Wired Ethernet problems

Hello Larry, you won't be able to achieve either stability or an acceptable speed this way. I achieved speeds of up to 11 Mbps as follows: First, unscrew the Wi-Fi antenna. Buy this outdoor range extender or a better one, connect it to power and to the AAP's network port. The average speed is 8 Mbps. That's what you need if you want stable operation. When you turn on the tablet and open the AAP software, you'll see a green text at the top that says "Connected"... so you can be sure you're connected. This is the best and most independent solution because you can work while mobile within a 10-meter radius.

How do you access files directly from the AsiAir from a Win11 machine?

I used to enter the AsiAir IP in the explorer and then could see the file tree - but since some Win11 Update it no longer works and asks for user credentials I don‘t have. 

any idea or instruction how to connect to the AsiAir file system from Win11?

Arny

I found that the Station mode was unworkable in my case -  the home wi-fi wasn’t located well and I also noticed a drop in transfer times even when connected nearby. I never tested an aftermarket antenna although I’ve read this works well. In my case I plugged a spare wifi router directly into the asi air and kept the router in the saddle bag of the AM5. It’s not a very slick solution and I had to share power with the router, but the software interaction / download speeds were never better. Great range too. Because of the results I just went with it! (:

If you can possibly manage, I'd encourage you to go wired. I have two positions in my yard from which I image. The first is a powered pier about 100 feet from house; the other at the top of my driveway, about 30 feet from my house. When we built the house, I had the electrician install a wired ethernet port in my  garage that goes up to a router in my "network closet"; i.e. where the Starlink feed comes in from the roof-top antenna. I bought 150 feet of outdoor-rated Ethernet cable and just run it from my garage port to whichever location I'm at, connecting it into the ASIAir+. When setting up, I take my tablet out next to the equipment to do polar alignment, using wifi between the tablet and the AAP. Once that's done, I move inside, fire up Bluestacks 5 and execute the ASIAir app. I then do everything else from my study, until its time to take bias and flat subs at the end of my session.

The transfer speeds are great. I use Pixinsight for processing, but I fire up Siril to do a live stack to verify everything's workingg as expected. I wrote a short Windows batch script to automatically pull light frames from the ASIAir, drop them in my processing folder, and then copy them to a livestack folder that Siril is monitoring. Siril automatically detects a new sub and adds it to the live image.

Bottom line: do whatever you can to go wired. It will make your imaging life so much easier and allow you to manage and monitor the session in ways that you simply can't with wifi.

If anyone's interested, I've included the code for the batch file below.

————————–

REM Monitor new light frames and copy them over to live-stacking
REM folder.


set thedate=20250416
set object=NGC4435
set objname=Markarians-Chain
set filter=ircut
set stackfolder=D:\Stack
set wait=60

set srcpath="\\asiair\Udisk Images\ASIAIR\Autorun\Light"
set tgt=D:\Projects\%object%-%objname%\%object%-%filter%-sess-%thedate%\data\lights\

set src=%srcpath%\%object%
pushd %src%

:start
xcopy *.* %tgt% /d /r /y
xcopy %tgt%\*.fit %stackfolder% /d /r /y
timeout /t %wait% /nobreak
goto start

For several years I've used this:

https://www.netgear.com/business/wired/switches/plus/gs105ev2/

I've attached this gigabit ethernet switch to my permanent backyard pier.  I use a CAT 5 ethernet cable connected between my AAP and the ethernet switch.  I ran about 150 feet of CAT 5 cable from the ethernet switch to my router in the house.  I control my rig from a Samsung Tablet, which is also connected to CAT 5 and my router with this:

https://www.belkin.com/p/usb-c-to-ethernet-charge-adapter/P-INC001.html

It has worked well for the past few years.

Terrance

You're welcome Larry.  When performing polar alignment, my AAP and tablet are communicating via AAP's hotspot.  I forgot to mention, I upgraded my antenna to this:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XP99Z3F?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

Unfortunately, this particular antenna is no longer available.  I'm pretty sure there has to be another antenna on the market that is comparable to it.  Since replacing it, I haven't removed it from the AAP and have had no issues with connecting to the ethernet.  When connected, the little ethernet connection indicator pops up on the tablet screen. 

Terrance

1.     Once I've completed polar alignment,  I go inside and connect an ethernet cable (which is connected to my router) to my tablet using the USB C to ethernet charge adapter.

2.     I use the Samsung Galaxy Tab A8.  I don't know how similar it is to yours....I hope this helps. If there is no way you can tell whether or not the wired ethernet is connected from the initial screen,  go into: 

Settings 
Connections
More connection settings

Once you are on the More connection settings screen, insert your ethernet cable...At this point the word Ethernet should change from a fine font to a bold font.

Terrance

Hello, Terrance, Richard, Peter, Mikko, Arny, starpixels, Mahesh, Stan, and John

Thank-you for all of your ideas.  Last night, I think I was able to prove that I had ethernet working. I borrowed a useful nugget from each of you.  I think my problems originated from a few key things: (a) I would always lose hot spot wifi signal between the scope and my office. Most of the time the wifi from my main router was too weak to reach the telescope area.  (b) My router had some incorrect settings.  © My ethernet cable is very old and very long.

So, I have ordered some new accessories that should help: new Cat 6 ethernet cable; outdoor wireless Wifi 6 AX1800 PoE access point; gigabit PoE switch; and USB C to  ethernet with charge adapter.  I'll let you know how it works out.

An interesting sidebar: I also received some help from GPT 4o.  The AI seemed to be very "knowledgeable" about the particular router provided by my ISP. It guided me through listing my connected devices and changing and reserving the IP of my ethernet.  It also had me do command line commands to check some settings (some pings and something else). At one point the AI wanted me to send a screen capture of the attached devices list that shows all the IP and MAC addresses of attache devices. I uploaded a jpg of it. Two seconds later it had reviewed it and figured out which one was the ethernet connection.  (I had already figured it out, but I thought it was cool that it could analyze a picture/table so fast.)  At another time it drew out a schematic diagram of my set up: office, router, portable telescope with Asiair and switch and new access point, permanent observatory with mesh box and another switch.   I had never explicitly described the system so the AI must have deduced it from the snippets of the "chats" we had. It only made one mistake: it drew an extra line/cable that was connected on one end only.  It also "knew" a lot about the inner workings of the AAP and the app and my Lenovo tablet.  Coming up with prompts was easy - it was like the AI was anticipating my questions.  I don't know anything about routers and networking.  The AI just "led" me through every toubleshooting  step and analyzed the results and told me what to change.  Very interesting.  

Again, thanks for all your help. When I get my new gear hooked up I'll let you know how it went.

Larrry

Hi Arny



I just use a USB 3 stick plugged into the asiair, I haven't tried to access the files over the ethernet as have no need to.

Regards 
Richard