Just setup my piaware the other week and so far its been great. I’m averaging around 3500 flights a day and live in Dayton. My setup is the flightaware prostick w/ external filter and external antenna (26").
I did have three questions - which I couldn’t search for whatever reason:
I’ve noticed some flights don’t show up - for example I was flying on Delta and flew right over my setup and never saw it reported on my piaware - or on my stats page on flightaware (this has happened to me twice). I then noticed I don’t see a whole lot of Delta flights. I see plenty of United, Fedex, American, Southwest, UPS, and other - but I’ve only see a few DAL flights. Any reason this might be?
Is it relatively safe to have port 8080 open to the World Wide Web/Information Super Highway?
Is ATC annoyed with anyone else who is calling them, like me, and letting them know a plane just dropped off of my piaware radar and they should probably send out a search party? (Joking, of course)
1: Not all USA airframes have ADS-B equipment so the Delta flight may have been there but not identified. Also, those with ADS-B equipment may not have the airline name in the data stream.
A Raspberry PI does not make the best web server. If you expose it to the web you may well have visitors that you don’t want loading the Pi down with page requests. You also expose yourself to hacking by some not-so-nice folks. Add a VPN to your network (OpenVPN is a good choice) and tunnel into your LAN to see your Pi.
FYI, some public WIFI sites block the normal VPN ports. I use port 443 to get around these spots. I haven’t come across a public WIFI that blocks this port but I’m sure they exist.
By all means call the tower when you see a plane disappear. Those folks sit around all day staring at big screens so they will appreciate the interruption. They may even take your name and address so they can send you an “I’m an ATC Helper” tee shirt. I believe they use the U.S. Marshal Service to deliver them. (Just kidding, of course. )
Those “Delta” flights may be operating using their parent company’s callsign. (i.e. ExpressJet, Compass, Gojet Airlines, Endeavor Air, Shuttle America, SkyWest, etc.)
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