Can rtl_adsb Feed Data to Flight Aware and Other Sites?

FlightAware ADS-B Flight Tracking
1

Example Streaming

Streaming with socat:
        rtl_adsb | socat -u - TCP4:sdrsharp.com:47806

 

Streaming details (see last few lines)

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt install rtl-sdr

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ rtl_adsb --help
rtl_adsb: invalid option -- '-'
rtl_adsb, a simple ADS-B decoder

Use:    rtl_adsb [-R] [-g gain] [-p ppm] [output file]
        [-d device_index (default: 0)]
        [-V verbove output (default: off)]
        [-S show short frames (default: off)]
        [-Q quality (0: no sanity checks, 0.5: half bit, 1: one bit (default), 2: two bits)]
        [-e allowed_errors (default: 5)]
        [-g tuner_gain (default: automatic)]
        [-p ppm_error (default: 0)]
        [-T enable bias-T on GPIO PIN 0 (works for rtl-sdr.com v3 dongles)]
        filename (a '-' dumps samples to stdout)
         (omitting the filename also uses stdout)

Streaming with netcat:
        rtl_adsb | netcat -lp 8080
        while true; do rtl_adsb | nc -lp 8080; done
Streaming with socat:
        rtl_adsb | socat -u - TCP4:sdrsharp.com:47806

 

Direct display of decoded signal

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt install rtl-sdr 
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo systemctl stop piaware dump1090-fa

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ rtl_adsb
Found 1 device(s):
  0:  Realtek, RTL2832U, SN: 00000101

Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U
Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Tuner gain set to automatic.
Tuned to 1090000000 Hz.
Exact sample rate is: 2000000.052982 Hz
Sampling at 2000000 S/s.
Allocating 12 zero-copy buffers
*de12e7146d59403fe110003802d5;
*992ce5df5aa1086f42cc3630643a;
*8d4951745895c53f5c139b0cc045;
*8da0f86b58a703a6572194899245;
*8dab680f590bf416799da50b07c6;
*8da4655f990a2507784814d1c4ae;
^CSignal caught, exiting!

User cancel, exiting...
pi@raspberrypi:~ $
2

Directly? No; it doesn’t do a networked feed (so you need socat, as you found) and it uses the AVR format (so you need to convert from AVR to Beast).

But there’s not really any point in using rtl_adsb over over decoders that use librtlsdr, it’s not much more than a “proof of concept” decoder.

1 Like
3

@obj
Thanks Oliver for clarification.