In a couple of lines: how to get FR24 (+ dump1090) to work on your Raspberry Pi.
Be sure to have the right hardware: flightradar24.com/dvbt-stick and … obviously … a RPi.
I got a NooElec from Amazon because I didn’t have the patience to wait for something (that might not work) from AliExpress.
As root:
apt-get update && apt-get install cmake gcc pkg-config libusb-1.0 make git-core libc-dev
git clone git://git.osmocom.org/rtl-sdr.git
cd rtl-sdr
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../ -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON
make && make install
ldconfig
cd ../..
And be sure to Blacklist the normal driver:
echo "blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu" > /etc/modprobe.d/dvb-t.conf
And at this point you should reboot.
As regular user (screen part is no longer needed as the new FR24 program will automatically launch and execute it for you):
git clone https://github.com/MalcolmRobb/dump1090.git
cd dump1090
make
ln -s dump1090 /bin/
screen -dmS dump ./dump1090 --interactive --net --net-beast --net-ro-port 31001 --net-http-port 8888
cd ..
Now get the FR24 software. In case you get a 404, get the latest version here new Raspberry Pi version is here, Linux (AMD64 & ARMv7) is here.
You can get your long & lat here.
Follow the updated howto on the page. The underlying code is no longer relevant.
wget https://web.archive.org/web/20141002002531/https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/66906/fr24feed_arm-rpi_242.tgz
tar xvzf fr24feed*
./fr24feed_arm-rpi_242 --signup
I’ll ask a couple of questions (answer them correctly):
Step 1/5 - Enter Latitude (DD.DDDD)
$:50.927358
Step 2/5 - Enter Longitude (DD.DDDD)
$:4.399928
Step 3/5 - Enter your email address ([email protected])
$:[email protected]
Step 4/5 - Enter your the hostname of the data feed (leave empty for localhost)
$:
Step 5/5 - Enter your the port number of the data feed (leave empty for 30003)
$:
Validating form data...OK
The closest airport found is 'Brussels Airport (ICAO:EBBR IATA:BRU)' near Brussels.
Latitude: 50.901379
Longitude: 4.484444
Country: Belgium
Flightradar24 may, if needed, use your email address to contact you regarding your data feed.
Would you like to continue using these settings?
(yes/no)$:yes
[...].
It will give you a key (and e-mail it to you) after a couple of minutes. Keep this key, as it’s important.
That’s it. As dump1090 is already running, all you have to do is start flightradar and you’re good to go.
This is the script I use to start it all (in screen, allowing me to check it). As normal user:
nano -w flightradar.sh
And copy paste the following (+ edit the variables):
#!/bin/bash
KEY=YOUR-KEY-EDIT-THIS
DIR=/home/PATH-TO-YOU-SCRIPT
pro script
cd $DIR
Start dump1090
cd dump1090
I run on port 8888 because 8080 is taken on my rasp
THIS IS NO LONGER NEEDED
#screen -dmS dump ./dump1090 --interactive --net --net-beast --net-ro-port 31001 --net-http-port 8888
cd ..
Start Flightradar24
screen -dmS flightradar24 ./fr24feed_arm-rpi_242 --fr24key=$KEY
And run: chmod +x flightradar.sh
To start the script, simply run ./flightradar.sh, and check what’s happening with screen -r dump or screen -r flightradar.
To auto start this script at boot time, I edit rc.local as root:
nano -w /etc/rc.local
And add the following at the end but BEFORE exit 0:
su yeri -c /home/yeri/flightradar.sh
Obviously, modify the path and the user it should run under (in this case as “yeri”).
PS: Be sure to signup again every time you move your Raspberry around (the coords seem to be hardcoded in the key).
PPS: You can get Premium access here now: flightradar24.com/premium (and check fancy graphs about your “radar”).
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