Hi folk …
Still new to this area. Can someone advise me on the pro’s and con’s of the above combination.
The FA Pro Stick Plus states it’s got a built in filter … So do I need or is there any benefit of adding a FA 1090MHz Mode S filter? 
Thanks in anticipation
nope - you don’t need a second filter. mount the pro stick plus as near as possible to your antenna and anything will be fine …
I’m very new at this but from what I’ve read that it may be beneficial for some to use and external filter with the FA Pro Stick Plus in high RF environments.
From FA site: “Most users will not need an external 1090 MHz filter, however in very high RF environments users may still benefit from an external 1090 MHz bandpass filter. Read more about setting up your FlightAware Pro Stick for optimal reception.”
Above quote found here flightaware.com/adsb/prostick/
I just got a ProStick Plus and FA antenna yesterday and when using the Prostick Plus + FA antenna I get way less planes that using the Prostick Plus + Nooelec aerial. I played with the gain settings without much success. I’ve got the FA 1090 Bandpass filter on order and hoping that this will help. I suspect the fact that there’s a cellphone transmitter 2 floors above me and another 2 about 800 meters away doesn’t help my current situation 
Hi both, thanks for your replies, always appreciated … more comments would be welcomed to get a better overall picture.
Interestingly enough with the FA 1090 Filter fitted to the FA Pro Stick + I was getting over Jersey (Channel Islands) 10 aircraft with 6 positions … then took the FA Filter out and got 16 aircraft with 13 positions 
Many thanks
John 
john your stick already has an built-in filter so the second (external) you bought is obsolete - that’s why you get the better results without.
Hi again Tom … thanks for your further comments - GREATLY appreciated 
I guess it needs to go on eBay now to recoup a few pennies.
All the best
John
perfect one thing you should try is to optimize your antenna location - some experiments on this side often bring great improvements at zero cost!
kind regards
tom
This is true in most cases, but NOT IN ALL CASES.
Locations with lot of RF noise (Cell phone & other communications signals), do require an external filter.
I live in a high rise building with lot of Cell Phone antennas on roof top of my building, as well as on roof top of many surrounding buildings. In my setup, adding an FA filter to ProStick+ (blue) did improve performance. Here is result of a test I conducted last year. Gain setting was constant throughout the test:
… and in these rare cases i’d go for a really good filter/amp instead of flightawares then obviously not sooo good stuff store.uputronics.com/index.php? … duct_id=50 availible with saw-filter too.
cheers
tom
That is a lot of $ £ € 
FlightAware should be given credit for offering equipment at very good prices, affordable to most. Their products may not be top of the line, but are no doubt good quality, much better than products offered by others in similar price brackets.
I am waiting for FlightAware to bring in a new model of ProStick Plus, in which:
(1) Cheaper solution (1 SAW filter chip): Integral SAW filter is relocated from its current position (between Amp and Tuner chips) to between Antenna connector and Amp chip.
OR
(2) Slightly costlier solution (2 SAW Filter chips): Retaining integral SAW filter at its current location, add a second SAW filter chip between Antenna Terminal and Amp chip.
Am I dreaming…?
.
Has anyone used an Airspy R2/Mini or the Uputronics 1090Mhz ADS-B Filtered Preamp with PiAware? I’ll be moving from indoors to a mast and intend to install an LNA near the antenna.
Gentlemen … thank you for your informative comment 
… the learning curve is just getting steeper LOL :mrgreen:
I’d also be interested to know if anyone has tried a Uputronics 1090Mhz ADS-B filter and Preamp.
yep - have three of their amps - two standard and one saw filter
One SAW or one ceramic?
ceramic
Just to add to my previous post. I received the FlightAware ADS-B 1090MHz Band-pass today. I’m glad to say this fixed my reception issue with the Prostick Plus + FA Antenna combo.
I live in an urban area in a highrise with a few cell phone transmitters on top of my buidling. There are also many towers on surrounding buildings. When I used the Prostick Plus with FA antenna alone I was getting less planes than when using the Prostick Plus with a Nooelec whip antenna (extended 1 inch).
So I ordered and installed the Bandpass filter and I’ve doubled my reports! So to answer the thread starter, there are some cases where using the ProStick Plus and the FA Bandpass Filter is beneficial
Thanks abcd567 for your informative posts and everyone else!
I did some tidying up on my external receiver this morning and while the mast was down, I put the FA filter on my VNA to see the performance figures.
I actually swept from 1MHz to 3GHz but that’s far more than we need to know.
Insertion loss is far better than I was anticipating. It’s around 1.15 dB over the area we’re interested in.
Thnks Keith for sharing test results. Very useful.
true only for the usa - but false for the rest of the world. over here in europe this fa-filter is totally obsolete because of gsm 900 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_bands
i was always wondering why they do not clearly communicate this to customers outside the us … at least at the time when i bought mine two years ago. don’t know if today they state this behavior …
kind regards
tom
