New, inexpensive 1090MHz antenna for sale

for me this looks like something in your cabling is not ok. and this was what i meant when writing ‘would nearly exclude that there is another error in actual cabeling’

edit: btw. i do always a reboot before performing a test run and after changing antenna - to give the whole system the same chance to adapt to new conditions. in addition this gives you a visible marker in stats in less time.

I will repeat swapping test tommorrow to see what happens. Most probably one of the connectors/adapters or the antenna is dodgy i.e has intermittent connection. Repeat swaping coupled with mechanical movement will help in pin pointing the cause.

96 hrs Graphs:
From start of graph to Sunday mid day - Cantenna
From Sunday mid day to Tuesday mid day - Poor performance of FA antenna.
From Tuesday mid day till end of graph (tuesday evening) - Good performance of FA Antenna.


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I’ve found that receiver performance can be extremely sensitive to seemingly insignificant things. I swapped an N - F adaptor for a short patch lead made from WF100 with an N plug and F plug to connect the amp to the antenna. There was a big drop in performance as a result. I swapped it for an N plug to F socket adaptor and a short patch lead I had in my box of cable modem bits and performance is back to normal. A resistance check of the N - F plug lead showed very low resistance for both the core and screen, yet something about it is attenuating the signal. I think that at high frequencies everything has to be absolutely right or you get disproportionate losses, whereas at lower frequencies you have a lot more leeway before things cause problems.

@caius:
You are right, but in todays test, performance of FA antenna jumped up without changing any component of the system.

Initially the FA antenna was connected to receiver using 3 feet rg6 coax and 6 inch pigtail. The rg6 coax was then disconnected from FA antenna and connected to Cantenna located at 1 ft from FA antenna. After an hour the rg6 coax was disconnected from Cantenna and connected back to FA antenna, and FA antenna’s performance almost doubled! There was absolutely no change in any componenet of the system.

This behaviour indicates dodgey (intermittent) connection in one of the components of the system. Let us list:
(1) F to MCX pigtail
(2) RG6 feed coax or it’s two F-pins
(3) N-to-F adaptor
(4) The FA antenna

Item (3) is least suspected as I have tried 2 pieces of it and then removed it altogather, connected RG6 coax directly to antenna’s N terminal (see my earlier post), but there was no improvement.

Tomorrow I will move the whole system (including antenna), so that if there is a loose connection anywhere, the mechanical motion may cause it to open, and performance will drop again. I will then change the components one by one, first the pigtail, then RG6 feed coax, then DVB-T dongle, and see what happens.

What about the possibility of a crack in the single core RG6 coax?
In some positions it is connected and in others it is not.

(I agree that it is likely one of the 4 components above)

I am now waiting for delivery of these two items:
(1) N-male to MCX-male pigtail 8 inch/20 cm RG316 - estimated delivery 1 Mar - 17 Mar
(2) N-male to F-female adapter - estimated delivery 14 Mar

The item 1 (N-to-MCX pigtail) will eliminate the RG6 coax and N-to-F adapter and will connect FA Antenna directly to DVB-T
The item 2 (N-to-F adapter) is of a good make and will help in determining if the cause was the locally purchased un-branded adapter.

Amazon were very prompt, and I received the antenna only 2 days after ordering with free shipping :smiley:
But the pigtail & connectors have a long delivery time 1 to 1-1/2 months.

I suggest FA ask Amazon to include with antenna sale, the option to purchase various different connectors (to be chosen by the buyer) and ship it along with the antenna in the same box. This will help the buyer a lot and avoid mistakes in ordering connectors / pigtails / patch cables, and will save time in procuring these after the buyer receives the antenna.

PROMPT DELIVERY OF ANTENNA

SLOW DELIVERY OF PIGTAIL & ADAPTER

Wow. I volunteer my services to ship you adapters from the US in the future. Totally serious.

Thank you fatherdoctor.

The shipping charges for expedited shipping of connectors, adaptors, and pigtails from USA to next door Canada is $25, seems robbery :cry: . I think the seller is located in USA but the stuff is not. When seller gets an order, he simply places an order to his supplier located in China to ship it directly to the buyer. That is why “free shipping” items have 1½ month delivery, and expedited shipping from China is $25.

This is why I have suggested FA to expand the Antenna sale by adding various types of connectors & pigtails as optional items, and these items to be shipped in the same box as antenna, so that buyer gets a complete set and starts using the antenna immediately on delivery.

A few example of options are:

For SMA System:
N-to-SMA adapter (for FA Filter or LNA4ALL Amplifier)
N-to-SMA pigtail (for FA Filter or LNA4ALL Amplifier)
SMA-to-MCX pigtail

Additional for F System:
SMA-to-F adapter (for FA Filter or LNA4ALL Amplifier)
N-to-F adapter
N-to-F pigtail
F-to-MCX pigtail

I definitely agree, but I think they’d have to set up the packages separately as amazon would then have to stock three SKUs of the antenna. It would be extremely beneficial to the program if you could effectively do a one stop shop at the Flight Aware store and get everything you need.

Showing my n00bs-ness, what are you using to plot these graphs?

I use collectd + rrdtools to plot these graphs. There is an automated script to install dump1090-mutability + collected & rrdtools (also known as Web Portal) + piaware data feeder + planefinder data feeder + adsbexchange data feeder. You can choose what ever from the above list you want to install.

Here is the link to the automated install thread:
ADS-B Feeder Project Setup Scripts

Fantastic, thank you. Due to unavoidable obstacles (trees) I will be adding a third receiver at my QTH and will use this script. I already have one standard piAware pkg install, one SD card image install and would prefer to leave those alone (for now). Not sure how I had missed the forums for the last ~year.

The 1090MHz antenna is currently out of stock at Amazon. Any idea when there will be new inventory available?

Any minute now, Monday at the latest.

Any update on this coming back in stock?

amazon.com/dp/B00WZL6WPO?tag=fligh01-20

Also, if I want to use this with the FlightAware Pro Stick and a ADS-B 1090MHz Band-pass SMA Filter, what is the ideal cable setup (best to be from amazon but could order elsewhere if needed)?

antenna → LMR-400 cable with an N male connector and SMA male connector → filter → pro stick

Look at the price someone is selling the filter & antenna on Amazon Canada (amazon.ca)!

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1600/26144847325_da032e378f_b.jpg

It’s back – thanks for your patience.

Received my 1090Mhz antenna yesterday and immediately installed it, using the N-SMA pigtail I purchased separately. Unfortunately, I’m not seeing any improvement. In fact, it seems to perform worse than the LTE Antenna I was previously using. Since the LTE antenna is tuned for non-ASDB bands (e.g. 829MHz, 1.59GHz, 1.94GHz, 2.55GHz, 5.4GHz) with bandwidths that don’t include 1090 Mhz, I would expect the FA 1090Mhz to blow it out of the water, but it doesn’t seem to.

My setup:
Before:
LTE Antenna → FA 1090 Mhz Filter → FA ADS-B Receiver → RPi

After:
1090Mhz Antenna → N-to-SMA Pigtail → FA 1090 Mhz Filter → FA ADS-B Receiver → RPi

In order to rule out the pigtail, I’ll grab a couple from work and see if that fixes the issue. If not, I guess I’ll have to return the FA antenna.

BTW, when comparing the two antennas using CubicSDR, I definitely see much higher power from the LTE antenna, so I am hoping that the cable is bad…

Be careful with N connectors. There are two types. 75 Ohm and 50 Ohm,
The 75 ohm has a small pin/socket. The FA Antenna uses the 50 ohm(Larger) socket. If you use a 75 ohm plug, it will likely not contact the socket properly.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_connector
Picture showing the similarity between 50 Ω (bottom) and 75 Ω (top) Type N connectors