RG-58X is NOT suitable for VHF/UHF ops.
150MHZ @100 ft = 2.8dB of loss
450MHZ @100 ft = 4.9dB of loss.
Right so I got my VNA today, calibrated with the open,short & load on the set frequency range and connected it up to all 3 antennas. Now the calibration was done with no cable attached to the VNA but the screen shots include around 7.5m of LMR200 on the yagi and adsb and 9m of CT100 for the flowerpot.
162Mhz DIY flowerpot (158-164mhz)
162Mhz Yagi (retuned from 2m band) 158-164mhz)
1090Mhz ADSB antenna bought from PIHut (dont know if the freqrange is right on VNA)
I will be honest with you, I have no idea if any of this is good or bad.
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Neither do I 
That is why I have not yet purchased any VNA like yours, although these are affordably priced.
What really is needed is a gain, radiation-pattern, and efficiency mesuring equipment like anechoic chamber, but these cost hundreds of thousand of dollars.
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Yeah, and that’s why antenna patterns for these consumer grade antennas (whether 162 MHz or 1090 MHz) have probably never been actually measured in an anechoic chamber. Pretty sure the stated gain and patterns are theoretical only.
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I have a question, Is it possible to send data say from aiscatcher installed on my mates PI who lives by the sea, to my pi running aiscatcher so will both be on totally different networks 50miles apart, so we can see the combined area coverage. I know you can do it via vesselfinder using the same port on the -u, but I dont want to do it that way as I want to be able to see it on the AIS catcher webserver page as combined.
I think @ngtrthanh can help/guide you, as he is collecting and combining ais data from various locations world-wide.
The IP address of your system needs to be available on your mates PI. He can forward NMEA lines to your system:
AIS-catcher -u ip-address 6010
On your system you can listen as an extra receiver:
AIS-catcher -x ip-address 6010 ....
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Can I use any port and does it need allowing in the router firewall
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any port that is free… you need to indeed set up port forwarding. an alternative might be to use something like zerotier which is what I am using but not a great expert in this networking space
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Well I have tried using zerotier and it just crashes on the recieving pi and fails to load. I also tried over home network with same result, it sees an additional vendor on the webinterface and p9551 (port used) but then crashes @ngtrthanh can you help on this, I dont even know if its possible PI AISCatcher->PI AIS Catcher, I know you have your set up but dont know how that runs.
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Hello
My setup like this
You should write down ip of
Sender pi say 100.200.300.400
Receiver say 100.201.302.403 port 4444
On sender setting -u 100.201.302.403 4444
On receiver setting
ports
- 4444:4444/udp
command
-x 0.0.0.0 4444
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I use Tailscale, not Zerotier but may be similar
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Thank you, I don’t get the ports part, do I need to put 4444:4444/udp into a config file somewhere
So if I set it up like this on my home network to test would it be right
Sending -u 192.168.0.231 9551
Receiver pi -x 192.168.0.231 9551
Or does receiver need to be -x 0.0.0.0 9551
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Receiver need to be
-x 0.0.0.0 9551
ports
- 9551:9551/udp
Here is my receiver compose
version: "3.7"
services:
ais-infra:
container_name: ais-infra
image: ghcr.io/jvde-github/ais-catcher:edge
restart: always
ports:
- 8200:8100
- 4200:4200/udp
- 4001:4001/udp
- 4002:4002/udp
- 4003:4003/udp
- 4004:4004/udp
volumes:
- ./stats:/data:rw
- ./plugins:/home/plugins/:ro
command: >
-N 8100 SERVER_MODE on FILE /data/stats.bin BACKUP 5 ABOUT /data/about.md LAT ${ST_LAT} LON ${ST_LON} STATION ${ST_NAME} STATION_LINK ${ST_LINK} PLUGIN_DIR /home/plugins PROME on MESSAGE on
-x 0.0.0.0 4200 -o 1 -q -v 10
-x 0.0.0.0 4001 -o 1 -q -v 10
-x 0.0.0.0 4002 -o 1 -q -v 10
-x 0.0.0.0 4003 -o 1 -q -v 10
-x 0.0.0.0 4004 -o 1 -q -v 10
networks:
default:
name: aisring
external: true
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and sender’s compose
version: "3.9"
services:
ais-catcher:
container_name: ais-catcher
device_cgroup_rules:
- 'c 189:* rwm'
image: ghcr.io/jvde-github/ais-catcher:edge
restart: always
ports:
- 8200:8100
volumes:
- ./stats:/data:rw
- ./plugins:/home/plugins/:ro
- /dev:/dev:ro
command: >
-d 00000162 -c AB -v 10 -M DT -o 1 -s 2048K -a 96K -gr tuner auto rtlagc on -p -1
-N 8100 FILE /data/stats.bin BACKUP 5 PLUGIN_DIR /home/plugins LAT ${ST_LAT} LON ${ST_LON} STATION ${ST_NAME} STATION_LINK ${ST_LINK} PLUGIN_DIR /home/plugins PROME on
-u 100.200.44.153 4001 JSON on
where ‘100.200.44.153’ is IP of receiver
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OK will give it a bash later today, I’m not using containers so don’t think I will need the 9551:9551/udp part
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Suggest to use docker containers
You will be much surprised from it’s benefits.
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Got it working through zerotier on the same home network, just need to try with one on home and one on mobile data to simulate the final setup.
I have never used containers so wouldn’t know where to start to be honest.
But thanks for the help on port configs
2 Likes
Glad to know it works.
You can start with docker from here
And I am happy to assist.