I am baffled by the drop in distance of aircraft received. I did install small fans on Pi which is encased to protect against weather but I did nothing else. I was receiving aircraft as far out as 200 Nm but now I’m lucky to receive beyond 100Nm. I have a magnetic antenna cut to 1/4 wave mounted on a soup can approximately 40 feet above the ground. It used to perform wonderfully. So raising the antenna and installing cooling fans has decreased my reception significantly. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas as to why this is happening?
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Tell us more about the setup.
Is the antenna (and Pi?) mounted outside?
How is it powered?
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Good evening. Please tell us about how additional 20’ of coax cable was added to the system to raise antenna higher and what spec of coax is used.
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Did you also increase the distance between the antenna and the RPi?
If so, the performance decrease is due to coax attenuation.
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Clarification. Where is the antenna mounted in relationship to it’s original position? Is it in the same location on the house but just 20ft higher? Have you tried turning off the fans to see if they are creating an interference to the Pi reception? Good to test all changes when possible. Are you running 1090 graphs to look at the changes on that platform?
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I didn’t add anything to the setup. It is a Pi 3 and It is on the roof. I have the Pi 3 encased in a plastic weather box on a mast about 35 feet. I ran a drop cord to the box and the antenna has about 10 feet of coax. The coax came attached to the magnetic mount antenna and is fairly thin. So the distance between the antenna and Pi has not changed. The only thing that changed is the Pi is 20 feet higher and farther away from the router connected wirelessly to WiFi.
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Your new setup is virtually the same as the old one. I had a problem when setting things up a while back and found a WiFi issue. The Raspberry Pi 3 WiFi antenna is at the same end as the SD Card and right on the edge of the board. One possibility is the polarization of the Pi3 antenna is not the same as your WiFi router antennas. Perhaps tilt one of the router antennas or reposition the router a bit and see if your results improve. Any metal items in between the antennas can mess with the signals and cause you to lose signals, just a possibility.
Maybe you could have accidentally damaged the ADSB antenna cable. Perhaps check into @adsb5678’s post: Three Easy DIY Antennas for Beginners for some nifty antenna alternatives. Low/No cost, and very capable. I particularly like the V notch one. Have fun making your system better and better.
Gene
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Never mind. I pulled it down and found the wire from the antenna at the filter was pulled out. I have 2 more antennas so I will be up again soon. Thanks for all the responses. It was just operator headspace and timing.
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You nailed it. The wire was pulled out of the connector at the filter end. Thanks for the reply.
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Be aware these mag-base antennas are not weather resistant and will age badly.
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Over 10 years ago I made an eight-leg spider antenna to replace the similar antenna you have now. That hooked me in for years of tweaking & tinkering. Plus there’s a wonderful technical team here to teach and entertain you along the way!
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