I live within 100 nautical miles of Atlanta Hartsfield Airport. When I look at the map from my feed data, I see a few planes around Atlanta but don’t see the swarm of flights that I can see on the main FlightAware web site. Should I expect to see those? I am thinking I should and am not sure why I don’t.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
(A) Your location
Determine what maximum distance you can reach from your location by following the instructions given in FIRST POST of this thread:
What is the Maximum Range I can Get?
(B) Your hardware (Please post following details)
(1) Antenna type
(2) Antenna location (indoor/outdoor on roof or tower)
(3) Length and type of Coax cable from antenna to receiver
(4) Type of Receiver (DVB-T/ProStick/ProStick +/Flightaware FlightFeeder etc)
Thank you for the response!
My setup is as follows:
As for Atlanta, I do see a few planes around Atlanta on all sides of the city but I do not see the steady streamof arrivals and departures that are ongoing.
So, based on that coverage map, the Atlanta arrivals and departures are too low for my receiver to “see” them. That is a neat tool!
Yes, heywhatsthat provides a very handy tool. One can easily know what he can get.
Due to line-of-sight nature of microwaves, and curvature of earth, the topography around antenna location is an important factor determining maximum range.
Raising your antenna may help. You can re-plot heywhatsthat curves using antenna heights 30 ft and 35 ft (instead of your existing 25 ft) to see how much benefit you will get by raising your antenna
If I recall correctly, RG58 has an attenuation of about 21 dB / 100 ft at 1000 Mhz. For 50 ft length you have, the attenuation in coax is about 10.5 dB. As the Flightaware ProStick has an 18 dB integral RF pre-amplifier, this 10.5 dB attenuation will be easily covered by it.
Another factor which can affect reception is presence of strong Cell phone signals, which can overload/saturate front-end of the receiver (ProStick). Adding a filter may resolve this issue.
Do you have Cell phone towers or building-top antennas in vicinity?
I live in Toronto urban area with lot of Cell phone antennas around. Below is the RF scan at my location.
That’s correct, I am in the same situation with Washington DC (100nm). Too “far” to see the planes heading for landing or taking off, I can see only the ones passing above, at at least 12,000 ft.
