Hi everyone –
I’ve put together two simple macOS-friendly bash scripts to help quickly check the health of RTL-SDR dongles and antennas, specifically for 1090 MHz ADS-B work.
These scripts let you:
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Confirm your Mac can see the dongle -
Run rtl_test quickly (ignore the “PLL not locked” warning if shown)
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Capture and count ADS-B messages (quick pass/fail check)
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Measure RF power levels around 1090 MHz (useful for comparing antennas)
I built these because I needed to test multiple dongles and antennas rapidly, and I wanted repeatable results without installing full dump1090/readsb on macOS.
Installation (Terminal)
Copy/paste the following into Terminal:
curl -fsSL “https://gist.githubusercontent.com/timothyo/9009b7e9b4e72b65aaecfe7424122d30/raw/dongle-health.sh” -o ~/dongle-health.sh && chmod +x ~/dongle-health.sh
curl -fsSL “https://gist.githubusercontent.com/timothyo/9009b7e9b4e72b65aaecfe7424122d30/raw/antenna-test.sh” -o ~/antenna-test.sh && chmod +x ~/antenna-test.sh
Usage
Run these in Terminal:
~/dongle-health.sh
~/antenna-test.sh
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Run dongle-health.sh first – confirms dongle is detected and can receive messages.
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Then run antenna-test.sh to measure RF power and compare antennas.
Each script gives you clear pass/fail feedback and sample data.
Full scripts, install guide, and code are here:
You can find it on Github. (sorry the community are only allowed 2 links) /timothyo/9009b7e9b4e72b65aaecfe7424122d30
Maintainer: Timothy O’Neil-Dunne – email in the github
I am not technical but made this work courtesy of a good friend and ChatGPT. It helped me to test a number of dongles and antenna which I am using.
Feedback and contributions welcome! If you improve or expand the scripts, please share back so we can keep this useful for the community.