Thanks for the quick reply Tom. I have a pretty full 360 degree receive pattern here with a lot of Airbus A320 planes passing directly over my house on landing approach and take off from the Sanford Florida airport. Also lots of traffic to and from the Orlando MCO airport that is 50 mins south of my location. The max value of 49dB gives me at least a starting point so I may be able to experiment with other values for gain. Appreciate you.
So I was reading what I interpreted as āmaxā rcvr gain setting is putting the rcvr in AGC mode. Is that your understanding as well? I returned my gain config setting to max today to try and get my positions data back in to the 3500 range instead of the 3000 range I have fallen off to. Seems that since I installed the new FA 1090 antenna and raised it to a near 33 ft position that my numbers data has actually fallen off. Have to wonder if I have increased the receive signal with the new antenna and height to such an extent that I am somehow overwhelming the receiver and processor. I run the FA blue antenna dongle. I shut down the āmodeacā process because I ended up with a FA warning about my processor hitting a 100%.
Graphs1090 will tell you if you are overloading the reciever.
This will be indicated with a lot of noise or single messages.
Another indicator will be the number of strong messages. If that number is higher then 5% you might want to reduce gain. In most cases 5% or lower will be shown if you have set a decent gain value.
I havenāt been able to work through the Graphs 1090 install as yet so I am flying blind on the gain. Thanks for the insights on the noise and strong messages.
Start with the installation, it gives valuable insights and narrows the issue down 
Working on being able to establish a SSH connection with my Pi. SSH is by default not enabled on the Pi as you well know Iām sure. I only have a Windows 10 environment to work with currently. I am looking to find a way to build a Linux environment to work with all the āsudoā command line pieces. I escaped the old world Unix environment at Xerox before the Linux world came to be. Iām retired so I need new challenges to keep me motivated.
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You could reimage the sd card and burn it with the raspberry pi imager software.
It has a windows variant so you can burn the FA image to the card with that software.
In the advanced options, accessible by using Ctrl + Shift + X at the same time, You have the option to enable SSH from that menu and choose your own user and password. Usually the user is pi and the password is something you choose yourself. When the image is burned to the card and you booted up again you can then ssh into the Pi with a program like Putty.
It will use port 22 and the pi adres your Pi located is located at.
Then you will have ssh access to the Pi and you can use the sudo commands
Being an older user myself ( but it takes some years before I can retire) I catch your drift, started on MS-DOS and Unix, still working in IT till this day 
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Your link to the Raspberry Pi OS is an interesting piece. I recall using Putty on different projects for access when I was working IT for Xerox Corp. I migrated from copier engineering and test support to IT workstation/server admin and then on to full time Network Engineering. Enjoy your IT experience and donāt be in a rush to retire. āJob Satisfactionā is tough to come by in retirement. You normally donāt consider how you might miss that but it becomes a serious issue when your time becomes nothing but your own if you are deep routed in technology through out your career.
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I still have a decade to go so no rush 
when not working I have time for hobbies like this and flying as a GA pilot so lots of things to do and to keep up
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Yesterday I ordered up a new micro sd card so I can give the Raspberry Pi Imager software a go and then burn the FA image from there and see how that sets me up.
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Good, let me know how that works out for you.
I always have spare SD cards at hand, they are pretty cheap and sold at a lot of stores nearby. Since I live in a big city thatās the least of the issues I could encounter. I have a minimum of 10 SD cards at hand, if the stock drops below that Iāll get some replacements
Nice. Thatās a lot of spares no doubt. Best to be prepared on all fronts. Whatās the big city that you call home? I am between Orlando and Daytona Beach in Florida, USA.
Amsterdam in the Netherlands , living right next to the RWY 27 approach. One of the busiest airports in Europe, so lots of traffic on my radar 
I have 12 flightfeeders so I have spare hardware and SD cards at hand in case something fails
My goodness 12 Flightfeeders! You need a small ethernet switch just to provide them network connectivity. Sounds like you are right in the thick of it alright. I will have to have a look at the map to put an eyeball on all that.
I have more than 100 network ports available in the house. Next to flightfeeders I have automated the entire house, everything is built on open source software. On average there are 50 active Ethernet ports active at any given time. When all is booted up this grows up to 75 devices. Yeah I know I should get a lifeā¦ā¦
Iām imagining rack mounted hardware everywhere. Patch panels and neatly groomed ethernet cables!
Nope, all is tucked away behind furniture or is quite small in size. You wouldnāt notice it when visiting otherwise I would run into trouble with the head of the house 
every room has its own switch, all switches are routed to the main switch with 2x 24 ports
Sounds pretty impressive! I totally understand about the potential troubles with the household management! Iām suddenly feeling terribly inadequate with only a single 8 port switch.
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It makes management of your network easy. Here everything is connected with wired connections. Only mobile devices use the Wi-Fi connection
Wired is truly the connection of choice. I was thinking there might be a few strands of fiber in your dwelling.