More gain is not necessarily better.
I moved our Flight Feeder to one of our PiAware antennas (approx. 6-8 dB gain). it has a 20 dB amplifier in the line.
Positions reported from 120 miles in dropped dramatically as compared to the stock PiAware system.
The Flight Feeder system is a proprietary locked down system and can only be modified by the Flight Aware team.
Then, I reduced the signal strength in a series of steps by inserting additional 50 foot cable runs in the line. Each 50 foot run decreases signal strength by about 3 dB (50 percent).
I had to add 200 foot of cable (12 dB) to obtain results equal to the PiAware at the <120 mile ranges and began to see losses at the longer ranges.
The decreased gain reestablished close in coverage for my airport with tracking up to the gate.
I’m estimating that I ended up with a system gain somewhere in the 8-10 dB range and will be able to eliminate the extra amplification for the Flight Feeder.
An adjacent PiAware system will continue to provide coverage at both close in and distant locations (equal or better than the Flight Feeder at both ends of the curve).