I have just started to track airplanes with rp and a usb dongle.
Last week i had around 7000 reports every day.
From Thursday it has been less for every day. Yesterday I received 600 reports.
Today I track airplanes 50mi from my antenna. Last week i tracked 150-200 mi.
The antenna is in the same place.
Does anyone know what the problem is?
Look at others in your area. Did they drop off two?
Weather can impact flights. I see a pretty good drop off on days when the weather is bad.
Less training and tourist flights. VFR only pilots not flying etc.
Today and yesterday it was sunny. But before that it was snowy weather.
Water or ice in the feed line (coax) especially the connectors.
We saw this happen at a location in the North East last year.
If the antenna is outdoor, then ensure that dialectric grease is used on the inside and self-sealing tape on the outside.
TV or other electrical device interfering with the device. I have one setup behind a TV in our bedroom.
When the TV is on, I lose about 20-30% of the traffic.
Loose connector.
Remember the old adage for fault find “Something was changed or broke”.
Hi Heinz,
I was wondering the same thing - my stats on here were down somewhat in the last couple of days, but seem to be OK today.
I have the issue of a partial obstruction to the south of my location but also my reception is very dependant on local weather conditions and how that affects aircraft in and out of Sydney airport - for example whether they are taking off and landing north to south or vice versa.
My only suggestion is to give it a few days and see if it comes good.
Andrew
The first impression is something happened on the 08.03.17, after 8.00 pm.
The pattern seems to have stayed the same, most of the planes are to the North of your location. I also checked a few other sites more ore less close to your location, everything seems normal there.
On Saturday and Sundays, with fine weather, I see a lot more private planes in the air, mostly via mlat.
Sometimes the approach direction to the closest airport is changed, it does not affect my stats that much, but that might be different in your location.
Where is your atenna located? Some people reported snow on trees or just the leaves growing back in spring affected the reception of their antenna.
Simple things you could do, reboot the device, check for loose connections, move the antenna to a different spot to see if this changes anything.
If you can, change the hardware, there are two cheap and easy to make antenna types, just check the threads on this forum.
Hmmm, well it looks like I have a problem.
Can you guess when it started raining???
From my main system:
same period from my portable system
