The FA Pro Stick (and plus version) do not have a bias tee - although I just used a spare USB cable as recommended by @jaymot with the red and black wires going into the screw terminals of my external bias tee. This overcame the issue, although it might be easier to get a new SDR (something like a RTL-SDR V3) with a bias tee built in. This would be better in my option, as its generally easier - and would provide slightly better results as the FA SDR’s have amps (and a filter with the plus) which might reduce your performance slightly. As I have to set my gain at 14.4 to compensate for the double amplification, which is not ideal but works.
Still learning. Maybe someday. But if the FA Pro Stick SDR has an amp built in, is the LNA even necessary? Or is it just that much better?
Not hugely better, but it’s definitely better.
And many people here like maximizing their setup.
That goes as far as people getting an airspy mini for around $130 or even a Radarcape / Airsquitter which are between $400 and $800 i believe.
They bring their own webinterface and everything, performance wise the airspy mini is equivalent or even better according to some accounts, but measuring that objectively is hard and i’m biased having worked on the decoder for airspy 
Honestly i don’t think it’s an issue except for planes / helicopters at low level that get closer than maybe 500m which might overload the LNA.
It could even be a slight advantage for very faint signals as the LNA is better than the first stage of the tuners builtin amplifiers. (which is why we FA adds the LNA in the first place)
Also you get a 2nd stage of SAW filtering and that definitely doesn’t hurt.
Question: Is the cherry on top of the pie necessary?
I think it’s not, the pie would be delicious without it. But the cherry gives that little extra taste 
Before i got the Airspy running, i simply tested the Uputronics filtered LNA in front of the blue FA stick.
And the improvement was clearly noticeable.
Or simply use the Airsquitter now together with the Uputronics LNA (not saying who is doing it) 
Sometimes money is not that priority…
I definitely want to maximize my setup, but as I said in an earlier post I’m a n00b when it comes to the RF stuff. I’m a longtime IT nerd but wifi is what it is so dipoles and ohms and all that aren’t a new thing to me (I still have a TV antenna), but I definitely don’t have a lot of experience with it.
I’ll probably invest in getting a LNA at some point. In the meantime I’m learning how to manually adjust my gain.
Another good starting point is checking your theoretical max. range.
For this you can use the site heywhatsthat.com
with the function “up in the air” there you can determine your max range based on the flight level.
When you compare this then to your current range, you can get an idea wether it can be optimized further or not.
@wiedehopf is offering on his git hub page an alternative to dump1090-fa. Together with the also available map you can have both (actual range, theoretical range) on one map.
Available here:
An alternative option to get a range map is feeding Planefinder.
The client comes also with a map giving you the range as well. But the max range you can get is not on this map.
Looks like this (screenshot of my setup):
With my current location, the LNA helped with the message count - and the number of weaker signals being decoded with positions. My range hasn’t changed drastically, I would say by 5 miles which I wasn’t expecting anyway. It really depends on the location, but certainly it will at least improve your positions reported which is to be expected as it helps with the weaker signals which might be of a high amount.
Comparing my current stats to the old setup, I’ve noted:
- Higher message count.
- More positions towards the North, this was the main area of weaker signals. As my antenna is raised enough so it clears the roof, but I have a line of trees which doesn’t help. Another issue is I have a line of houses which elevate per house from my antenna which really decreases my performance in the East, as I only pick up positions at high altitudes from 150 miles with stronger signals from 100 miles.
Think the main decision which has been touched on is what do you want from this hobby, nice range and the max performance. Or the best peformance for the location, as some people compare other peoples range which isn’t possible in most cases. Right now, I’ve reached the max I can achieve without changing locations - as I live in a very hilly area which I can’t help at all. But even with completely different stats from for example @keithma (who I’ve learnt a lot from), I still get the satisfaction when my peak stats increase and I successfully improve upon my setup. And that’s the most important factor of this hobby, enjoyment.
If you want specific tips … consider just starting a new thread with as much detail about your setup as possible.
There is a pretty long discussion about premium components in this thread: Building a new receiver, this is going in a prime location - Suggestions for receiver/preamp/filter please
But checking the terrain limits against heywhatsthat is useful to get an idea of what’s possible.
A good description is: ADS-B is line of sight but you can see through clouds
This can be pretty useful:
https://github.com/wiedehopf/tar1090#heywhatsthatcom-range-outline
My upgrade is that the tree leaves fell off…
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Looks like I’m already getting most of my range based on 30,000ft using this tool. I’m picking up aircraft out to the limit to the North, West, and Southwest.
I don’t get quite to the limit of the South and East, but that probably has to do with obstructions. My antenna is currently just below my roofline. I have the capacity to raise it about 8 feet. I’ll probably do that in the Spring.
Maybe, maybe not. I tend to not hit my maximum range straight to the west of my position - but it’s mostly because there don’t tend to be a lot of planes there. I am near Portland, OR, and my theoretical range goes 100+ miles out into the Pacific Ocean. I catch flights between Hawaii and SEA/PDX, but for the most part the only planes cruising around off of the coast are test flights of the 777 from Boeing. Everything running north/south in my area tends to do it over land, except for the occasional great circle flight from Asia to LAX or SFO.
Point being, sometimes you don’t see planes because there aren’t any planes there to see. It’s a good idea to verify your results with other feeders in your area, and with main FlightAware and FR24 pages to be certain that you aren’t spending money on upgrades to capture flights that aren’t there.
I can compare my Sky Aware to the live Flight Aware map and see that I’m not picking up flights over Eastern Missouri. It’s been a hole since I set up this site. I’m picking up 2 flights over by Jeff City and Columbia, yet Flight Aware live aircraft tracking shows about two dozen planes between Columbia and that 30,000-foot limit. Ditto for traffic northeast of Tulsa: 6 planes in the limit, zero hits.
I admit that there are probably several other factors and being a n00b I probably won’t figure them out for a while, but I suspect my antenna height being below my roof is having something of an impact.
That’s cool, I was just suggesting not chasing shadows unless you know something is there. Clearly you do.
My next upgrade would be removing the black forest in Germany…
That might be a little bit more challenging
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Please don’t do that, there will be no more gateaux 
Interestingly, around 20 minutes ago my local HLE (DAAT) just landed at around 500m from myself, with a 400ft pass beforehand. This didn’t overload the LNA, with my stats staying the same which is a good sign. However I’m tempted to get another 1090mhz antenna, which will be used primarily for short range reception as I’m located near a local general aviation grass strip what gets used quite a bit in the summer. Another positive is it seems that today might be a record breaking day for my stats, as I have already reached 500 aircrafts which I would only ever get at roughly midday.
OK, valid point.
I am going to cancel that project now.
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In this case you will need a chainsaw. Not sure if you can find it in the Flightaware online store.
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Hello all,
Been a while since I posted, currently my ADS-B station is working perfectly without issues since December when I installed it - just got a brand new carbon fibre pole at a length of 15 feet (what would double the height at the moment what my receiver is currently at) and wondering if anyone could recommend what coax I could use for the run down to the receiver.
My setup is as follows: antenna > 3D-FB small coax run to LNA > 3D-FB into the FA pro stick and into the Pi 4. Remember being recommend hyperflex 10 before, but not sure if it would be worth it for this instillation or some LMR-400 or anything else? Cheers.