This is my current setup joined with two SMA coupler and N-Type Male to SMA Male coupler
Any advice on improvements on this setup?
New antenna:
What type / length of coax are you using?
What cable length is between the preamp and amplified dongle?
Unless you are running the preamp at masthead and you have 100m of feeder, you’ll probably be overloading your front end and getting significantly worse performance because of it.
The same question was asked three days ago - same answer applies.
Can that antenna be purchased from the US ?
Hi Jim,
yep that antenna is shipped to the US. Craig has it and so do I ( but I’m in Europe).
It’s size allows for worldwide shipping.
First i would check the environment using heywhatsthat.
If there are obstacles in new and far distance, a new antenna is useless.
I have this here at home. My 8dB Vinnant shows exactly the performance of the 5 dB Jetvision antenna. Just because of mountains and other things in the path of sight.
So before investing, i would check that.
I don’t have coax, I’ve got my setup in a window atm
I use these to connect:
Heywhatsthat is a website where you can visualize your max range for a specific altitude. Has nothing to do with antenna connectors.
As suggested by @foxhunter, find the max range you can achieve by “heywhatsthat”.
For finding max range using “heywhatsthat”, you can use following howto. Although this howto was created 10 years ago, but it is still valid.
On my setup, i do come pretty close to what “heywhatsthat” limits show. On the 40,000 ft limit line for example, planes come pretty close. Lots of times the altitudes are about 36,000 feet so they don’t quite make it. On the other hand, I see dead zones that planes go in and out. This is probably due to mulitipath. That is, the received radio waves are constructively and destructively adding depending on reflections from nearby objects. A higher gain antenna won’t fix this either.
Pretty sure the only practical way to improve my setup is with a better SDR dongle like the AirSpy device that has more dynamic range than an RTL-SDR device that I’m using. And even that will mostly give a better positions count and not a better plane count.
After checking Heywhatsthat where you identified that you are close to the geographical max range, you can concentrate on the close by aircraft. Sometimes they disappear because of signal too strong, in this case you might consider reducing the gain until it touches the max. range aircraft.
If you aren’t close to an aircraft, that shouldn’t be required.
Dead zones are very typical on geographical obstacles. My max range here in Germany is not round, it looks more like a star you put on a tree for christmas decoration
My station is on the coast of Southern CA, so I have a good view over the ocean. Interesting thing is the dead zones are mostly over the ocean. Should be strictly earth curvature limited over ocean areas so I should see out to about 260 nm at 40,000 ft. However, I never see that far and that’s where planes go in and out of the dead zones. I’m wondering if the multipath is due to reflection off the water.