Stratus 2s Support

[Stephen Shaffer]

Has anyone looked into decoding the Stratus 2S wifi transmissions to have AVARE listen?   It looks like they send on 3-4 separate ports, i'm guessing one port for each data type.  Haven't decoded the binary yet, but wonder if there is a path to incorporating a decode filter if I come up with one.

[Jim English]

I thought I’d share my experience with you. I have a Stratus 2 installed as the “i” part of my Stratus ESGi ADSB transponder. As, I'm sure you know that unit is an ADSB receiver which sets up a WiFi hotspot that your tablet or phone can connect to just fine in order to obtain the ADSB-in data. Unfortunately Apperaeo is in ForeFlight’s back pocket, and the only data protocol they support on their Stratus 2 WiFi signal is ForFlight’s proprietary protocol.  Like you, I originally thought I could identify a different tcp or udp port that they were putting their data out on, and just configure Avare to listen to that port, but I found that it wasn’t as simple as listening to a different port. It really was proprietary. I tried talking to Stratus Support since I had their ESG transponder and their ADSB receiver, but they were very curt with me and didn’t want to talk to me if I wasn’t on an Apple device and running ForeFlight software. So, instead I built my own StratuX (all Open Source software on a Raspberry Pi single board computer) ADSB receiver, which works great with Avare, and I built it for only ~$150. The StratuX device works exactly like the Stratus device except it’s software supports the GDL 90. Data Interface Specification, an Open Standard interface which the Avare software is looking for (do a search for the GDL 90 Standard for details). So, I found building the StratuX device to be a sufficiently inexpensive solution, that I no longer needed to pursue reverse engineering the ForeFlight interface protocol because I’d probably have to write some sort of Avare plugin to handle it and I’m not on the Avare development team, so the learning curve for me was pretty steep. Apperao has since come out with their Stratus 3 ADSB-in receiver devices which supports both protocols, ForFlight’s proprietary protocol, and can be software switched to the GDL 90 standard. I have been tempted to replace my Stratus 2 which is a part of my ESGi installation with the newer Stratus 3 unit, but have not pulled the trigger on that yet. I have talked with the avionics shop that installed the ESGi system and have learned that there is a Stratus sponsored upgrade program (which saves you a few $s) to upgrade from their Stratus 2 to a 3 receiver which now makes that a reasonably affordable option. However, until recently, you still needed an Apple based system/software to initially talk to the Stratus 3 device in-order to switch it’s configuration from ForeFlight (it’s default) to the GDL 90 protocol. It was my understanding that switch has to be done each time you power on the Stratus 3 unit too, as it does not retain the configuration switch when you power it off. Recently Andrew Sarangan wrote a simple Android app, which you can find on the Google Play Store to do that, called ADS-B Monitor. He tells us it works to switch the Stratus 3 units back and forth between FF Mode and Open Mode, and provides a meager display to confirm that you are seeing data from the Stratus 3 unit once you make the switch to the Open GDL 90 protocol. The nice thing is it runs on your Android device and you don’t need a separate Apple system and software which talks to the FF protocol to do the switching, it can now be done from a free Android app. If I do go ahead and upgrade my Stratus 2 to a 3, I’ll certainly be using Andrew’s ADS-B Monitoring app.      

[Barrett Thompson]

Jim, just a small point of clarification. You do NOT have to switch the protocol every time the device is powered in. The Open ADS-B setting is retained through power cycled. I installed a Stratus 3i more than a year ago, and after the initial set-up, it has worked flawlessly.

The ADS-B Monitor app you mention is a great utility for the initial set-up as well as confirming data streams. FltPlanGo will also swap the Stratus 3 to Open ADS-B mode.

But to the OP concerning the Stratus 2, you're up the proverbial creek without a paddle unless you use ForeFlight.

On Wed, Feb 10, 2021, 12:49 Jim English <jengl...@gmail.com> wrote:

I thought I’d share my experience with you. I have a Stratus 2 installed as the “i” part of my Stratus ESGi ADSB transponder. As, I sure you know that unit is an ADSB receiver which sets up a WiFi hotspot that your tablet or phone can connect to just fine in order to obtain the ADSB-in data. Unfortunately Apperaeo in in ForeFlight’s back pocket, and the only data protocol they support on their Stratus 2 WiFi signal is ForFlight’s proprietary protocol.  Like you, I originally thought I could identify a different tcp or udp port that they were putting their data out on, and just configure Avare to listen to that port, but I found that it wasn’t as simple as listening to a different port. It really was proprietary. I tried talking to Stratus Support since I had their ESG transponder and their ADSB receiver, but they were very curt with me and didn’t want to talk to me if I wasn’t on an Apple device and running ForeFlight software. So, instead I built my own StratuX (all Open Source software on a Raspberry Pi single board computer) ADSB receiver, which works great with Avare, and I built it for only ~$150. The StratuX device works exactly like the Stratus device except it’s software supports the GDL 90. Data Interface Specification,an Open Standard interface which the Avare software is looking for (do a search for the GDL 90 Standard for details). So, I found building the StratuX device to be sufficiently inexpensive solution, that I no longer needed to pursue reverse engineering the ForeFlight interface protocol because I’d probably have to write some sort of Avare plugin to handle it and I’m not on the Avare development team, so the learning curve for me was pretty steep. Apperao has since come out with their Stratus 3 ADSB-in receiver devices which supports both protocols, ForFlight’s proprietary protocol, and can be software switched to the GDL 90 standard. I have been tempted to replace my Stratus 2 which is a part of my ESGi installation with the newer Stratus 3 unit, but have not pulled the trigger on that yet. I have talked with the avionics shop that installed the ESGi system and have learned that there is a Stratus sponsored upgrade program (which saves you a few $s) to upgrade from their Stratus 2 to a 3 receiver which now makes that a reasonably affordable option. However, until recently, you still needed an Apple based system/software to initially talk to the Stratus 3 device to switch it’s configuration from ForeFlight (it’s default) to the GDL 90 protocol. It was my understanding that that switch has to be done each time you power on the Stratus 3 unit too, as it does not retain the configuration switch when you power it off. Recently Andrew Sarangan wrote a simple Android app, which you can find on the Google Play Store to do that, called ADS-B Monitor. He tells us it works to switch the Stratus 3 units back and forth between FF Mode and Open Mode, and provides a meager display to confirm that you are seeing data from the Stratus 3 unit once you make the switch to the Open GDL 90 protocol. The nice thing is it runs on your Android device and you don’t need a separate Apple system and software which talks to the FF protocol to do the switching, it can now be done from a free Android app. If I do go ahead and upgrade my Stratus 2 to a 3, I’ll certainly be using Andrew’s ADS-B Monitoring app.    

On Tuesday, February 9, 2021 at 6:45:44 PM UTC-5 shafferav...@gmail.com wrote:

Has anyone looked into decoding the Stratus 2S wifi transmissions to have AVARE listen?   It looks like they send on 3-4 separate ports, i'm guessing one port for each data type.  Haven't decoded the binary yet, but wonder if there is a path to incorporating a decode filter if I come up with one.

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