How do I know if I need gain adjustment or a pre-amp?

[foxhunter]

Did you see this thread?

Thoughts on optimizing gain

The topic of gain comes up often enough and unlike some i don’t like the gain optimization script. Aircraft fading in and out of view make short term number gathering not that useful. The metric i like most for optimizing gain is the percentage of what dump1090 calls “strong_signals”. Those “strong_signals” are messages that get close to getting clipped. If you don’t care about some background you can scroll down to the next post for the HOWTO This is a clipped signal, the wa…