I think I must be largely unfortunate for where I am situated in the N.E of the UK seen as if you’re not aware it’s probably one of the most un-even surfaced places of the UK. With that being said I’ve noticed that I’ve highlighted Hull with green as for some strange reason I can see as far as Hull in one direction and recently today I’ve seen Glasgow which I’ve never reached before? I haven’t made any differences and it’s suddenly appeared. Anyway any-way to improve this would be great. Unfortunately I can’t put the antenna on the roof else I would be able to reach Manchester - Which I’ve tested before with another antenna/pi on the opposite side of the house. I’ve highlighted a red cone where I know I won’t get any direction availability.
To improve things I made a decent antenna (8 legged ground plane, cantenna was also decent and easy to make), put it in the attic, used decent cable and added an amplifier.
I know I can get much more improvement outside but for the moment I’m quite happy with my coverage.
Hmm I could go for the attic move however I wouldn’t be keen wiring electrical plugs in there, so I haven’t really got a good way of getting something up there as the hatch is in another bedroom haha.
I have a J-Pole style Antenna but it’s around 25cm tall. I had to remove/not have a ground plane as it wouldn’t fit where I needed to put it so that’s probably impacted it a lot.
What cable/amplifier do you have as I’d be keen to try an amplifier however I have only got BNC connectors, I tried using BNC to N connector to ribbon so I could get the antenna out my window but it decreased the amount by about 200-300planes a day?
It seems mine also picks up planes as far away as Norwich in one direction but won’t in the others for some strange reason.
I could be cheeky and use my family’s house in Leeds to increase signal down there but I’d rather find a way to improve it without having to have two.
Offtopic: I see you have Version 1.15? Yet I only have 1.14 ;(
I am using dump1090-mutability and I’ve built it from source so that’s the reason for v1.15-dev.
I imagine using no adapters would be better but I bought a few bits from CPC to get the connectors I needed.
My ground plane antenna is made from a BNC chassis mount socket, so I’ve got a few BNC to F-Type and RF (Belling-Lee) to get the right connectors.
For the amplifier I’m using a spare inline slope amplifier located at the antenna end, but I’ll probably get a standard inline amplifier to replace it because this one won’t fit in the piping I’ve got for when I finally mount it all outside.
From the cabling side of things I was lucky to already have decent coax running from the room with the RPi to the attic for TV, but it was unused so I’ve repurposed it for this.
Ah makes sense, was wondering why I was on 1.14 Dump-Mutability.
I’ve taken the adapters off so I’ll just have to suffer with the cable being jammed into the window and hope that it continues to work and doesn’t get crushed beyond working.
I’m slightly unsure with amps as I believe you also need external power for these? I’d be unsure as to how to get it to work with extra power and although I have a soldering iron if required I wouldn’t say I’d trust myself greatly to use it. I understand how it works, especially on the 2nd image and can get the jist of how to wire it although I have no real understanding of antennas and circuits to do this, I do have basic understanding but nothing advanced enough to tell what was wrong if it didn’t work. I presume a ground-plane antenna is greater than one that has no ground plane whatsoever? I don’t believe mine has one at all.
The only possible way I could think to use this would have probably been to go through into the roof where my old water tank pipes went although these are now filled in I think, as it’s not my house I don’t think they’d be keen with me doing so. The only other real option would be to plug the pi in the room with the hatch and run a really long usb extender into the attic to attach an antenna to a beam. However the current antenna I don’t believe would be too great and your suggested antenna looks hopeful for this but it’s a risk as I don’t have an understanding for antennas haha.
I do currently have mine on a window-sil at a slight angle of maybe 85 degrees instead of directly up facing towards the sky which gives alright? coverage. It wobbles in the wind but I’ve attached it there with string.
