Hi, I can see most feeders do not have an ADSBx nickname with part of their MAC address attached. Using the 3.5.3 combo image, part of the MAC addres gets attached. How can I turn of this auto attachment? And if I do so: would my custom feed be gone (because the nick would change)?
No. Nick is for the mlat-cliet/server connection. MAC must be appended due to how the MLAT server works.
How comes most feeders do not have MAC address part attached to their nicknames in the Feeder Matrix and on the coverage map?
Looking at the sync matrix for Eastern Europe, I find maybe two to three nicknames that lookl like MAC part. Is piaware really that rare amongst Adsbxchangers? Or is it that most piaware images are offline, due to that Google altitude API shutdown?
Yes, piaware is that rare? I always thought it was the most common used method to feed adsbx around here (Germany). I´d like to stay visible on that map - as a statement to governments which surveillance citizens who provide transparency on military air traffic above their homes (as is the case in Germany): Yes, I am with Adsbexchange! However, I don´t want (pat of) my MAC address right behind my nick. Should be free choice. Just as the privacy flag for the map dot.
Ummm.. Well unfortunately 2 clients cannot share the same name on an MLAT server. You are free to edit the code in the mlat client shell script. Look in /home/pi/adsb-exchange on the piaware image and /home/pi on the ADSBx image. All images will append MAC in further updates to ADSBx image, not sure why it is not currently doing that.
All the 3.5.3 PiAware ADSBx pre-built images have broken MLAT unless they've been updated, so we likely lost a few MLAT. But, I don't think many people were using the 3.5.3 pre-built image, not by the looks of the sync matrix. If they used the script method to install or any other method other than the pre-built image that was on the forum - they will work. https://adsbexchange.com/how-to-feed/
I'm not sure why you think that piaware is the most common - it might be but I've seen nothing to suggest that that statement is correct. I use any linux distro that works on a Pi - I've had good results with Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora. I recompile the dump1090-mutability source on the Pi itself, install the necessary rtl libs and everything works the way I expect it to. I don't want to install a GUI, browser or any other software on a Pi that is going to be stuck up on a mast without keyboard or screen - it would simply waste CPU cycles and the additional software would be useless. I can access any of my 3 feeds using SSH from my desktop computer and. other than an annual check, the RPi's just keep on working and need little in the maintenance. I update software on the RPI's too via SSH. But I suppose there are many other alternative ways of doing things too. Is there any particular advantage to using PiAware? I feed other sites but not FlightAware so I am not knowledgeable about what it offers.
No real advantages to piaware other than their feeder network is 10 times the size of ADSBx. If you are compiling mutability and putting them up on a mast, then that is the most lightweight solution. ADSBx only offered a PiAware feeder based solution because people asked for it. My feeders are just a base linux with a dump1090 compiled from source and 3 bash scripts to keep it working. Light, easy, and simple.
One advantage/disadvantage is backdoor which allow you to do some things on your Pi remotely without Zerotier or TeamViewer.
That is true. Zerotier is pretty awesome for troubleshooting help. I think ADSBx community is great! Dan and I wouldn't know what to do if ADSBx had 20,000 feeders! No real use for having 500 of them in a 10 mile radius!
Try to estimate costs for 10000 feeders. How much will it cost and how much should we contribute. Community = power.
Roughly ... 4 times the number of feeders = probably 4-5 times the current costs. By that time we'd need to find some real programmers and build a better ingest process.
