I am very new to this my setup has been going for about a week. Everything is working, I am connect and picking up what I think is good signal for what I am working with. I am trying to decide what to do next.
Set up wise.
Raspberry pi 4
Nooelec nano3.
Amazon dual band outdoor antenna
Everything is set up outside on my cloths line along with a weather station and an air quality monitor.
My location is not perfect. My house is in a little bit of a depression so my antenna should be mounted a little higher than it is but it works for now.
My questions
What should I add to get the most out of my set up?
Should I had a 1090 filter and amplifier? Any recommendations. I saw a bunch of cheap ones on eBay and Amazon. Are they worth it. I am in a pretty rural area population 1500.
Should I add another dongle and splitter to my antenna to pick up 978? We do have a lot of personal aircraft (spray planes).
Do I add another dongle and a different antenna instead of the splitter to pick up 978.
Trying to get the most bang out of my limited budget. What would your recommendation be if this was your system.
If it’s a dual band antenna, you could try getting away with a splitter and second sdr dongle.
My 2-dongle station sees about 24:1 1090-to-978 traffic. Typically (much) fewer than a dozen planes show up on my UAT map, where I’ll have 260-300 on 1090.
As far as UAT is concerned, my experience with a proper outdoor 978-only antenna is thus far limited, ~48 hours. I was running an indoor dual-band antenna mounted outside on my mast with it’s attached cable, a 40ft extension of RG6 cable, and F-to-SMA adapters.
I changed that out for the single-band FA 978 antenna and a single run of the FA 15m cable. I did not see the huge increase in flights as I did moving from that same indoor antenna to the proper outdoor 1090 antenna. Range has likewise not significantly increased.
Part of that has been weather in my area that’s put a damper on air traffic over the last few days. And around me, there’s just not a ton of UAT traffic. Those that do broadcast UAT are flying much lower, so my range is kind of limited.
Again, limited time in use with the new set up- YMMV.
Find 978 UAT is a mixed bag. You don’t get as many aircraft and range is limited sometime. However what you get is aircraft that 1090 ES doesn’t pickup, like GA puddle jumpers. Also if you’re within range of a TIS-B tower you get alot of information showing small aircraft in areas again which 1090ES does not pickup.
One preventative maintenance suggestion is to weatherproof that cable to antenna connection with sealing tape or at a minumum Super 88 electrical tape. Water is a killer when it gets into these connections.
I use only the FA blue dongle with filter and amp. My setup is a 10ft of LMR-240 cable to my electrical box. I thought I was rural too but I def need the filter 1090 filter. Height is might. Think fence post top rail (~10ft).
This is the fun part of the hobby - learning and building solutions! The best tech advice in the world is here in this forum (sans myself).
That’s a nice neat little setup, Definity worth adding some electrial tape to the screw on your antenna connector. Water likes to sit on the edge and I’ve see it make its way into the connector. Apart from that, looks good, also a few zip ties to stop your cable wafting around will make it last longer Don’t want the cable getting damaged by the back and forth movement of the wind.
Don’t want the cable getting damaged by the back and forth movement of the wind.