Here is my (almost) finished setup. The enclosure is installed 3meters below the antenna on top of a small building.
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Here’s my humble setup.
Pi 3b, with standard piaware build
http://media.fotki.com/1_p,rtdtdsrgrfbrtdqxtrfggtbkkbwr,vi/kqqwdgqwbxbrwrrbfqwxbrqsqrkst/7/769119/5123053/ads1-vi.jpg
Flightstick Pro Plus attached to 40’ of LMR-400
http://media.fotki.com/1_p,rtdtdsrgtksbsrkxtrfggtbkkbwr,vi/fbrrbrfbdxkqqwdgqwbxbrqggwgws/7/769119/5123053/ads2-vi.jpg
28’ off the ground, Military Surplus mast sections
http://media.fotki.com/1_p,rtdtdsrgfdrsbqdxtrfggtbkkbwr,vi/brstgdrkkxrqfqbsgwdxbsbfrdbrr/7/769119/5123053/ads3-vi.jpg
Happy with the results!
http://media.fotki.com/1_p,rtdtdsrgwtswkbdxtrfggtbkkbwr,vi/brqggwgwsxbsbqfkqtdxkqqwdgqwb/7/769119/5123053/ads4-vi.png
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Finished my setup last weekend. The antenna is on a 2m extension mounted on the flat roof. The complete receiver equipment is in the box. Should be pretty much self explaining. The satellite dish provides some sun protection during the hottest hours. Let’s see what part quits first during the summer. 
http://www.dix-photography.de/ads-b/ADS-B_01.jpg
Nice enclosure, ip54 if I read correctly, where did you get it, in a DIY store?
Ok, so that is not a RPi, right? How is it powered; via the black usb connection? What are those batteries for, a USV? I recognize the powerline plug, but what is the silver grey box for?
The box is a so called Masterbox from Masterplug. Got mine from the warehouse with the a. here in Germany.
This one is very solid compared to the other usual boxes for outdoor usage.
It is a Pi3, but on top is a board from s.usv to compensate short interrupts of the power supply. The small battery is good for a bit less than a minute - Pi shuts down automatically if the battery is nearly empty. I chose powerline instead of PoE since i have an outdoor powersocket, but no outdoor network cable. Wifi is not a stable option with so many neighbours here. The silver box is a wireless temperature/humidity sensor from my homeautomation system. It was a spare part and so i threw it in the box.
Small black cable connects a GPS receiver, it can be seen in the second picture. Antenna is FA with 5m LMR-400, the rest is obvious.
My new setup is about 44m above sea level. I am using the Flightaware antenna and the Pro Stick Plus with a Raspi 3. The length of the antenna cable is 10m of EKH155 which seemed to be cheap enough for a first try. Suggestions for a further improvement are welcome.
Your range looks great. I am less than 30m amsl and have apartments blocking me to the south and a ridge to the east. You have a nice, all around range.
Not sure how good the coax is. It may be worth looking into.
Optimising the gain is a no cost option. Look at the posts for the script to do the tests.
I’m guessing you’re blessed by the somewhat flat landscape locally.
I’ll post my setup later tonight, I’m in the UK and have the Malvern Hills to deal with about 13km to my West.
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Wow that’s a lot of planes!
Imagine all the chemtrails. :mrgreen:
Received my flightaware pro stick yesterday 24 of april. Was up and running the same evening. I had set up my Pi in advanced.
Installed it in the sheed and put the antenna on the roof. I have a Dlink network over power adapter. And an old router set up as repeater. I have an 80mb / 80mb line. But on this router it gives 30mb/30Mb, which is plenty to run this setup.
Raspberry Pi zero Wifi. Have read that the zero would not be able to handle the load, but at the moment It seemed to handle it pretty good. The most I had around 4-5 airplanes at the same time
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4182/33884166710_99af1e10fe_z.jpgFlightaware-piaware by tnessy, on Flickr
D-Link and my old TP-Link router with DD-WRT
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2812/34110797292_d99358436a_z.jpgFlightaware-piaware by tnessy, on Flickr
I have ordered an antenna on E-bay listed on flightaware to bye list. But I will get the one at modmypi who has a decent mounting bracket and that many in here gives a good score on.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4164/34110797112_3ac887d00b_z.jpgFlightaware-piaware by tnessy, on Flickr
But I get some result
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4166/34228315936_43986b6529_n.jpgSkjermbilde 2017-04-25 kl. 21.38.17 by tnessy, on Flickr
Closest airport is ENBO (Bodø, North of Norway) its aprox 9km from where I live driving.
Here is my setup:
https://thumb.ibb.co/exYciQ/IMG_20170607_161106.jpg
https://thumb.ibb.co/iwf7iQ/IMG_20170607_161145.jpg
Includes 2xOrangePI-Zero, 2xAxing-SVS-2-01, 2xRTL-SDRV3, 2xDIY-TA1090ECFilter+power_inserter and one 5V to 12-30V converter.
I have Vinant CoCo antenna + many experimental antennas…
Seems you are a DIY enthusiast, and love experimenting.
I will love to see details of your DIY TAI SAW filter, Coco+experimental antennas, and power inserter. Are those two recycled TV splitters now housing power inserter components (lnductor & Capacitor)?
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I like to experiment…
Those are two satellite splitters with TA1090CE soldered in that act as filters+power inserters. I have not taken out the original boards (maybe I should), but they do have capacitors and inductors…
I tried different types of spiders and cantennas now exploring CoCos…
https://thumb.ibb.co/gp9Rck/IMG_20170627_224023.jpg
https://thumb.ibb.co/gyoxiQ/IMG_20170627_224132_1.jpg
Vinnant CoCo, not mine but I use the same…
https://thumb.ibb.co/hTPbck/vinnant.jpg
@ttalex:
Thanks for posting pictures of your DIY antennas, and details about Filter+Power Inserter.
Looks great. Happy experimenting.
I finally took the plunge and setup an outdoor rig. Previously I had been playing with all of these components indoors, but wanted to see just how many aircraft I could reasonably see.
I routed a LMR-400 N-Type → SMA Male cable into my workshop from my antenna. Gear all mounted on a sheet of plywood (from the ceiling):
- dedicated power receptacle
- Raspberry Pi 3
- FlightAware Pro Stick USB ADS-B Receiver
- ADS-B 1090MHz Band-pass SMA Filter
http://cturra.com/images/turracaine-pi.jpg
Here is the (FlightAware) 1090MHz ADS-B antenna on an existing mast.
http://cturra.com/images/turracaine-antenna1.jpg
http://cturra.com/images/turracaine-antenna2.jpg
Thirteen days ago, it started with this extremely poorly configured raspberry zero with a $8 aliexpress dongle and a $1 antenna. I saw planes and I was happy with my ten planes and 40 messages per second. Mlat worked and I even cut the antenna to lambda/4
Das war einmal - I saw other configurations and made a “fault” and ended up with two FA antennas, two band pass filters and two blue FA sticks. Nerds always have some spare PIs stocked. After a lot of experimenting, the current setup is:
site 57266: FA antenna @12 m, attached on the south side of the roof, line of sight to the north, 5m CLF200 50 Ohm cable connected to a FA pro stick @ Pi3 with Jesie light PiAware, dump1090-muta, collectdd and rdd (Ted Sluis dumptools config)
site 58233: FA antenna @11 m, attached on the south side of the roof, limited line of sight to the north, 1m CLF200 50 Ohm cable connected to a FA pro stick @ Pi3 with Jesie light PiAware, dump1090-fa (seriously: 100 new sites per day?)
The filters affect the stats negatively (slightly), but I have a hack RF one so they might be handy.
But this one sparked the fire:
Reason for having two sites at one location: it allows me to experiment to optimize my configuration. The 1m higher on a 5m cable outperforms the lower @ 1m cable slightly. It could be the setup, but I saw the #positions rise when I switched from dump1090-fa to mutability. There is so much research ahead of me
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We usually add around 50/day, of which about 15-20/day stick around. The rate of site ID allocation is artificially inflated at the moment by some stats-related problems.
Just did a write-up on my blog on my setup.
https://blog.flexstart.me/post/flight-tracker-on-a-budget/
I can occasionally get planes 200nm+ in Tennessee. I have the antenna on a pole next to the chicken coop, and the Pi is in the coop.
https://skyview.flexstart.me/
https://flightaware.com/adsb/stats/user/19kestier
Happy Experimenting!
Great setup!