Flightaware antenna

Hi all,

Received my FA antenna in the mail the other day and it’s working perfectly! Increased my range quite a bit. Quick question though - I’m keeping it indoors by a window, but am curious as to how others have mounted it inside? Right now it’s leaning up against the wall as I try to figure something out. Any thoughts?

I was thinking about putting together a wooden base with a vertical piece of wood in the centre, then using screws to mount it to that. Open to suggestions though.

Thanks

I think abc? Has some mount on the wall and the antenna is hanging from that with a rope/wire.

Will take a look. Thanks!

Here it is :slight_smile: Not an elegant installation, but works great.

Thank you :slight_smile:. How do you get those polar plot images?

@cs777:
The polar plots are from Flightradar24 statistics page for my receiver.

Cheers. Thanks!

One request. When quoting my post, it will be better to remove images from the quote.

Keeping large images in the quote results in repetition of a large image, and makes navigation through the thread unpleasant. Thanks

ModeSMixer2 will produce a similar polar plot and some other data. It’s a free program.

I have once switched from dump1090-mutability to modesdecoder2. The number of plane fell to about half. I switched back to dump1090-mutability.

ModeSMixer2 is not the same program as ModeSDecoder2. It does do a good job of combining and relaying the data to various destinations, and has a nice web interface. I haven’t tried the Decoder2 program. I did read that its results are much different than dump1090.

I tried ModeSMixer2 as dump1090 didn’t like GPS time stamps from a radarcape (sending them to FAUP).
I want to feed three setups.

  1. Radarcape (Only setup used for MLAT).
  2. airspy via AVR(so MLAT won’t be screw up with multiple clocks) and a second antenna than I am using to work around an obstacle.
  3. dump978 via AVR. No timing info so MLAT is not screwed up.

I ended up changing the radarcape over to 12Mhz clock so it will work with dump1090.
ModeSMixer2 does have some nice coverage graphs. I can still feed the data into ModeSMixer2 just for the graphs.

Exactly. I use it right now to display the combined data from a raw dump1090 feed, the return from PiAware MLAT, and my UAT receiver, all in one. BTW, notice that on the polar plot, we can see the actual radio horizon from about 50 degrees to 220 degrees. That is my maximum range except for when ducting occurs. About 349nmi. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to level the hills to the northeast, north and northwest… :wink:

@jonhawkes2030
@k5ted
Does modeSMixer2 run on Windows/Mac or on RPi/Linux?
I dont run my Windows Desktop 24/7, but RPi runs 24/7.

Both. See this link xdeco.org/?p=288

@k5ted
Thanks a lot!
I just installed ModeSMixer2 on RPi. screenshot below. Dont see graphs on left, it is a blank space.
(1) How to display “Contacts” and “Coverage Pattern” Garaphs?
(2) Forgot what command, and in which file to add this command, to make any program start automatically at boot time.

https://c4.staticflickr.com/9/8734/28846828235_cc82c0cc09_c.jpg

You can add start items to /etc/rc.local
There may be other ways to do this.

The graphs may take a while to be available.

@jonhawkes2030
Thanks.
(1) I have added following line in rc.local, and rebooted. modesmixer2 started at boot.
sudo /home/pi/modesmixer2/./modesmixer2 --inConnect localhost:30002 --web 8755 &

(2) When I use arguments “–inConnect localhost:30002” OR “–inConnect localhost:30005”, data is shown, but when I use argument “–inConnect localhost:30106” for MLAT, no data is shown in ModeSMixer2. How you show MLAT data?

I checked my piaware MLAT settings as follows:

$ sudo piaware-config -show
contents of piaware config file ‘/root/.piaware’:
mlatResultsFormat {beast,connect,localhost:30104 beast,connect,feed.adsbexchange.com:30005 ext_basestation,listen,30106}
password xxxxxxxx
user xxxxxxxx

Here’s my config. I’m getting the MLAT from a merged VRS feed on 33009 that gets all my data from the remote Dump1090 receiver, the Dump978 receiver, and the MLAT out from port 30106 in Basestation format from the PiAware. The -outServer beast 33033 also goes back into VRS as another receiver on my VRS map.

So, I’m not using ModeSMixer2 to combine the feeds for distribution, but just for displaying the total combined feeds from VRS:

@echo off
cmd /c modesmixer2.exe --web 80xx --db C:\Users\xxxx\Documents\vrs\BaseStation.sqb --silhouettes C:\Users\xxxx\Documents\vrs\silhouettes\SilhouettesLogos –inConnect 127.0.0.1:33009 --outServer beast:33033 --location 29.xxxx:-98.xxxx --add-reference-point 29.xxxx:-98.xxxx
PAUSE
exit

Thanks k5ted.
I dont want to depend on VRS as my Windows Desktop does not run 24/7. I want everything only on Pi which runs 24/7.
As the name includes the word “Mixer”, I thought it can merge the ADS-B and MLAT feeds without help of VRS.