# Radarbox AirNav Setup | Thoughts
**URL:** https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/radarbox-airnav-setup-thoughts/61807
**Category:** ADS-B Flight Tracking
**Created:** [March 5, 2020, 11:06am UTC](https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/radarbox-airnav-setup-thoughts/61807 "2020-03-05T11:06:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@nikka93](https://discussions.flightaware.com/u/nikka93)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2020, 11:06am UTC](https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/radarbox-airnav-setup-thoughts/61807/1 "2020-03-05T11:06:31Z")
Thanks to your help I’ve found a cheap offer for the RB Airnav setup, and I purchased the green usb stick with the 1090Mhz outdoor antenna.
The first thing that I noticed is **how hot this dongle became.**
So I opened it and I put a couple of heatsinks on those two chipset but also the DC regulator runs around 50°C (122°F).
I’m a little bit scared about using that on summer ( here we can get around 40°C (104°F) in the hottest days) so I plan to put It on the north face of the building were is in not affected by sunlight.
The second thing is related to **the results that are not much better than the Nooelec Dongle** ( which runs cooler thanks to the heatsinks built-in) and the cute general purpose antenna for DVB-T.
Looks like that I can spot only high altitude planes (check the last pic)
Could this be related to the 10Meter coax cable? How much would I gain if I cut this by 2 o 3 meters?
Those are the results that I achieved with my test last day, 6th floor balcony with:
North horizon view
Est Almost Clear, more wall from my building
Ovest Almost Clear
South my wall from my building
11:00 to 14:00 are referred to another location which is clearly worse than the one from 15:20 to 16:40 which is one that I’m talking about
  
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### Author:  [@wiedehopf](https://discussions.flightaware.com/u/wiedehopf)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2020, 11:42am UTC](https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/radarbox-airnav-setup-thoughts/61807/2 "2020-03-05T11:42:35Z")
First off you might want to set your location.
If you are feeding FA, that’s done on your stats page.
Might not take effect until you restart piaware and dump1090-fa or just do `sudo reboot`.
In regards to range, a view of the horizon doesn’t mean all that much.
If the horizon is a hill, then you don’t really see the horizon 😉
Well technically it’s the horizon i think but … you get the picture, you can’t look straight, but only slightly up.
Check this page in regards to the possible range you can get:
> [@What is the Maximum Range I can Get?](https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/what-is-the-maximum-range-i-can-get/17248):
>
> INTRODUCTION The Maximum Range achievable at any location depends on (1) Curvature of earth (2) The terrain around that location. Terrain plays a very important role as hills & changes in ground level will restrict maximum range. This is due to the fact that propagation of radio waves in GHz/Microwave range is line of sight. The range is therefore limited by curvature of earth, and is about 250 nautical miles / 450 km for an ideal condition of perfectly level terrain. Hills & rise in grou…
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### Author:  [@abcd567](https://discussions.flightaware.com/u/abcd567)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2020, 12:29pm UTC](https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/radarbox-airnav-setup-thoughts/61807/3 "2020-03-05T12:29:50Z")
> [@nikka93](#):
>
> The first thing that I noticed is **how hot this dongle became.**
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### Author:  [@nikka93](https://discussions.flightaware.com/u/nikka93)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2020, 12:41pm UTC](https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/radarbox-airnav-setup-thoughts/61807/4 "2020-03-05T12:41:20Z")
Hi man, still not feeding until the all setup will be permanent.
I’ve already used the tool in the thread, those are the results ad different altitudes
  
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### Author:  [@nikka93](https://discussions.flightaware.com/u/nikka93)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2020, 12:41pm UTC](https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/radarbox-airnav-setup-thoughts/61807/5 "2020-03-05T12:41:56Z")
I opened the case and leaved it open with small heatsinks on chip and 3 other on the bottom part of the pcb
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### Author:  [@wiedehopf](https://discussions.flightaware.com/u/wiedehopf)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2020, 2:01pm UTC](https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/radarbox-airnav-setup-thoughts/61807/6 "2020-03-05T14:01:45Z")
You can also add the max range as an overlay, see only point 11 of this post:
[Bake a Pi](https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/bake-a-pi/19886/3)
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### Author:  [@nikka93](https://discussions.flightaware.com/u/nikka93)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2020, 7:32pm UTC](https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/radarbox-airnav-setup-thoughts/61807/7 "2020-03-05T19:32:00Z")
done it now.
Shortening the coax cable by 2 or 3 meters could be a significant improvement? ( Stock is 10m)
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### Author:  [@wiedehopf](https://discussions.flightaware.com/u/wiedehopf)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2020, 7:35pm UTC](https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/radarbox-airnav-setup-thoughts/61807/8 "2020-03-05T19:35:46Z")
> [@nikka93](#):
>
> Shortening the coax cable by 2 or 3 meters could be a significant improvement? ( Stock is 10m)
All depends of the loss the coax has, which depends on the specific product.
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### Author:  [@nikka93](https://discussions.flightaware.com/u/nikka93)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2020, 11:18am UTC](https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/radarbox-airnav-setup-thoughts/61807/9 "2020-03-09T11:18:48Z")
there is this table on the coax: _8252m_
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### Author:  [@nikka93](https://discussions.flightaware.com/u/nikka93)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2020, 5:04pm UTC](https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/radarbox-airnav-setup-thoughts/61807/10 "2020-03-21T17:04:31Z")
this thing really runs hot, i wired up a DS18B20 to check temps every 1min.
I mounted a small heatsink ( the one for the small usb chip for RPi) and…
Those are the results:
