Making sense of all the starting advice

You have the makings for a good system.

Our systems are the sum of many elements, Antenna, Antenna location, Cable, Receiver Dongle, Raspberry Pi, Power supply and Software configuration. Each contribute and affect how well the sum works.

Your current antenna will work, though it is not optimal for 1090 MHz. It will work better if you use a larger diameter can or box to mount the antenna, preferably larger than 6 inches / 75 mm in diameter. The metal box acts as the second half of the antenna. Round works well, but virtually any shape of good size will help.

All antennas work best when they are as high as possible. Even suspended by a string at the top of a window, or mounted on some kind of pole outside (assuming an outdoor antenna type). We all start with the antenna in the window. Bigger/longer antennas generally have more gain (receive signals stronger than basic antennas, and every 3db is a doubling of the signal level). 6db is 4 times, 10 db is 10 times. Since buildings, trees, and any solid obstruction blocks or reduces the signals, antenna height is a huge help. abcd567 works out of a tall apartment building via his window and does very well with his systems. He has some easily build and high quality antennas here in the posts. Recommended. The Vinnant antennas seem to be excellent.

Cables pass the received signals to the receiver and for 6 ft/2 meters, most cables will work. Low-loss cables are preferred to get the maximum signal to the receiver. Larger diameter coax have lower losses than small cables. Fewer connectors are better too. Try to avoid T and L connectors, as they have more loss than others (personal experience).

Your receiver and similar ones are probably used by 90% of all trackers and very effective. There is a built in amplifier and filter for 1090 MHz.

Your raspberry Pi looks like a Pi3 type to my eyes, and should work well. The associated power supply should be capable of 5 to 5.2 volts at 2.5 amps. Most of the time, it will be using around 1 amp, and 5 watts of power.

The software configuration will take some time to work out. Have not used Docker, just the Flightaware downloadable images for direct installation. Other posts in this forum have better recommendations than I can make myself.

Hope this rounds out a couple of items, you probably already know most of this already. This is a fun and intriguing hobby. We all believe in helping each other, improving and tweaking our systems. Highly recommend you install wiedehopf https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/graphs-for-dump1090-my-version-with-install-script

Have fun, gene

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Make sure the Mango slices are in natural juice, not sugar syrup. Too much sugar may overload your system. :wink:

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Thanks for your detailed response. I switched the mango slices can (for some reason exactly 75mm) to a 10 cm radius beans can. :joy:
The docker setup is so well made that I literally donā€™t need to make anything myself, only configuring the compose file. I thought I would need to make this exact setup by myself, I would have dockerized everything if it hadnā€™t already been done. Also Iā€™m already running graph1090, it was part of the ultrafeeder setup. Itā€™s gonna be interesting to see how the signals improve with the bean can. :laughing:

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Make sure that the beans are consumed and the gasses are properly ventilated in order to prevent smell overload of the dongle :sunglasses::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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As has been discussed in some recent threads, the filter is not optimal for stopping RF interference. Itā€™s a ā€œback endā€ (decoder side) filter and youā€™ll have RF interference coming in the ā€œfront endā€ (antenna side). A small amount of distance between the ProStick and the RPi (or any other electromagnetically active device), even just 15cm, will reduce RF interference from those local sources.

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Iā€™ve never found this significant at all.

If you have an antenna directly on the SDR itā€™s a different story.

I do agree not having the RPi in the antenna plane if possible and optimally quite a bit away from the antenna.

Yes and the extension with also provide some heat transfer isolation to keep things cooler at your input.

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Buy yourself the 400 series coax and then you can rest easy with your electronics in the house and safe from hot and cold swings. The 400 coax gives you the low loss signal path that allows you to get off the roof and out of the attic.

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I respect your viewpoint. You have much more experience, time, and experimentation with this than I have. My experience has been that a small distance between the dongle and the Pi makes a small but observable difference.

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Iā€™m running an external LNA and airspy min for quite some time now and even before was clashing with terrain limits.

Your advice doesnā€™t hurt in the slightest and is a cheap option to try :slight_smile:
It might also depend on the SDR and coax used, which pi youā€™re using, how much high frequency ripple you have on the power supply powering the RPi ā€¦

Only thing i would caution is that itā€™s hard to get a USB extension that wonā€™t have much voltage drop to the SDR. So many USB extensions save every penny on the ground and +5V wire copper gauge it seems.

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Iā€™ve been using one of these (1.5 feet) to connect an Airspy Mini to a Raspi 4 for the last three years without any issues.

https://www.monoprice.com/Product?p_id=5440

I am using one of these with an Airspy Mini. 6 inch with 2 amp rating. Working well.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CJG2ZYM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Finally I have achieved what I wanted originally.

I recently bought a CC1090/8-P antenna from Vinnant, and I installed it in my original sub-optimal location. That went great for a while, but then I decided I would be moving the antenna to the location I started this thread with.

And the results are astonishing!
Here is my final setup:

Here are my stats as well.
Location switch with the same setup:

Overall stats with the first stats coming from the setup you saw at the start of the thread, the cheap antenna on the can, second being the Vinnant antenna in the old location, then the third, the same setup with the current location.

Now Iā€™m looking for things to do with all the data instead of just letting my setup sit there for ages. :grin:
Thank you all for the help I received.

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Wow, you are really getting it done now. Thatā€™s the same antenna I have in the air and I love it. Your range spread there is really great.

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Just stumbled on this really interesting thread, thanks to @scooper9 and @CraigWoodThomas for adding recent posts. The Pi etc in the waterproof box is on my ā€˜to doā€™ list as is a whole bunch of other stuff - damn! this whole subject is so compelling! Is there an ultimate setup that is achievable out there? My literal horizons are very limited but I regularly hit around 200NM in the favourable direction, Iā€™ve accepted that. Currently trying to decide whether to stick with an old Pi 3 or a Zero 2 or possibly a 4 with a PoE hat - that, in a waterproof box will get me a short co-ax run but harder access to Pi should it be needed. Would a Zero 2 be a working choice with a PoE / USB hat? Waveshare seem to do such a hat but not 100% sure it works with the Zero 2.

My setup is achievable, but there ainā€™t anything ultimate. Donā€™t use a Zero 2 as it wonā€™t have enough computing power and it lacks IO for most stuff. The pi 3 has been working fine for me.

Currently using both an ancient 3B hanging off a decent antenna alongside a Zero 2 connected to a dead cheap internal antenna. Sorta using the Zero to play about with, used same SD in a Pi400. Iā€™d like to make a portable version to take away on various trips, for no other reason other than interest. Not seeing the Zero 2 to struggling but itā€™s not really getting much from the antenna!
Is it easy enough to change the siteID on each install so I could swap the Zero2 onto the external antenna?

Yes, just follow the instructions for changing the feeder-id in the upgrade information:

Thanks @LawrenceHill. Gonna have a play this morning. Iā€™ll probably initially just try swapping the SD cards around and changing antenna connections at the same time.

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