Hi All,
Spent quite some time putting a post together on the intricacies of building an ADS-B station, available at the following address:
http://www.radioforeveryone.com/p/building-ads-b-station.html
Comments, criticism, what’s missing or any observation is more than welcome.
Cheers,
Akos
Lots of great information on your website.
I found some weird phrasing in your pro-stick testing
radioforeveryone.com/p/more- … tests.html
After publishing the Pro Stick Plus review, I 've seen comments that the Plus can overload on the FA antenna, so felt the need to conduct further side-by-side comparisons.
If you think the Plus overloads on a the FlightAware antenna, just turn down gain in software step by step and monitor results.
It is the dongle(Pro-stick) that can be overloaded, not the antenna.
Great guide.
You have put up lot of hard work.
Thanks for sharing.
I do not agree that it is just a matter of turning down gain. The down-side with the PsP is that the LNA is in front of the SAW filter, and strong RF interference will saturate the LNA. The gain setting does not affect the LNA, only the usual SDR-stick RF amp which is after the SAW. The gain setting has very little, if any, effect when this happens. we see this quite often, mainly due to proximity to the GSM900 BTSes which the external FA-filter also does not block.
But it says (as in the text you quoted) “overload on the antenna”, not “overload the antenna”.
At least I read it as overload when connected to the FA antenna, which is correct.
/M
I use a cavity filter that even helps with Primary radar on 1030Mhz(I live near several major airports, all of which have radar and have a dozen cell towers within a few blocks).
Even with the Prostick, i got 2 aircraft(at at time) without a filter and 200 with one.
The FA filter even helps out on UAT 978. I am waiting on some custom cavity filters for 978Mhz.
I use torroids on all USB (Short 6" USB 3.0 cables to cater for the tight fit on the USB connectors) and Power connectors. I have all my RPIs and dongles in Metal cases. I may try to better cool the dongles as was suggested on the website.
Congratulations!
I made a quick pass over it and it looked very good. I’ll go over it with a more careful eye hopefully this weekend.
One thing I’d amplify – 90% of the problems people have with the Raspberry Pi come from a cheap power supply and/or cheap USB cables.
I can give you more words on this aspect (or you can look at a lot of my posts on R Pi power supplies).
bob k6rtm
Thanks for the input, in chronological order:
@Skibox
“The gain setting does not affect the LNA, only the usual SDR-stick RF amp which is after the SAW”
This is true, however, by lowering gain in software you also lower the noise floor of the stick preamp, thereby lowering overall system noise floor. Check out the noise profile of a v.2, upon which the Pro Sticks are remotely based.
I’m running tests at the moment, two preamps and a Pro Stick Plus actually work 
. A cavity filter will be also reviewed in the near future, don’t know when, because tests take time.
Read the “My mistakes” post on the page, underestimating the effectiveness of cooling is common.
That’s why I recommend ModMyPi gear, not one mishap in 5 months.
Link to v.2 noise profile for demonstration, roll down to middle of page: radioforeveryone.com/p/review-rtl-sdr.html
What an excellent job. Well done!
I suggest you add a section on waterproofing all outside cable connections. I learned the hard way that “good enough” was not good enough.
Again, well done.
Good job, thanks.