ON YOUR DIY BUILD FOR DEFLI

  1. Auto Gain adjustment
sudo autogain1090; sleep 120

2. To Look at your signal metrics, use the following from the command line

grep -sh . /run/{dump1090-fa,readsb}/stats.json | jq '.total.local | ((.accepted | add), .strong_signals, .signal, .noise)' | xargs -n4 echo | awk '{printf "\nPercentage of strong messages: %.3f\nSignal: %.1f\nNoise: %.1f\n", $(2) * 100 / $(1), $(3), $(4)}'

3. Check your current gain setting

grep -sh -e gain /etc/default/{dump1090-fa,readsb}