I updated my setup. A couple of weeks ago I switched to an Airspy R2 and Raspberry Pi 4B. Everything is running smoothly and I had a nice improvement in aircraft count and range. Yesterday I finalized adding a 7 segment display, showing the amount of aircraft with position data. The line on the most left digit indicates and increase compared to the previous number or a decrease. In case of a decrease the lower segment is lighting up. The display updates every second and runs as a service.
It was a nice challenge to do because I had to learn Python, setup some IDE workflow without stopping my ADSB for longer periods, raspberry I2C interfacing, dealing with aircraft.json, running stuff as a service on a raspberry etc… It was a nice learning experience 
That input to the uputronics amp almost looks broken already.
Probably best not to touch it now, but for the future i would recommend just fixating the coax and letting the uputronics hang from the coax.
Reduces the likelihood of the connector breaking from the circuit board significantly.
That’s pretty much what the collectd module in graphs1090 does.
Everything fine, it only looks a bit like that on the photo. As engineer I learned not to hang stuff on cables because cables are made for carrying signal, not equipment 
BTW Thank you for your Airspy script, tar1090 and graph1090. With your work and RPI monitor I left the ADSBReceiver project behind.
I do understand the general guideline.
But on the other hand hanging that light case from the cable is the best way to not introduce a bending moment in that common failure point.
Anyhow maybe your above comment was just humor , cheers!
@timothydykstra82 et al, regarding tuning gain.
I came to the conclusion that once a ballpark gain has been arrived at, then one should consider if further gain tweaking can be done based on the distribution of aircraft seen throughout the day.
Where I am located the “Aircraft Seen” drops off significantly around 21:00 and the opposite happens around 07:00
So I defined a crontab to schedule different gain changes depending on nighttime/daytime.
I’ve also been experimenting with a different gain setting for the period between 10:00 and 14:00, but it’s still very experimental (which is half the fun!)
My ADS-B Message Rate shows I have little or no >-3dBFS when traffic is low, but an acceptable percentage over 24-hours. I also see Messages/Second between 1600 and 1800 for most of the time when I have the gain up high.
I’m not saying this is optimal, but its is something to consider and play around with.
That’s a really interesting idea, thankyou for sharing it. Keep us all posted on how it goes, looks like something to explore to try and extract a little bit extra during quiet periods. Analgous to turning down the squelch and turning up the gain on quiet sidebands and listening carefully hunting for faint voices, which on a noisier band would be drowned out with such settings.
I just installed this indoor setup along the highest roof line of my 2-story house. This allowed me to space the 1090 & 978 DIY antennas farther apart (versus my enclosed box setup) and it allows me to tune each antenna while it’s installed to get as close to 50-ohms and less than 1.1 VSWR (tuning involves 1) finding the right length for the vertical element and 2) adjusting the 4 radials for lowest VSWR).
This setup is getting better reception than my outdoor tree setup (that looks like a Q-Tip) probably because the attic setup is a few feet higher and the antennas are better tuned.
Did you 3D print those green parts? It looks really well put together.
Yes - I modified some of my earlier ADS-B related parts using TinkerCAD and printed out these 3 pieces earlier today (2.5 hrs to print them). Only used about $1 of PLA filament 
That’s very cool, it looks great!
I don’t see filters or LNAs attached. Did you consider this already?
Setup looks impressive.
Do you expect temperature issues during summer?
That’s a really slick setup!
I wanted to keep the setup simple and the DIY antennas already have a natural filter effect …
Regarding temp issues, I experimented with all of this in a box in the attic last summer and the Raspi CPU did get in the 80’C range - putting a circulation fan in the box lowered the CPU temp to the 65’C range (CPU throttling kicks in at >80’C). I think without the box it will run in the 70’C range during the summer - I can always add a fan (red/black wires in lower right of earlier pic).
Thanks, i will see how mine performes during summer season. It’s outdoor but mainly in the shade.
I am using a Pi 4 with the Armor case including fan.
Heat adds noise to the receivers.
The receivers and the Pi will do much better inside the conditioned space. Even if that means adding LNA’s and cable to the setup.
How that? Never heard about it. the last six months my receiver are operating between 25°C and 65°C (SoC) and i did not see any deviation.
Have a search for people “cooling” their cameras for astrophotography.
If you want an easy test for a microwave receiver - point a directional antenna at the sun. A spike in the noise level is the quickest confidence test you can do.
If my current 25ft run has my Pi in the attic, that 25ft LMR400 has a loss of ~1.3dB would running a 50ft cable instead to get my airspy / pi into my conditioned space overcome the extra loss? It looks like it jumps up to ~2.4dB @ 50ft
I’m guessing it would at least make it more stable since the air temp on it would be stable and not spike throughout the day.
That’s why you add an LNA with a very low noise factor at the antenna. Sure that gets hot too, but the end result is less affected usually. LNA starts with lower noise anyway than many of our dongles (integrated plain Si CMOS first stage versus fancy GaAs, AlGaAs or Ga nitride HEMTs).
Sure, nobody can go lower than the thermal noise of a 50 ohm (or 75 ohm) equivalent impedance (50 ohm has less inherent noise) so some people choose to actively cool their receivers with Peltier devices and coolers/fans. They tend to sweat in humid climates (below dew point) though. Like this one: https://www.amazon.com/HiLetgo-TEC1-12706-Semiconductor-Refrigeration-Thermoelectric/dp/B00M1PM7H6
Now, in my experience, the noise level might be overstated in ADS-B digital reception. In my setup, even the furthest away planes have plenty of signal (-18…-22dB) right before they disappear. I think that I am loosing them because they drop under the electrical horizon, not because I don’t have enough gain to receive them.
In a way, maybe a direct cable connection, without LNA at the antenna, will work almost as good, as long as we have a small gain integral amp in the receiver (like FA ones).