I am trying to set up a Piaware receiver at work located in downtown Chicago. I currently have a pro plus stick with a NooElec 1080 Mhz antenna attached. This performs okay, but is definitely lacking compared to my home setup. Today, I tried upgrading the NooElec antenna to the FlightAware antenna. At home (not downtown Chicago, but a more urban suburb), the performance is fantastic. However, when I try to install the FlightAware antenna at my downtown site, it receives almost nothing (significantly worse performance than the NooElec antenna).
I am guessing the FlightAware antenna is more heavy-duty and therefore picks up enough interference such that it becomes blind to the ADS-B signals, but I could be wrong since I don’t have a top-notch understanding on how antennas work. I am not otherwise sure why the NooElec antenna would outperform the FlightAware antenna.
I’ve read that there are rare cases where the Pro Plus stick needs the additional external filter. Could this possibly be one of those rare cases? Any other advice? Getting my workplace to approve hanging it outdoors on the roof will be difficult.
This has to do with the built-in amplifier. The amplifier will amplify ANY signal but this usually doesn’t have any effect on the ADS-B signal. If too much out of band signal (usually cellphone towers) goes into the receiver it will swamp the receiver and cause clipping. This means no signal can get through to the receiver.
This is like going to a concert and trying to talk to someone next to you. It can be hard to hear the person next to you but it is still possible to hear them.
The prostick is like going to a concert and having the signal amplified and then trying to talk to someone next to you.
The external filter is designed to remove 99.99% of the signal strength of none ADSB signals. Essential it mutes everything else that isn’t ADSB.
I live close to downtown Fort Lauderdale and 1.5 miles from FLL. I was having all kinds of problems using a blue FA Pro Stick Plus. I thought I didn’t need an external filter since the Pro Stick Plus includes a filter. A fellow FA member gave me his old FA filter and it solved my problems. Pick up one of the FA external filters and your problem will most likely be solved.
I live in an Urban area with lot of Cell phone antennas around and above my building, and I had to add external filter with Blue ProStick Plus to make it work.
Great! Congratulations.
Now try reducing gain in steps of 2 or 3.
At each step, observe for a while your message rate / number of aircrafts, to find out where you get best results. For example, you may use gain values 49, 45, 42, 38, 34, 32, 28 etc etc.
(above is just an example. You can use any other set of values between 50 and 20).
Instead of above manual method to find best gain value, you can use gain optimization script given in thread Gain Adjustment…
