Hello. I've had my AirNav Radar station off for several weeks, and now that I've turned it back on, I'm seeing a huge coverage shadow that I never had before. The statistics also show how many days ago it was online when I had everything turned off. The planes now appear again when I turn the station back on, but I suspect someone could be using my coverage shadow to expand their own. I don't know if this is possible, but something doesn't match up between my reception data and my statistics and actual coverage. Has this happened to anyone else? Thanks.
I cant see how it would be possible for someone to add gtheir coverage to your station and your coverage cannot alter anyone elses, especially if your receiver is off, just not possible
Whats your station number?
Alan
Thanks for your reply. Since I detected this strange activity yesterday, I completely disconnected the power to my station. I've noticed that it's still online, and my statistics are still adding up the ADSB data received. The timeline shows it in yellow as No Data, but it's online. I repeat, it was turned off yesterday to rule out the possibility that my station is receiving it. I've never had such a poor coverage, I wish it were true. There's no aircraft reception shown on the map on my panel, but I do receive ADSB data, which should also be impossible. My station is EXTRPI605341, Spain. I hope you can help me with this. Thanks.
A computer cannot work if you completely disconnect the power supply from it, that is a fact. This would therefore lead to to the only possible conclusion here is that you are looking at the wrong station. If you powere down the Pi, disconnect the power cable and you still see data on the station that can only mean that it is a different station.
Looking at the station map show that EXTRPI605341 was onliine and sending data between 1800 22/8 and 0600 2300 and at other time was online with no data being sent
Leave it powered down. disconnected from the powere supply for a couple of hours and you will see red blocks signifying offline instead of green or yellow as it is at this time
Post a copy of your ini file with your key details redacted, the ini file will show conclusivly your station number and we can then take things from there.
Alan
Hello again. The problem is precisely that the station is supposedly receiving data even though no aircraft appear on the panel, which is why the bands appear yellow when they should be red. I've been disconnected since the 23rd, and the days leading up to the 22nd as well because I was on vacation and left the station completely disconnected. The green periods were the hours I was on and receiving air traffic, but when I noticed the large reception shadow and saw in the history that days before it was supposedly connected, I decided to turn everything off and see what happened. When I log into the application, I still notice that after the connection hours, the ADSB data received continues to increase, although not in green. It only shows yellow, and it appears that I'm online, with everything disconnected from the power supply since the 23rd. This is all very strange. I'm sending you a screenshot of my INI file so you can verify that the station is mine. I'm hiding the key to avoid further problems. I hope we can resolve the problem. All the best.
rbfeeder.ini
I can only see what your station page is showing, I dont have access to the information you have, i.e, you have been powered off for the last two days but it is still showing that you are passing data which is impossible as a computer with no power is dead and cant do anything but its showing you have sent 255,940 messages today when your Pi is dead???
Do you feed anything else from the Pi?. I note your FW is other and you have network mode set to true which would be looking to take the data from another service. If you only have the RB feeder set the Network mode to false to use the RB feeders own decoder, save the file then restart RB feeder using sudo systemctl restart rbfeeder
Also you have MLAT set up but it isnt shown as set on the page so maybe that goes back to the previous as well
Alan
I could try those modifications you suggest, but it's still strange that even though everything has been off, including the power supply to my receiving station, since the 23rd, it's showing ADSB data, and before the 22nd, even though everything was off. I think it must be due to the Airnav servers cross-referencing data. I've filed a ticket with Airnav Radar to see if they can resolve this issue.
Hello. I've been investigating further the issue we're dealing with regarding the suspicious activity at my receiving station. Despite being offline, it indicates that it's active online and sending ADSB data to its servers. As I mentioned, I've detected through the AirNav radar application that, when I select my station, the excess coverage appears empty of air traffic, but it appears online, which should appear offline. However, when I move around the world map without leaving my selected station, I was surprised to find that air movement is visible on Java Island. When you select a specific station, in this case mine, only my received air traffic should be visible and no other air traffic worldwide. However, curiously, the entire world map shows the aircraft being received on Java Island. I suspect that despite my station being shut down and receiving data according to the servers, it's due to this station on Java Island that is interfering with my station for some reason. Could you verify this situation I'm telling you about? I'm sending you screenshots of both my station in Spain where you can see my shadow without air traffic but online despite the power being disconnected, and an image of Java Island where you can see that, despite indicating that my station is selected, air traffic is visible there. I await your responses. Best regards.
I suspect your rbfeeder is connected to RB24 Server, but it is NOT sending any data to RB24 Servers. It may possibly be because the decoder (dump1090 or readsb) is not working, either it has failed or the dongle (DVB-T / RB24 FlightStick / FA ProStick etc) is defective.
Please issue following command and post it's output.
tail -n 15 /var/log/rbfeeder.log
For your guidance I have posted screenshot of output of above command and feed status bar-chart for my station EXTRPI000008
https://www.airnavradar.com/stations/EXTRPI000008
Hi abcd567. I don't think you read my problem from my first post. To summarize, my station had been offline for several weeks. On the 22nd, I started it up. When I checked the air traffic at that time, I saw that a few days ago it appeared in the statistics as if I was sending data to the AirNav Radar server (RadarBox). I left it on until midday on the 23rd, when I completely disconnected it again. To this day, it remains disconnected from the power supply. If you check my station, you can see that it appears online. In the statistics, it's still sending ADSB data to the server, although no air traffic appears in my coverage shadow. Moving around the world map today, I curiously noticed that the only place where planes are visible is on Java Island, when nothing should be visible except my received planes, since my station is selected. You can check this yourself. My coordinates are correctly entered in the rbfeeder.ini file, and you can see that the location point is correctly located in my location in Spain. This is why I believe the air traffic from the station on Java Island is somehow being counted, which is the ADSB data that appears in my statistics. This isn't related to my receiver, as it's been turned off since the 23rd. It's a problem with AirNav's servers, or the Java Island station has mistakenly included some data linking me to it. My unique key was never published, so I don't know how this is happening. You can see the screenshots I posted in this post. Best regards.
I can confirm that your location lat/lon are correct
Only support can help you with this issue, contact them on
[email protected]Alan
Alan, I've already sent them an email explaining this problem, but they haven't responded. I don't know if it's because they have so many inquiries, but the support service isn't very efficient or quick. I'll wait for a solution.
They normally try and respond within 24 hours but you should get an auto-reply advising that they have received your request
I have emailed one of the Developer team regarding this issue and asked him to look into it
Alan
It is possible that the station number and key assigned to your RPi and the Java Feeder site got mixedup somehow.
As the feeder Key and Station number are linked to the mac address of RPi, I suggest you diable these two items in your file rbfeeder.ini by placing a # mark at start of these two lines, as shown in first screenshot below.
sudo nano /etc/rbfeeder.ini
Save the file after modifications.
Next restart rbfeeder.
sudo systemctl restart rbfeeder
When rbfeeder starts, it will not find key and sn in file rbfeeder.ini (as these have been disabled by placing # at their start), hence it will contact RB24 server and send your RPi's MAC address with request to send back key and station number. The server will check it's data base and send the key and station number linked with your RPi's mac address, and rbfeeder will generate new lines in rbfeeder.ini with this new data, as shown in attached 2nd screenshot.
Above process may take few minutes to complete. Wait for say 5 minutes after isssueing restart command, then . You can then open file /etc/rbfeeder.ini and see what is the Key and Station Number assigned by the server. Comparing this new key & station number with old one (where you put # mark) will show if there was some error in your these settings.
Alan, Yes, I received an email stating that the ticket had been created, and then a message from a support operator asking if I'd changed my location. I told him no and explained the strange situation with screenshots. Now I'm waiting to see if they reply again.
Abcd567, I'm going to try the same thing you told me and let me know what I see next. Thanks for the help. I hope it works out that way.
Have had a reply back from the Developer, they will look into it tomorrow
Alan
Quote from: Jhosua1 on August 26, 2025, 05:34:40 PM
Alan, I've already sent them an email explaining this problem, but they haven't responded. I don't know if it's because they have so many inquiries, but the support service isn't very efficient or quick. I'll wait for a solution.
This doesn't help at all when we are trying to help. We have been responding to you and you have replied to our response. Please refrain from insinuating that no one has responded to you.
There are chances of a key being duplicated, users use dockers and other tools which mean the generated key is sometimes already in use. In most cases if someone is already sharing the server will block any other connection, in your case as you weren't sharing it started showing aircraft from another feeder.
Abcd567, that process has already been completed, and they've sent me a new key and a new station. Is it normal for them to change it, or should I have received the same key and station? Is it possible they removed it because it was out of service for a few weeks?
I am advised that contrary to what you stated, support has been in conversation with you and the developers are going to look into it tomorrow
Alan
I'm sorry, Alan, for not being more explicit about technical support earlier. I meant I've been waiting for a response since last night, but I omitted the fact that they'd contacted me by email. Now that the server has given me a new station number, I don't know whether to leave it as it was or just stay that way. Mainly to avoid further complicating things with the help desk. In any case, I don't know how long it will take for this new station number to appear on my dashboard because even though I've restarted the smartphone app, the old station is still showing up.
It will be worked on tomorrow as advised earlier, have you restarted your Pi
Alan
Quote from: AirNav Support on August 26, 2025, 07:09:42 PM
There are chances of a key being duplicated, users use dockers and other tools which mean the generated key is sometimes already in use. In most cases if someone is already sharing the server will block any other connection, in your case as you weren't sharing it started showing aircraft from another feeder.
This was exactly my conclusion, but I did not want to say it without any proof. I know they have some code in rbfeeder's installation through docker on Ubuntu (amd64 / x86_64) on a Laptop or PC to spoof mac address of RPi, and this spoofed one may coincide with an actual RPi's mac address. That is why in my last post above I suggested to @Jhosua1 to comment out key and sn entries by placing a # mark at start of these two lines in file rbfeeder.ini and restart rbfeeder.
@AirNav Support
Users running Linux on a PC or Laptop reqire a rbfeeder package for amd64 x86_64 architecture. As AirNav RB24 supplies rbfeeder package only for RPi (armhf and aarch64), these user are forced to use dockerised rbfeeder, which creates this nuisance of spoofed mac address and two different users using same key.
The Flightradar24 and Planefinder supply their packages not only for RPi (armhf & aarch64), but also for amd64 x86_64 as well. As a result rarely any of their feeders use their docarised feeder packge.
I strongly recommend that AirNav / RB24 make available their rbfeeder package for architecture amd64 x86_64.
Sorry I didn't give you any context last night, but it won't let me reply on the forum. It keeps telling me to use anti-spam and blocking my posts.
I think there are some words that aren't allowed here, and that's why it's blocking my posts. I'm waiting for help at the moment. I left my station running last night, but with the same issue. To inform you about what abcd567 was saying, I don't use Docker, but rather a Linux installation of rbfeeder. I'll keep you updated. Thanks.
I see a bit of an update as your own aircraft are now showing but the indonesian ones are still showing, a little bit of progress
Alan
Quote from: Jhosua1 on August 27, 2025, 12:36:59 PM
To inform you about what abcd567 was saying, I don't use Docker, but rather a Linux installation of rbfeeder. I'll keep you updated. Thanks.
I did NOT mean YOU are using docker. I meant the Java guy is using docker with a spoofed mac address which accidentally is identical to real mac address of your Pi.
The main reason people spoof mac address of Pi is that their dockerised rbfeeder is not rinning on Pi, but on an amd64 / x86_64 Computer with a Linux OS for that architecture, and such computers have mac addresses completely different from RPi. If real mac address of their machine is used, RB24 servers will detect it is not a Pi and will refuse to issue a key.
Hello again. It seems the problem I was having is now resolved. The Malaysian planes are no longer visible on my dashboard, and only the ones I receive within my coverage are displayed. Also, when I turn off my station, it appears Offline, which is correct. Thank you very much for your help. At least we've discovered a new issue that could happen to any of us. Best regards.
Glad it all resolved and you can enjoy using it again. Your coverage are will sort itself out within a week
Alan
Right now, the only thing I see is that I have nothing in the statistics. I imagine they've reset it on the server, and I won't start seeing any data movement for a few days.
Had a look at other stations and it doesnt look like any have stats showing at this time
Alan