FlightAware is pleased to announce the availability of a 978 MHz antenna designed for receiving UAT978 signals. This antenna is a similar design to our very popular 1090 MHz antenna and is offered at a similar price point. We think it offers a great value to enthusiasts that wish to experiment with UAT reception. We are offering a limited quantity of these antennas via Amazon USA to hobbyists that have built or are interested in building sites that use the “dump978” software to track aircraft that use that alternative ADS-B technology in the USA. Also remember that our bandpass filter can be used with this antenna as it is designed to pass both 978 MHz and 1090 MHz signals. Please note that this is not a dual-band antenna design and is specifically for use on 978 MHz only. You will want to use a separate receiver such as the original (Orange) Pro Stick USB RTL-SDR device to receive 978 MHz. The Pro Stick Plus is not compatible with UAT 978 reception. This is a limited quantity offering while we assess the level of interest in 978UAT among the hobbyist community. We will evaluate increasing future supply of this product based on the level of interest.
Tech specs:
Frequency: 978 MHz
Impedance: 50 Ohms
VSWR < 1.5
Gain: 6 dBi
Polarization: Vertical
Radiation: Omni
Height: 620 mm
Termination: N Female
Radome Material: Fiberglass
Radome Color: White
Just ordered the new 978 + 1090 band filters. I have been feeding UAT and ADS-B on the same Raspberry Pi for over 2 years now using no filters and just a general antenna for UAT and using the Flightaware 1090 MHz antenna. I would love to get a dedicated UAT antenna so, I don’t have to use one of my antennas that is tuned for such a broad range of frequencies. Please sell some UAT antennas soon!
This is great! And I presume I can run it on the same RaspPi, just have to configure dump978 to make it work. Perfect, I’ll get both antennas and when we side the house this spring, mount both of them near the roof peak and run cable. Love it. Thanks folks!
Will the airplanes picked up by dump978 show up in Piaware SkyView and be transmitted to FlightAware? Will they be added to the counts of airplanes reported on my FlightAware page?
UAT978 is not generally for airlines. It can only be used below FL180 (18,000 ft).
It is generally for General aviation aircraft.
It was meant to be cheaper than ADS-B 1090, reduce congestion on the 1090 Mhz band (I get 6,000 packets per second in NYC on 1090 Mhz), and allowed the FAA to provide weather, FIS-B and other services (1090 Mhz cannot).
i also look forward to a piaware/dump plug and play at 978MHz (just like the SD version that we have now for 1090). i will purchase antenna as soon as FA releases a stable SD version (or equivalent). also, if it can be “mixed” with 1090 data in Sky View it would be great. take your time so we can have a good solution for post 2020.
I see on github that an integrated version of dump978 is in development.
I would also like to see other dongles supported, like the airspy, however, I understand that UAT is only used in the U.S.A., so demand may not be high enough to justify the work.
I just purchased the 978 antenna and it will be going up on the mast soon. I’ll gladly help if you need any users to run alpha/beta versions of any 978 software for piaware.
