qt-1090
qt-1090 is a variant of the Dump1090 program. The latter was designed as a command line utility for RTLSDR devices. This version was created to allow the use of SDRplay devices, it supports SDRplay devices, RTLSDR devices and HACKRF One, and is equipped with a simple GUI.
the display shows the preamble and the first 16 bits as appearing
in the incoming signal of a recognized message.
the display shows the last few incoming (recognized) messages
The current version is 0.8: while it is definitely running, it is still an experimental version and does not have all of its final functionality.
For windows there is an installer, setup-qt1090.exe, in the releases section of this repository. The installer will install the executable and the required libraries (dll's). It will call upon the installer for the dll implementing the api to get access to the SDRplay devices, if that api is not installed already.
For linux one has to create the executable
Step 1 is of course downloading the sourcetree
- git clone https://githib.com/JvanKatwijk/qt-1090
To compile, you should have C++ and Qt5 installed. The current version of qt-1090 uses the qhttpserver library, the sources of this library are included in the source tree.
Step 2 is creating the qhttpserver library
Creating a qhttpserver library and installing (assuming the current directory is the qt-1090 directory):
- cd qhttpserver
- qmake-qt5
- make
- sudo make install
Step 3 is configuring the executable
- cd .. /* back in the qt-1090 directory
edit qt-1090.pro to select your device(s) by commenting out or uncommenting
CONFIG += sdrplay
CONFIG += dabstick
CONFIG += hackrf
CONFIG += rtl_tcp // untested as yet
Note that the software loads - in run time - the support library for the selected device. So, even if you do not have a device installed, you can select it for inclusion in the configuration.
Step 4 is running qmake/make
- qmake-qt5
- make
the created qt-1090 executable is in ./linux-bin
A CMakeLists.txt file is available in the source directory with which an executable can be created using cmake. However, one needs to have the http library installed.
Support can be configured for SDRplay, RTLSDR based devices and the hackrf one. The software will attempt to open one of the configures devices, first the SDRplay, if that fails, an attempt is made to open the hackRF device (if configured), and if that fails an RTLSDR based device (if configured).
Running ./qt-1090 the program will start. No need to specify any command line parameter. As said above, if so configured the program will try to connect to an SDRplay device, if that is not found, it will try to connect to an RTLSDR based dongle. Next on the list is the HACKRF One. If connecting fails here as well, the basic assumption is that you want to open a file and a menu appears allowing you to select a file with the extension ".iq".
If/when a device is found and initialized, a widget for the control of the device appears. Depending on the device, device parameters, such as gain, autogain and ppm offset can be set.
with -f xxxx another frequency can be selected with -n a choice is made for an input from an rtl_tcp server
Next to command line parameters, a few configuration parameters can be set in the ini file (.qt-1090.ini, a file in the home directory)
- the http_port, default 8080, can be set by setting "http_port=xxxx"
- the amount of bits to be shown in the display can be set by "bitstoShow=x"
Note that (a) each bit takes two samples, and (b), the first 16 samples, the preamble, are always shown.
It is assumed that the file is created as raw file with elements of 2 * 8 bits, speed 2.4 Mhz. Such a file can be created with various rtlsdr based tools.
The GUI contains:
- a. A display showing samples Touching the "preamble" button will show all preambles passing some elementary tests (red and green), or only the preambles of messages passing a CRC test (green);
- b. For the different message types the number of occurrences, detected in the input stream;
- c. a list of numbers indicating statistics, such as the number of messages with a preamble passing the preamble test, and the number of messages passing the crc check;
- d. a row buttons.
The preamble of an ads-b message starts with 16 pulses. Each pulse has a length of 0.5 micro seconds,
* 0 - 0.5 usec: first impulse.
* 1.0 - 1.5 usec: second impulse.
* 3.5 - 4 usec: third impulse.
* 4.5 - 5 usec: last impulse.
The display on the GUI shows pulses from a preamble (with on the X axis -16 .. 0, and the pulses for a user specified amount of samples from the accompanying message.)
The amount of bits of the message shown is default 16, it can be changed by setting the value for "bitstoShow" in the ini file. This ini file is to be found "~/.qt-1090.ini".
The buttons from left to right:
- a a push button switching the terminal output from "all messages" to "interactive". In the latter case, a list of planes as is shown, regularly updated;
- b a spinbox, with which the ttl can be set, the number of seconds within which a description of a plane has to be seen again in order to maintain it on the list of planes;
- c a puhsbutton to switch http output. If selected, the output is sent to a predefined port. A a browser, listening to this port, will show a google map with planes (i.e. a "flight plane radar").
- d. a combobox for selecting the degree of error correction. Options are "no correction", "1 bit correction", or "2 bit correction". It goes without saying that the latter is pretty cpu intensive;
- e a push button switching between metrics and non metrics data in interactive mode;
- f a push button switching between displaying (part of) a single recognized frame, or a sequence of frames.
The bottom line contains a button "dump", pushing this button causes some data to be written onto a file. This data described the entry and exit points of planes in the system, data as given below
Plane 4951cc TAP764
36975 52.036 3.960 entered at Fri May 25 16:50:30 2018
37000 52.289 4.084 left at Fri May 25 16:53:45 2018
Plane 484188
20300 51.719 4.497 entered at Fri May 25 16:50:50 2018
21725 51.553 4.403 left at Fri May 25 16:54:19 2018
Plane 484557 KLM19P
14900 51.964 4.753 entered at Fri May 25 16:50:33 2018
18100 51.953 4.749 left at Fri May 25 16:55:01 2018
On pressing the button to switch on http, a browser can display the planes on a map, listening to a designated port. The HTTP server assumes that the file "gmap.html" is stored in the same directory where the qt-1090 program resides. Note that the browser should listen to the port specified in the field next to that button. The port can be set (changed) in the ini file, default is 8080.
A major reason to use a different http library is the plan to make the software available under Windows. The zipped folder contains a DLL implementing the http library.
On the todo list:
- a. Generate an AppImage for use under Linux (x64) and the RPI 2/3
- b. Generate output to use with "radar" programs.
- c. Generating database output
dump1090 is a program developed by Salvatore Sanfilippo [email protected] and is released under the BSD three clause license.
The idea and code of the bit decoder to work at 2400000 rather than at 2000000 samples/second is Copyright (c) 2014,2015 Oliver Jowett [email protected]
qt-1090 uses source code from Dump1090, both the original version (Salvatore Sanfilippo) and a derived version (Oliver Jowett), Dump1090 was written by Salvatore Sanfilippo [email protected] and is released under the BSD three clause license. dump1090 as derived version is Copyright (c) 2014,2015 Oliver Jowett [email protected]
Copyright of the httplibrary Nikhil Marathe [email protected] Copyright of the modifications is J van Katwijk, Lazy Chair computing