Is my DVB-T dongle healthy and working?

Modified on Mon, 17 Jun, 2024 at 1:03 PM

If your feed has been working normally and all of a sudden, without any changes made by you, it stops working, it is best to make sure the dongle is still working.

Here is how you can check if the DVB-T dongle you are using is working properly. It is always best if you connect the dongle directly to your Pi instead of via a USB extension cable.

1. Install rtl-sdr package. Run all the commands you see below one by one

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rtl-sdr

2. Stop fr24feed as well as dump1090

sudo systemctl stop fr24feed
sudo systemctl stop fr24uat-feed
sudo systemctl stop dump1090-mutability
sudo systemctl stop dump1090-fa
sudo systemctl stop dump978-fr24
sudo systemctl stop dump978-fa

3. Run the test command

rtl_test -t

If the dongle is OK, you will see an output like this

Found 1 device(s):
  0:  Realtek, RTL2832UFA, SN: 00001001

Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U
Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Supported gain values (29): 0.0 0.9 1.4 2.7 3.7 7.7 8.7 12.5 14.4 15.7 16.6 19.7 20.7 22.9 25.4 28.0 29.7 32.8 33.8 36.4 37.2 38.6 40.2 42.1 43.4 43.9 44.5 48.0 49.6
Sampling at 2048000 S/s.
No E4000 tuner found, aborting.

(If you see a different tuner than Rafael Micro R820T/R820T2/R828D then your dongle most probably does not support ADS-B frequency.)

4. Reboot your Pi to start normal operation

sudo reboot