My flight is not being picked up, even thought I believe I am very close to feeder sites. I have a UAT transmitter and I get good PAPR reports. Is there a way to find out the data from individual feeder sites? I fly around Glasgow KY.
Hi,
You can look at the FA feeder sites at the link below. If you zoom in, it is easy to identify the Nashville cluster, and then the Bowling Green, KY group to the north. It looks like there is nothing near Glasgow. Elizabethtown has a feeder north, and there are a few NE at Campbellsville.
The problem is that most of those feeders are 1090 only. Few cover 978 MHz UAT, and none of the ones I spot checked do.
As you know, 978 UAT makes you less visible to the public tracking sites, less visible to the FAA, and even less visible to most of the 1090 aircraft out there. It is lower power, and shorter range. That’s just the way it is.
If you are curious, you can select some of those stations on the map and then select the site name to view details about them. All the ones with “Feeder Mode: Mode-S (1090 MHz)” are 1090 only, and not listening for you on 978 UAT.
Here is an example for the eastern most site in Bowling Green: (notice 1090 only)
Perhaps you could start your own feed with both 1090/978 or even get someone at the airport to support a feed in your area.
Good luck,
-Dan
Hi,
Additional info.
Just looking at the KGLW Glasgow Airport itself, they have a nice combined EMS/ambulance station right next to the Air Methods medevac helo hangar at the east end of the airport.
If you fly out of Glasgow and have any contacts there, that would be an excellent place to host a feeder site since it obviously has reliable power and internet already available. It would be an easy sell, and the increased coverage would help them with the tracking of their on helicopters.
Regards,
-Dan
Dan, Thanks for the information. That is very helpful. I think you are right. Very few 978 sites. The one near Mammoth Cave KY is a dual site, which is probably the one that picks me up when I am down near Glasgow. I agree having a feeder site at Glasgow would be nice. But I do not have any contacts there, other than I fly in to there. I am going to do some research on setting up my own 978 site. (there are already a 1090 site near me). I have several Arduino boards, but I am not familar with the “pi” boards.
Arduino boards are microcontrollers, not SBCs like “pi”. They are used for hardware programming and control, often with a focus on physical computing and robotics projects.
You cannot install dump978-fa or dump1090-fa on Arduino. You will need to purchase a SBC like raspberry pi or orange pi.
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I suspected as much. As you can tell my knowledge is limited so I appreciate your help.
Give adsb.im a try, it’s probably easier to configure than the piaware sd-card image if you want to create a 978 station.
Just get a pi4 + rtl-sdr + antenna.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=rtl-sdr+v3
This would be an appropriate SDR for 978.
The dipole antenna that comes with the set is not great though.
Not sure which budget 978 antenna to recommend.
This one would work https://www.amazon.com/ADSBexchange-5-5dBi-N-Type-Female-Antenna/dp/B089Q4BVCB
FA also has a 978 antenna?
Anyhow i’m sure others will have differing recommendations.
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That is interesting. My interest may be a bit different than most. I am looking to increase UAT coverage in my own area so friends and family can see my flights as I have UAT on my plane. They are familiar with flight aware so I will probably lean on getting a low cost UAT site using Pi Aware. I already have antennas, coax, etc. Seems like all I need is an 978 SDR and a Pi3 or 4 (or W). That is just my limited first hand impression. All new to me.
Hi,
When I looked yesterday, I watched a bit of “Sunday VFR traffic” in that area. Here are some additional details from when I looked yesterday. That message was already long enough.
The LifeFlight helo that went in was 1090 ads-b and had good coverage to the surface.
A 978 UAT only aircraft went in and coverage stopped on another network at about 1,800 MSL, or about 1,100 AGL or so.
A LifeFlight helo passed by north of there with very spotty 978 coverage, but this helo was equipped with A/C/S and 978. When the 978 dropped out, the network would sometimes be able to 1090 mode-s mlat a position. That helps.
Another LifeFlight was 978 only, so when it dropped out, it was gone.
You have 978 UAT, but obviously also have an older 1090 transponder. If that is mode-A (squawk)/ mode-C (altitude) only, it will be impossible to get position from that on most of the online sites. If you are A/C/S with an actual mode-s signal and mode-s code, then mode-s mlat is possible from all those in that area.
When it comes to TCAS, many of the aircraft out there are using your 1090 mode-A/C. If you are mode-A/C/S, some of those aircraft are also using the mode-S part to identify your specific aircraft by mode-s code. All the civilian pilots with something like ForeFlight and a portable receiver are probably seeing you on 978 as long as their receiver has 1090/978. Most receivers have both.
978 UAT is interesting, but just based on what I see here in NW Florida, it never really caught on. There are days I see zero to only a few 978 aircraft. Most of the civilian traffic here opted to upgrade to full 1090 ads-b.
The only reason I decode 978 here is because I have TIS-B/ADS-R 978 rebroadcast from a local FAA tower 3 nm away that is very helpful.
Regards,
-Dan
My transponder and my ADSB are separate in my plane. (They are combined on other systems). My ADSB is a Uavionix Echo, transmitting UAT. My transponder, a Garmin 327 is mode C. You may have read in another one of my posts, that my interest is different than most on this forum. I am interested in expanding UAT receiver sites in this area so my friends and family can track my flights. Most small general aviation guys like myself us UAT. Any chance you know if Flight Aware shares tracking with the FAA? I only ask because I wonder if my FAA PAPR reports include UAT transmissions that are picked up on pi aware or Feeder Sites or if they only rely on their own ADSB tower sites (which are quite limited in remote areas like where I live).
adsb.im can be configured to send data to FA just fine, even exclusively.
Setting up 978 only with a piaware sd-card image needs some non-obvious configuration that’s why i recommended a different image.
And as for the pi4, that’s just due to personal experience with issues / failures with pi3.
And because the pi4 isn’t that expensive in comparison.
OK. Good to know. I will look harder at ADSB.im
Thanks!
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An appropriate antenna for the frequency?
A further note on the piaware sd-card .. it’s not super complicated and i’m sure you can find a thread on this forum on how to make the piaware sd-card image work for 978 only.
But to change stuff around you need ssh and that’s a hurdle at least for some people.
I am reading up on making a 978 only sd card now…
After making a 978 only SD card, how are you going to use it without a SBC like raspberry pi or orange pi?
The first thing you have to do is to get a raspberry pi or similar SBC.
I have the orange sdr and a pi on order…thanks.
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