Installing "Active Diapason" Antenna from Jetvision

I just got the antenna in the subject ith no manual included. The box contains the antenna, a cable and a “bias tee” with a micro usb cable. The manuals can not be downloaded tom jetvission and they do not answer emails.
Can anyone help med with installation and also explan what “Bias Tee (for power supply of the LNA over USB-jack of a Computer)” means?
I dont know what LNA is and i do not know what a Bias tee is.
Maybe someone has been able to download the manual?

The Active Diapason antenna has an amplifier (LNA = low noise amplifier) built in to it. This needs electrical power sending to it, or it won’t do anything and the antenna won’t work.

A bias-t is a circuit that allows you to add that DC power to the antenna coax so you don’t have to run a separate cable up to the antenna. In this case, the bias-t is powered by a USB plug.

Installation will be quite simple: Connect the antenna to the coax, and the coax to the bias-t. Then connect the bias-t to the antenna input on the dongle. Plug the USB cable into a spare USB port on the pi and to the input on the bias-t.

Some dongles have a bias-t built in and don’t need to use the external one - for example the rtl-sdr.com dongle and airspy mini. It’s probably as well to just use the one supplied however.

Asked and answered Mr. Calmare i assume:
you asked the exact same question already.

Yes. If you see date and time it is exactly the same. Great explanation and getting the antenna up tomorrow :slight_smile:

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No it’s not. Maybe it was stuck in a spam filter and was only unlocked recently on this forum :slight_smile:

Good thing I don’t follow multiple fora, so I rarely ‘catch’ these things.

But it has happened to me once, quite by ‘accident’. There was this one guy that asked questions non-stop. Nothing wrong with that in principle, but I noticed that he was not getting a lot of replies after a while.

I replied once, gave him all the details, he seemed to have understood everything, and that was it. Then, I don’t remember why, I checked another site, and he had asked the same question there. Unless the ‘spam filter’ was at work in that case as well, it was way past our exchange.

I heard from other people later that it was his ‘modus operandi’, and the reason why fewer people bother to answer his question.

Things really got ‘out of hand’ when he was caught playing a ‘double game’ to get free stuff. He disappeared after that.

O, anyways it was posted the same time and the explanation was awesome!!! :slight_smile: great forum

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(1) “Active Diapason” Antenna (1090 MHz)
This antenna uses design by F5ANN (Francois)

(2) November 2014:
Antenna design posted by F5ANN (Francois) in Planefinder forum
Very small PCB active antenna 210 mm high

(3) Two years later…(November 2016):
F5ANN HAS PASSED AWAY

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F5ANN Antenna from inside:

Wow, cool. Searching online gives that picture a lot. I thought it was a joke at first :slight_smile:

@abcd567

Not sure what to take away from you post.

I have an eBay clone of that antenna on order. Should I throw it in the garbage when I receive it, as to avoid the third link?:wink:

Edit: After seeing the picture, not the one with embedded LNA.

Cant avoid the 3rd link. Sooner or later all of us will have same comment as 3rd link. :cry:

But my first read was that I could delay it by not using that antenna.:grinning:

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The photo was posted by Francois (F5ANN) himself in Planefinder Forum.

More details and pictures were available on his web site, but after his death, this site is no more available, most likely because of non-payment to the web hosting service.

Here is the diagram from jet-vision telling how to set-up the “Active Diapason Antenna”

active-diapason-antenna-setup

.

This photo shows jet-vision’s kit content

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Did I see it right, 177 Euros for this antenna?

And then the diagram shows an $8 generic no-name dongle as an optional bundle?

Weird, the top image is what I was looking for but I didnt find it. On the other hand, if I would have found it I would not have had these interesting facts.

It’s tested by jetvision :wink:

So it’s not completely generic and they are involved in quality control.
Still i’d go with the rtl-sdr as well.

Probably not too much of a difference though.

If you say so. That’ll certainly increase the price.:zipper_mouth_face:

Just a word about the Active Diapason. It’s probably the best antenna I have tested with the Airspy and broke many records with it, but your milage may vary.
The integrated preamp can be powered using the Airspy’s bias-tee just fine. I had a solar powered setup with a RPi2, Airspy R0 and the Active Diapason feeding FA 24/7 and covering a large part of Morocco. Internet was (legally) coming from a neighboring Wifi spot. As many suggested, the bias-tee of many SDR devices can provide enough current to power the preamp, including the RTL-SDR, HackRF, etc.
Shame that my setup has died and I have no longer access to the site.

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Looks like there are clones of the active one on eBay
Some even have the circuit schematic int he photos, which looks similar to the original.
Search for “Active ADS-B 1090Mhz PCB Antenna”