Is it possible for one of these to be “bad” ? I just installed my new flightaware antenna (fresh from Amazon) and the stats immediately cratered to near-zero. At the moment I’m somewhat location limited anyway - I’m just setting the antenna in a window on the second floor of a house that’s somewhat “sunk down” into a little valley, but even the super-uber-cheapo whip antenna can pick up a few aircraft at 100nm, and 150 messages/second is pretty common.
As soon as I connected the new antenna, I dropped immediately to horrible reception (qualitatively) and the graphs make it pretty clear that something is a lot worse. I’m not yet well versed enough in what the vertical axes mean in a numerical sense, but the performance is a lot worse.
The 1-hour and 6-hour graphs make it pretty clear. Here are the relevant things/times: @1500 I moved the original whip antenna to the window (so ignore anything before then). At 1705 I switched from the baby whip to the new antenna, expecting magic and getting not-magic. At 1714 I switched back to the whip, at 1723 I switched back to the new FA antenna after double-checking that the connections seemed good, and testing the SMA-to-N-type connector cable as best I could with a simple digital multimeter…
I assume the cable is a new part of the install too. Doublecheck you have the right SMA connector on the cable. It should have a center pin. If it doesn’t have a pin, you have the wrong type of connector (RP-SMA)
There is a GREAT post SOMEWHERE (I just cannot find it right now) that really addresses the two types of N Connectors with crystal clear pictures. They look close but they are not. I bet you have the wrong one. They are different in regard to both physical structure and impedance. Someone can find the post, but my searches are just coming up empty. Sorry I cannot be more specific.
This situation can be caused by any of the folowing reasons:
(1) Bad N connector. Solved by using good quality conectors.
(2) Using “RP-SMA male” instead of “SMA male” connectors. Solved by replacing RP-SMA by SMA.
(3) Too much RF noise like Cell phone, free to air TV, and other communication signals in your area. Solved by installing a Filter.
Exactly same thing happened with me. I first thought it is N connector and purchased a better quality one. There was some improvement, but not much. Then I purchased FA Filter, and that solved the problem.
AAARRGGGGHHH. I build computer networks and routers for a living, I swear I thought I knew every stupid crazy way there was to get wires and/or polarity and/or pins swapped… but I guess there’s always another way. I do indeed have an RP-SMA cable.
Which leads me to the next question… if the polarity is swapped, why am I seeing anything at all? If the cable was the wrong polarity, wouldn’t I get zero reception? Or am I somehow getting a greatly reduced signal from just the tuner (some reception even without a connected antenna?)
TEMPORARY WORKAROUND
The SMA-male has center pin. The reverse SMA (RP-SMA) male does not have a center pin, it has a hole. The center wire connection is open because of missing pin. A temporary workaround is to cut a short piece of center wire of coax and insert in hole of RP-SMA male. This piece of wire will act as the missing pin, and connection will be established.
It is a generalisation, of course there are exceptions, if you put the dongle underground it probably won’t hear anything either. But especially with the prostick you do pick up some nearby (10-20 miles) aircraft with no antenna or cable at all under normal conditions.
I bought some N-type to SMA cables some time ago. Eventually figured out what the problem was ( I was receiving some flights but not many) - probably why the cables were a reputable brand but cheap . I did what abcd4567 suggested until I bought some of these - not that both sides of the connector have central pins:
At first, I had also the problem with the wrong cable as it was recommended by Amazon as useful accessory. Until a new cable arrived I used the part of a pin from an old pin header which gave a huge improvement with FA antenna und FA pro stick compared to a common TV stick and a TV antenna.
You are right.
This situation resembles a cell phone, which does not have an external antenna, but a pcb antenna. In ProStick, the pcb circuit strips on input side act as an antenna, though inefficient, and pick up only few strong signals. The rf pre-amp chip has gain high enough to amplify these to a level where these can be processed.
starts from this post and runs for several pages:
