The receivers seem to be in short supply and I don’t want to build one myself. This would make a nice cottage business for someone. I am one that would be happy to pay. dand at inavgroup dot com
I hear what you are saying, but putting the receiver together is simple - what is more complex is getting it on line have a look at flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/build
Basically download the (zip of) PiAware image file
Unzip it
Copy the resulting image file to an SD card using a program called win32diskimager
pop the SD Card into the Pi, plug the dongle into the Pi and your receiver is built.
Now you need to connect up
Put your antenna that came with the dongle where it can see lots of sky.
Plug the antenna wire into the dongle (the wire is short )
plug the Pi into your internet router using a network lead of appropriate length.
Temporarily - It’s helpful to also plug the Pi into an HD TV using an HDMI cable, and plug a USB keyboard in too.
Plug your Pi into a good quality 5v power supply.
The TV should show your Pi coming on - there’s a little config work to do
type
ifconfig eth0
on the pi to see the address it got from the router (address of pi)
On a PC go to address of pi:8080 and you should see planes withing 50-75 miles.
after that register the receiver at flight aware… then you will start wanting to get more range, etc and you’ll be into improved antennas etc
STARTER
When DVB-T Dongle is purchased, a whip antenna is supplied with it. Every beginner uses this whip in his starter setup, then after the system is up and running, installs a better antenna to get better range & larger number of aircrafts.
While in starter stage of setup, and using the whip antenna, improve it’s performance by three simple steps given below:
(1) Whip is too long for 1090 MHz. Cut it to 67mm.
(2) Magnetic base provides an insufficient ground-plane. Enlarge ground-plane by placing the whip over a Metallic Can/Box/Plate. An added advantage of placing whip over an iron/steel can is that whip’s magnetic base will cling to the can and keep the whip stable & upright.
(3) Signal is weak indoors. Place whip near a window or in attic to get maximum signal.
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Once your system is up & running, you can either make & install a DIY antenna, or purchase & install a professional antenna.
For DIY antennas, see this thread:
Three Easy DIY Antennas for Beginners
For Professional antenna by Flightaware, see Amazon.com
1090MHz ADS-B Antenna - 66cm / 26in by FlightAware
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Before cutting the whip antenna pull the plastic knob off the top - re use it on the shortened antenna to hide the sharp end.
(3) Signal is weak indoors. Place whip near a window or in attic to get maximum signal.
putting the antenna on it’s base outside the window (if it opens) makes a surprising difference to the range.
Basically download the (zip of) PiAware image file
Tried just the Piaware image and it doesn’t work. I think that dump1090 in some form also needs to be installed.
Also read that dump1090 was needed somewhere on here. Unless I’m mistaken.
It does work. The image provided by Flightaware is a turn-key solution. Flash the image to the SD card and plug it in. Please state what issues you’re having, so assistance can be provided.
All the rest of the talk on here is about using different versions/modifying/etc. Only for those who know what they are doing or want to play/learn with it.
The usual problem is one of trying to copy the zip or the image file to the SD card using windows explorer … this doesn’t create a ‘bootable disk’
- it is important that a disk imaging program is used that will (for the purposes of writing the image) replace the data in areas on the SD card that are usually protected from the casual user.