The cable got delivered today. It’s a 5 meter Delock LMR200 cable with the connectors already on it.
It’s doing its work very good, still without the filter. Should be here on Saturday.
Here’s a screenshot from this midday when I just replaced the 174U cable with the LMR200 one, bought from onlinekabelshop.nl (19.99 for 5 meters).
Very nice, that’s a really big increase over your previous shot. People often underestimate the importance of good coax.
Can’t find that specific cable on the mentioned site, but it must be this one, on bol.com, right?
Yesterday I also replaced the coax (3m RG-58) with the cable mentioned in the previous post (5m of LMR200 / CDF200 low noise coax ).
So far I don’t see any improvements in the graphs. Might also be a quiet weekend when it comes to number of planes up in the air. Will see what the next days will bring…
Just looking at random specs for RG-58/U cable:
0.54 dB attenuation per meter at 1000 MHz.
So with 3m you lost 1.5 dB.
LMR200 cable has 0.34 dB attenuation per meter at 1000 MHz.
So with 5m you are at the same attenuation with the new cable.
RG-58/U actually seems to be better than standard RG-58.
Now i don’t know the exact specs of the RG-58/U cable you had and they may be worse or even better than the spec i found.
Looking at your coverage it seems to be majorly restricted by obstacles anyway.
As always i’d recommend trying the external rtl-sdr LNA, for me it clearly outperformed the integrated prostick LNA.
I had somewhat of the same idea. Thanks for conforming!
Obstacles (indeed) are high-rise buildings, mainly at the NE and NW.
Anyway, the 5 meters give me a bit more length to play with the positioning of the antenna (inside - maybe put it outside for a while, but I lack the right options to keep it there 24/7).
Wow, putting the antenna outside gave a ~50% increase on “Aircraft Seen / Tracked”!
I even had to lower the gain from 48 dB to 40 dB due to more strong messages.
There are three things which greately improve antenna performance: location, location, and location. 
But it must be tri-dimentional as well. Don’t forget height.
Height comes under location.
There’s a tower block near me which is eleven stories and has a really amazing clear view in all directions. I’m going to approach the owners to see if I can persuade them to let me install a self-contained box on the roof. Going by feedback from someone else who has tried in the past, I’m not confident I’ll be successful but I have nothing to lose by trying.
Not in the way the expression is mostly used, real estate. That was my ‘motivation’, smiley and all.
Hi,
Sorry for this bump of this old topic dating from 2019, but came acros this after ordering (what i thought was) the FA antenne from sosultions.
I’ve ordered this antenne FlightAware 1090MHz ADS-B N-Type Antenna 26" - 5.5dBi € 62,95 - bij SOSsolutions.nl, under the impression this was the original FA antenna as advertised on their website.
I’ve payed €62,95 for it.
I’ve received the grey antenna mentioned in the post before, so i was a little dissapointed to be fair…
It doesn’t match the advertised pictures & desciption (color olive green, mounting bracket specifications are completely different from stated on their website aswell).
I received this antenne: 60cm 1090MHz Antenna for ADS-B | The Pi Hut.
As u can see a significant price difference (~50%) comparing it to the original FA antenna on thepihut. After reading this topic, dating from 2019 and seeing they still advertise the original FA antenna in pictures,descriptiion & price, i can’t help but feel malicious intent there…
I’ve emailed them stating this, linking this topic aswell, and asked for a return at their expense with a full refund, or a fincancial compensation which reflects the true value compared to the advertised real FA antenna.
As reading this topic, this antenna is not bad, but thats not really the point, it is not what i ordered and certainly not at that price point. I can order 2 of these from different vendors for that price…
So they are still selling it and the product page has not been changed at all, I am surprised.
I still have the antenna and it is working just fine. I did move to a new house 4 years ago and the antenna is in my attic right now.
Yep, 4 years later didn’t bother to change the page…
I bought it because i was under the impression it was the original FA antenna.
I would have bought this antenna aswell but not at that pricepoint to be honest. €30-35 euro max maybe.
At that pricepoint i wanted the original FA antenna or an antenna from https://vinnant.sk/.
This antenna can be bought elsewhere ~€30, so lets see how they respond to this. If interested i can keep this topic updated on how they handle this, and IF they actually gonna change the product page…
I wouldn’t expect a change, I used to buy from them as well but lately they also increased the price of the blue flightaware dongle quite steeply.
It used to be €39,95 and since 3 months the same dongle is priced as €59,95
It’s cheaper for me now to order and have them delivered in the US and then being brought over here by a friend of mine flying for Delta airlines who visits Amsterdam often.
a 50% increase in price is crazy in my view and they have lots of times when it is out of stock as well.
I have 2 of those grey antennas in my setups and they perform well.
I also have 2 original Flightaware antennas and they are on par with the grey ones.
But as said, the grey ones aren’t FA ones but are advertised as FA indeed. 
It seems they have read my email, as they at least changed their product page now and deleted the color: olive green. The pictures are still refering to the original FA antenna tho, as does the title of the page & the mounting bracket specifications.
Luckily i’ve made a screenrecording of the page before, while i googled ‘date today’, so there’s no confusion on that part after they changed the page lol.
Yet have to receive a response.
They changed the name and brand as well now.
It’s named flightantenna now and the brand is changed to sos solutions
So they did make some adjustments there 
