Setup is a Raspberry Pi4 8gb Raspbian, running PiAware, FlightAware Pro Blue USB Dongle 10mtr cable to a 60cm 1090 MHz 5.5dBi. This is installed in my attic study, point downwards (if that matters) hanging of the top of a 6 foot bookcase on a adjoining wall with neighbouring property.
Running Skyaware 10.0.1
Don’t recall having tweaked anything from default settings gain for example:
tuner gain set to 49.6 dB (gain step 28)
adaptive: available dynamic range (32.6dB) >= required dynamic range (30.0dB)
My property is a semi-detached I.e. House next door, which is slightly higher than mine so I struggle with traffic/signals from the East more than any other direction. I am approx 230mtrs above sea level with fairly clear line of sight in most directions I.e. Top of a Hill!
I get about 700-900msg through the normal busy times of day, is there anything I could do to improve my coverage/see more flights - If I look at flightradar, ads-exchange etc. there always seems to be more flights in the area I’d expect to pick up from?
Point downwards could matter depending on the type of antenna. Given what you’ve stated, probably your best improvement would be locating your antenna outside. Also, depending on your location, not all planes broadcast ADS-B. That could explain some of the flights, but they’d mostly be general aviation or possibly military for the most part.
Aircraft flying lower won’t be in your line of sight far quicker as they get away.
You can also feed more services like adsb.lol / airplanes.live for example to get more MLAT results.
FA mlat results in areas with many receivers are not very consistent. Other networks do better with that.
You can try different locations but the buildings around the antenna will block reception the more material is in that direction.
Any metal meshes or foils will block completely.
Shorter coax might also help, if it’s inside already .. just locate the pi 1 to 2 m below the antenna.
If the house in the east is in the way, the only real solution is to get above it.
Placing the antenna further away from that buildint might also help (place it as far west as you can inside your attic).
Would love to have the antenna outside and missed the opportunity when I had my roof tiles replaced last year! Unfortunately my “attic” is actually all boarded out as my study which is great for size but does mean I cannot easily poke a coax with connector through anywhere and I’ve no external wall to drill through to outside.
Do you use an external filter in your setup?
In the Prostick Plus there is a filter behind the LNA and maybe you could benefit from an additional filter in front of the LNA (for example a barrel filter from FA).
Based on the first graphics I think the value of the weakest signals is high, 26,2 and with an additional filter you might get a better (lower) value there. That would improve the reception adding additional range and positions ( the further away the aircraft, the lower the signal strength)
Thanks for a response @tomvdhorst - Yes I do have one but it is not currently installed as when I previously had it inline I didn’t see any marked difference. I will reinstall this now to see if I get a difference.
