Advanced Usage

Use this page after the receiver is installed and the quick start has completed.

Activate the command environment

You can either run the full path:

~/aero-pi-ogn-receiver-venv/bin/aero-pi-ogn status --live

Or activate the virtual environment for shorter commands:

source ~/aero-pi-ogn-receiver-venv/bin/activate

After activation, aero-pi-ogn should be available directly:

aero-pi-ogn status --live

Leave the virtual environment with:

deactivate

Aircraft views

The table view is the normal field check:

aero-pi-ogn aircraft
aero-pi-ogn aircraft --watch 5

Use the raw view when the table looks incomplete or when you want to compare directly with the upstream decoder output:

aero-pi-ogn aircraft --raw
aero-pi-ogn aircraft --long --raw

The local decoder provides the aircraft identity. Registration is shown when the decoder/device database knows it. Otherwise the FLARM/OGN device ID is shown.

Health checks

Run a one-shot status check:

aero-pi-ogn status --live

Watch the status every five seconds:

aero-pi-ogn status --watch 5

Use the healthcheck command in scripts or monitoring probes:

aero-pi-ogn healthcheck

On non-Raspberry Pi development machines, hardware and systemd checks report UNKNOWN instead of crashing.

Log views

Follow the focused traffic view:

aero-pi-ogn logs traffic --follow

Show APRS lines only:

aero-pi-ogn logs aprs --follow

Include APRS heartbeat lines when you need to confirm that the receiver is still announcing itself upstream:

aero-pi-ogn logs traffic --follow --include-aprs-heartbeat

Follow the RF service logs when checking noise, gain, SDR, or antenna behavior:

aero-pi-ogn logs rf --follow

Show recent logs without following:

aero-pi-ogn logs --lines 100

RF path checks

A healthy service does not guarantee a healthy antenna path. When the receiver is running but no aircraft appear, compare three signals:

aero-pi-ogn status --live
aero-pi-ogn aircraft --watch 5
aero-pi-ogn logs rf --follow

Typical RF noise line:

BkgNoise = 4.1dB, Gain = 49.6dB [28]

Common patterns:

Very low or flat BkgNoise + no aircraft
  Possible disconnected antenna, broken coax, bad adapter, or wrong antenna.

Very high or unstable BkgNoise + few aircraft
  Possible overload, bad LNA, active antenna power issue, interference, or wrong bias tee setting.

Only very close aircraft appear
  Possible poor placement, lossy coax, damaged antenna, water ingress, or antenna not tuned for 868 MHz.

The best field test is to watch aero-pi-ogn aircraft --watch 5 while a known nearby aircraft with working FLARM is transmitting.

OGN binaries

The installer downloads official OGN receiver binaries only during explicit install or update operations, verifies them against the committed manifest, and installs them under /opt/aero-pi-ogn-receiver/ogn.

List the configured binary manifest:

aero-pi-ogn binaries list

For normal Raspberry Pi installs, keep:

ogn:
  binary_arch: "auto"

Read OGN Binaries before manually changing the binary architecture.

Generated command sheet

Setup writes a local command sheet into the virtual environment:

less ~/aero-pi-ogn-receiver-venv/README-aero-pi-ogn-receiver.md

It contains the common status, service, config, upgrade, and uninstall commands for the current virtual environment path.