Announcing the Pro Stick Plus!

FlightAware ADS-B Flight Tracking
141

[quote=“abcd567”]

Nope - nothing special, only nearby RF sources are
Wifi router & VAP11N wifi bridge (on this Pi2)
Homeplugs
ZigBee (for wireless central heating controller)

No nearby industry
No nearby visible antennas (surprised that no-one has asked about the one I use for ADSB)

This is PiAware 3.1 SD card image running on Pi2 with Planefinder feeder (and FR24 feeder running 2-4am).

No PiAware parameters have been tweaked - Its running on AGC setings.

Installed ProStick+ about 12 noon yesterday, replacing ProStick

http://i68.tinypic.com/11aux6o.gif

Range rings are 25nm - outer ring 225nm
http://i63.tinypic.com/2mwhwye.gif

142

Hi PeterHR,

Have you tried the FA filter in your line before you tried the Prostick Plus?

I have the Prostick and tried the FA filter but lost a lot of counts and distance. I also tried my own filter (remember I bought 4 from you about 18 months ago?) with similar results.

I live in a very rural location with no visible masts etc. I didn’t think the Prostick Plus would be any good in my location.

Perhaps I should give one a go 8)

143

You obviously missed the part where they admitted they placed the “new” filter component behind the AMP. So there’s really no filter in place here. The AMP is likely amplifying the RF. The filter really doesn’t matter at this point. If you’ve already received crap, then you’re not likely going to remove 100% of it. So it’ll still taste like crap.

Simply hook up both units to SDR# and check out their performance. I used my same ADS-B antenna chain – and the only difference was adding the filter or not.

I also used ADSB# to compare performance between the two and there was only a very small performance benefit from the Blue stick.

One thing I did notice, despite the 0.5 PPM setting, is that the Yellow version seems to still require an high PPM value. For me, it was 90 PPM and the Blue stick only 15 PPM. That’s probably the real change here – as a lot of people were saying “not to worry about the PPM” measurement." :unamused:

144

If you look at my stats for before the prostick+, my local traffic on the first bar was much lower than the second bar - now it’s much higher. I think I was saturating the r820t component.

The plus is also bringing in more from further away.

On the filters we did a group buy on, I tried one in the R820t2 pigtail, at the time there was a satellite LNB amp up the mast, the filter made little difference then. Didn’t do much more with them due to age related eyesight issues (couldn’t see the solder pads well enough to solder to them)

When flight levels get back to normal after the holidays, I’ll switch back to the pro stick and compare dump1090 cpu utilisation- I suspect with the plus stick it could be lower though having less carp to eliminate.

(I don’t have a separate FA filter - trying to justify a new synology ds216j and a couple of disks is a higher priority)

145

The Pro stick + just arrived. So I installed it immediately. The first results are not bad. No manual gain adjust, just the standard settings.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161228/b191a0279b309baf1a48a191cc2205e5.jpg

Setup:
RPi3 with Piaware 3.1.0
Pro Stick plus
2meters of Coax feed (Aircell 7)
FA antenna (installed outside at 10m AGL)

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161228/4036779af72cceb44653d36b3758fd2e.jpg

146

On Amazon DE an CO.UK the Pro Stick Plus is sold out,
any idea when it will be available again?
I was to late with my order :frowning:

147

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we continue to have challenges with stocking Amazon in the EU. However, I should have an update in a few weeks on further availability in Europe. We are committed to making our products available in the EU.

148

Pro stick Plus working fine

http://80.101.228.205/show/radar/prostickplus.png

http://80.101.228.205/show/radar/prostickplus1.png

149

Ordered the last one from Amazon Europe lucky

150

Sold out by now, and no information about when they are in stock again. For users within the EU it would be nice, if we could get a notification when the stick is available in an online store within the EU - instead of the specific country where you live (will require that the online store will ship to the countries within the EU).

Regards
Brian

151

I live in an extremely high RF noise environment. Is the Official Flight Aware Recommendation™ to use the Prostick Plus + the external filter in those situations? Depending the answer I guess my FA filter might not go to waste… :laughing:

On a separate note, looks like the Prostick Plus is sold out on Amazon in the US till next week. Can’t wait to get one and test.

152

My recommendation is to try both configurations and see which one works better.

153

I’m likely going to work off a clean 3.1 install. How do I go about testing various configs, configuring gain, etc. without the mutability/jprochazka performance graphs?

154

The slow version is to make a change and check your stats page.

155

My (repeated) recommendation – figuring out what helps/hurts is difficult as traffic changes day by day. Because traffic changes day to day, you need a reference to compare to, a reference with performance that also changes with those daily traffic changes.

(1) On your stats page, look at Nearby ADS-B Sites. Pick one close to you that has similar numbers and has been around for a while. This is going to be your reference.
(2) record your numbers and that site’s numbers daily to see how they track. The idea is to find a site that tracks your numbers, not in values necessarily, but in the daily ups and downs. I record things at around 0030Z, or when I get home.
(3) when it looks like you’ve got a good reference, start making changes! Make a change (I tend to make changes late at night when traffic counts are low, but still there so I can be sure I didn’t completely bork things). Record your numbers for a few days to get an idea what that change does.
(4) repeat – make a change, watch the numbers, and learn.
(5) tell us what works and what doesn’t!

Fireside story on performance monitoring–

Once upon a time, many, many moons (decades!) ago, I worked in the mainframe computer racket doing system software – process scheduling, I/O management, file systems, that kind of thing. Our system (CP-V running on SDS Sigma 5/6/7/9 systems) also had a lot of built-in performance monitoring and tuning features. This was in the days when the OS was written in assembly code and computers remembered using little donuts made of rust – before the days of modern DRAM.

Occasionally we’d get really enthusiastic (nay, rabid) system folks at customer sites who tried to tune the last little bit of performance out of their systems and would come to us (and me) with wild performance claims and questions.

If they indeed sounded a bit unhinged, we asked them to perform their set of tests varying a particular parameter, SL:BB, and let us know what effect this parameter had on performance. What value of SL:BB gives the best performance? The worst? Run your performance tests varying SL:BB and get back to us.

The correct response was that SL:BB doesn’t do jack for performance. We’d planned to do things with that parameter, and the ability to change it and report it was built into the performance tools, but down in the guts of the operating system, it wasn’t connected to anything.

Yet we had folks who were adamant that a particular value of SL:BB tanked performance, or really improved performance, or that performance was all over the map as they changed SL:BB…

It was a most valuable tool…

End of fireside story.

bob k6rtm

156

Did I get a bad Pro Stick Plus hardware wise?

Compared with my non-TCXO v1.0 Pro Stick + FA Filter, I’m getting about 5% less messages and 10-15% less positions across a variety of gain levels compared with the Pro Stick Plus + FA Filter. When I use just the Pro Stick Plus without the FA Filter, I get almost nothing in:

Pro Stick Plus + FA Filter:


test 1 of 10
gain= 49.6 messages= 2277 positions= 278 planes= 32
gain= 48.0 messages= 2329 positions= 284 planes= 33
gain= 44.5 messages= 2242 positions= 265 planes= 32
gain= 42.1 messages= 2331 positions= 280 planes= 31
gain= 40.2 messages= 2382 positions= 290 planes= 34
gain= 38.6 messages= 2422 positions= 284 planes= 33
gain= 36.4 messages= 2389 positions= 287 planes= 35

Pro Stick Plus directly to the antenna:


test 1 of 10
gain= 49.6 messages= 257 positions= 24 planes= 7
gain= 48.0 messages= 288 positions= 25 planes= 8
gain= 44.5 messages= 276 positions= 20 planes= 7
gain= 42.1 messages= 275 positions= 30 planes= 6
gain= 40.2 messages= 387 positions= 32 planes= 7
gain= 38.6 messages= 250 positions= 13 planes= 7
gain= 36.4 messages= 266 positions= 17 planes= 6

With the official language being:

Do I still need an external filter if I use a Pro Stick Plus?
Generally the answer is no. However, our testing has shown that in rare situations involving high RF environments (with a high noise floor) the external filter may still be beneficial due to strong interference. Unfortunately there is no easy way to predict in advance the exact performance of a Pro Stick, Pro Stick Plus and/or external filter in your particular environment.

Is there something with the filter in my Pro Stick Plus? In my case it seems like the external FA filter is a requirement vs. a nice to have which goes against the messaging from FA on the product?

157

Your methodology is correct when you’re trying to dial in something perfectly. But of course to set up this type of experiment with a good control is hard in the real world where local geography and various antenna setups makes it next to impossible to find an apples to apples comparison. For example the closest receiver to me is less than half a mile away, but because of geography and elevation, sees drastically different traffic patterns than I do.

My point more for the FlightAware folks is that the UI in the feeder site is nice quick summary when I check in on stuff, but adds very little value when trying to fine tune, or even rough tune a station. Without using the collectd performance graphs, it’s very difficult (and takes many, many days) to even dial in the rough ballpark for gain, antenna placement, etc. I’m just surprised FA hasn’t officially supported some of that functionality as an optional setup in their image/package.

Speaking of experiments and methodology, I can have results in < 1 hour, and with such a short time frame, in my mind it actually provides better apples to apples results when making adjustments.

158

I’m pleased to announce the availability of FlightAware products in the Chinese domestic market. All four products – Pro Stick, Pro Stick Plus, 1090 MHz antenna and 1090 MHz filter – are now available via MyHamPlace on taobao.com. Shipping is also available to other international locations from this vendor.

Pro Stick Plus: item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=544336874703
Pro Stick: item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=544354567064
Antenna: item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=544328757035
Filter: item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=544355119151

FlightAware is continuing to work to expand international distribution in 2017 and I expect to have more announcements soon.

159

:slight_smile:

Reminds me of changing switches at branch offices a lot of years ago… 100Mbit/s instead of 10Mbit/s… Most of the people said that there is a remarkable speed difference… We never told them that the 256kbit/s WAN-Link never changed. :slight_smile:

The same effect some years ago at changing from 100Mbit/s to Gigabitswitches. :slight_smile:

Because the tiny little box at the bottom of the screen says it is faster, it have to bei faster…

Imagination can change the world and sometimes physics. :slight_smile:

160

3 days ago I installed the FA filter in front of my blue ProStickPlus - my stats went down, so I removed the filter the following day.

At 16:00 today, I swapped the ProStickPlus for the cylindrical filter and the older orange ProStick - stats seem slightly higher that with the ProStickPlus

I’ll do some range plots next week to compare

Just curious,

Whats the possibility of getting the FA filter tweaked for 978Mhz (UAT) instead of 1090Mhz (Mode S) - possibly with a different color body?
This could then be used with a Orange ProStick for a UAT reciever