I have recently upgraded to the Pro Stick Plus for 1090MHz traffic, as well as purchasing the 26" antenna off Amazon. It has been a night and day difference in reception. I actually built it on a new device… a Pine A64 board instead of a Raspberry Pi 2. My range has improved DRASTICALLY with the new setup. Instead of just the software listed on this site, I used the software from “The ADS-B Receiver Project”, which still feeds FlightAware, but also feeds FlightRadar24 and gives me more local data, including storing data in MySQL database. One of the options is installing dump978 as well. I have done this and used another RTL-SDR device and a wideband antenna. I don’t know if it is due to a poor antenna, no filter, no amp or just a lack of UAT use in the general Sacramento, California region, but I seldom have aircraft show up on dump978. I may get a hit for a minute or so before it disappears. My guess is it’s of the first few guesses and not really my last guess. I was wondering if there was a possibility of a dongle like the Pro Stick Plus and the antenna designed around 978Mhz instead of 1090Mhz… including a band-pass filter, amplifier, and tuned antenna.
Our dual-band 8dbi antenna supports both 978 and 1090Mhz. Both the FlightAware filter and Pro Stick Plus have a lower cutoff right around 978 Mhz so they usually work well there with either dongle.
This is the only omnidirectional 978Mhz Antenna I have found (I order one this week).
dpdproductions.com/page_vhf_ … #978adsout
I have the FA dual band antenna, however, it is no longer produced.
There is a directional antenna that may work on 978Mhz
moonraker.eu/avionics-and-sh … al-antenna
I have not found a 978Mhz filter. I ended up ordering some custom 978Mhz cavity filters from China.
I have used the FA filter with the FA pro stick. It works well.
I have also used the Hab/Nevis/uptronics Amp/filters.
store.uputronics.com/index.php? … duct_id=87
You will need a std rtl-sdr or airspy to power it via bias-t.
You can also power it by USB on an RPI if it is located near the RPI.
Tuning the gain can be hard as the std decoder doesn’t provide rssi information.
You can try the dump978 from stratux as it provides rssi info.
You can log the info and go through it to work out the nest gain.
I could use full gain with an FA Pro stick and fa filter.
I have one RPI running UAT 978UAT only
flightaware.com/adsb/stats/user/ … tats-20974
The FA dual band antenna isn’t working as well as I expected. I still have some work to do to see if it is the antenna or coax/amp.
I plan to try the airspy as a 978 dongle in the next few weeks.
Note that UAT 978 is generally used by lower flying aircraft. You won’t get 200NM range like 1090mhz. I average about 60-80NM but am only 60’AMSL.
$150 for antenna… too much for me at this point. The other stuff is also too expensive just for playing around with for the fun of it. It was relatively cheap to setup for 1090Mhz but too expensive to play around with a quality reception at this point for 978Mhz.
The cheapest would be the FA Pro-stick, FA Filter and some sort of cheap antenna.
Is this location dump978 or have you not setup the location?
flightaware.com/adsb/stats/user/ … tats-35636
Yes, I’ve set up the location. I’m in Roseville, CA. Just a few miles the way the bird flys from the Lincoln, CA airport, which is a small aircraft airport. We also have many other small airports nearby… many of them being private airports, such as crop dusters. I’m not sure if THEY are using UAT 978 or ADS-B 1090. I do know that many of these crop dusters fly quite close to Sacramento International Airport (SMF) so I’d think they’d be required to have something to be flying near aircraft taking off and landing.
NooElec also now sells a small <$10 978MHz antenna nooelec.com/store/sdr/sdr-ac … i-sma.html I have not tried it.
I have been using a generic 900MHz Yagi for UAT (there are lots for cheap on eBay for 900MHz cellular). Probably lose a lot of gain at 978 but it performs better than the cantenna I had before. My UAT feeder: flightaware.com/adsb/stats/user/ … tats-18732
Really ?
While the external filter is wide open at 978 (unfortunately, it means it’s useless for protection against GSM900 interference), the SAW filter in the PSP should be much narrower in it’s passband.
The specs say:
“Filter: 1,075 MHz to 1,105 MHz pass band with insertion loss of 2.3 dB; 30 dB attenuation on other frequencies”
which is consistent with SAW filter spec.
But the orange ProStick should work ?
/M
On the stats side, it appears that ADS-B is direct UAT 978 aircraft and OTHER is TIS-B/ADS-R.
There is a Mode C veil requirement for operation within 30NM of major airports. In 2020, I believe that this will change over to ADS-B. There are exceptions for aircraft without electrical systems.
I just realized I had not properly set the information for my new receiver… I thought I had. I have two receivers and one was set while the new one was not. They are now both properly set.
You are correct, the Plus is not designed for 978 due to the tight bandpass filter but the original Pro Stick will work on 978. The external filter is usable with 978 as the cut-off is not so tight.
Also, the dual-band 1090/978 antenna that FlightAware produced in the past is no longer being manufactured.