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Quickstart

Get from a blank microSD card to live tracks on a phone in about 15 minutes. This walkthrough uses the default Aircraft (ADS-B) setup; the same first steps apply to every mission.

What you need

  • A Raspberry Pi 4 (or ⅗) and a 16 GB+ microSD card (details).
  • A USB SDR dongle and 1090 MHz antenna for ADS-B.
  • A phone or tablet running ATAK (Android) or iTAK (iOS), or a computer running WinTAK.
  • A workstation to flash the card.

1. Flash the card

  1. Download the latest aryaos-*.img.xz from GitHub Releases.
  2. Write it to the microSD card with Raspberry Pi Imager (choose Use custom) or balenaEtcher. Full instructions: Flash the image.

2. Boot the box

  1. Insert the card, connect the SDR and antenna, and apply power.
  2. The first boot takes about 120 seconds while AryaOS expands its filesystem, assigns a unique hostname (aryaos-xxxx), and generates its identity. Later boots take about 90 seconds.
  3. When it is ready, AryaOS broadcasts a Wi-Fi network named AryaOS-xxxx (the same four characters as the hostname).

See First boot & first login for exactly what happens and how to set your password.

3. Connect a device

  1. On the phone, join the AryaOS-xxxx Wi-Fi network.
  2. The onboarding hotspot is open by default — you can set a WPA2 password later from the web console.
  3. Open your browser to https://aryaos-xxxx.local:9090/ (accept the self-signed certificate warning — the cert is unique to your device).

Note

If aryaos-xxxx.local does not resolve on your phone, browse to the gateway's IP address instead — the hotspot hands out addresses on 10.41.0.0/24 with the box at 10.41.0.1.

  1. Join the same Wi-Fi network, or plug the Pi into your LAN with Ethernet.
  2. Open https://aryaos-xxxx.local:9090/ in a browser.
  3. Log in as user pi. On a release image you will be prompted to change the default password on first login.

4. Point TAK at the gateway

Configure your TAK end-user device to receive Mesh SA — the local multicast CoT stream AryaOS broadcasts by default.

  1. Settings → Network Preferences → Network Connections.
  2. Ensure SA Multicast (Mesh SA) is enabled — this is on by default in most builds.
  3. Return to the map. Aircraft appear as they are received.
  1. Enable multicast SA in Settings → Network.
  2. If your network blocks multicast, use a direct feed instead — see Connect to a TAK Server or the NMEA/GDL90 options for ForeFlight & EFBs.

5. Confirm you see tracks

  • In the AryaOS web console, open AryaOS Site → Sensor services and confirm adsbcot and readsb are active.
  • On the TAK map, aircraft icons should appear within a minute if any are in range of your antenna. A local ADS-B map is also served on the box (tar1090).

You're live

You now have a standalone ADS-B-to-TAK gateway. No internet was required.

Where to next