I previously had the FlightAware 1090-only filter in front of the pre-amp. Removed that today in case the additional filtering was unnecessary and potentially hurting reception. After watching the graphs for the last 12 hours, I believe I’ve seen an overall increase in performance. Not necessarily a range increase, but an increase in aircraft count, message rate, etc. Pretty happy with what I’m seeing without the filter in place.
I made the same experience. Using Raspberry with blue FA stick. Then decided to add an additional filter.
It does not change anything in reception except the fact that i needed to increase the gain.
A filter can make sense, but depending on the environment it does not give always better results.
Just out of interest will the fact that the container is made of a black material be a problem as I read that black or dark materials have a higher carbon content so it is better to use white or light coloured ones that way there is less interference between antenna and casing
Actually there are black paints that are used as EMF shielding. Just make sure the antenna is outside of the painted enclosure.
I’m fairly new to this, but the largest cost of “the system” is the antenna wire (x2 if you’re doing both 1090 and 978 frequencies) which (quality and length) is very custom to your installation. Sure, a cheap package could be sold that included the tiny mag-mount antennas-- wouldn’t take much to put together this “package” with components on Amazon. I don’t know what Flightfeeder includes for antenna cable length, but it doesn’t appear to be customized per installation. When I look at Flightfeeder installs near me, they are much lower metrics compared to mine. This forum has lots of info on how to assemble and set up the basic components. The Flightfeeder package looks nice in terms of a touch-screen and a GUI for set-up.
Dear, abcd567.
Your PCB antenna is active?
My temporary “window-flowers” setup Pi4-2Gb + blueFlightAware stick.
With new white active antenna - 36dbi on test.
And not connected - black 6DBi 1090MHz.
Forum users, please tell me - what tests can be done for a white antenna on the Raspberry?
Looks like this is in agreement with your wife, or?
I have similar challenges, she says i can do what i want as long as it’s not visible
I have a similar antenna as spare part saying 6dBi
Compared to my individual created antenna and the Jetvision which is documented as 5dBi, the performance is 30% less. I am not really convinced that 6dBi is the rigt value they tell the customers
That active antenna has an atrocious LNA and no filtering if i remember correctly.
But doesn’t look like you can remove the LNA from that antenna.
First thing you will need to do with that active antenna is to lower the gain.
You might have gotten a good model i suppose.
Also your antenna is picking up all the noise from the Pi … you need a bit more coax or at least put the pi / SDR directly beneath the antenna and lift the antenna a bit.
Thanks for the information, I am planning to buy 20 meters of Kingsignal 5D-FB cable and install the antenna on the roof of a 9 storey building.
Here are the results from graphs1090 for 6dbi / 36dbi antennas
@foxhunter I have had a similar experience with a PCB antenna or worse. I found all of my cantenna variations outperformed the PCB item. Figures: best cantenna 18654 hits in 24hrs and PCB antenna 3057 hits in 24hrs. So I saw the PCB only pick up 16% of the hits of a good cantenna (all tests performed with the same kit, in the same room, at the same height etc)
Mine is this one. Still with me, but only as spare in case one of the other two fail.
TEN-90 ADS-B Antenne 6 dBi für 1090 MHz Empfänger - Raspberry Pi SoC, 52,99 € (rasppishop.de)
Never ever is this 6dB while e.g. the Jetvision has nomial 5dB, but a 30-50% better performance
I think I should also start manufacturing and selling the V-Stub antenna on eBay.
I can easily claim it to be 5dB if I include these siimulation results with my listing on eBay
V-Stub simulation results
I wouldn’t expect it to be as good as a proper quarter wave with radials but I’d expect it to be better than that. Did you check for missing solder?
So all things the same except the day?
I agree with @keithma that it should be at least as good as a 1/4wave on a random bean tin.
I use several PCB dipoles and they perform quite acceptably.
My current setup:
T-EDLE293
Wanne-Eickel/Herne, Germany
Receiver:
RTL-SDR Blog V3 R820T2 RTL2832U Dongle
Antenna:
Selfmade Spider
Filter:
RTL-SDR Blog ADS-B Triple Filtered LNA and FlightAware dark blue ADS-B/Mode-S Filter (because of a cellular antenna tower in the neighborhood)
Feeders:
FlightRadar24, ADS-B Exchange, FlightAware, PlaneFinder, AirNav Radarbox
Nice setup. For the love of wireless communications:clap:t2:
Hello gecko,
Yes, exactly the same rig was used see below. The results where so poor I ran the test six times over six 22hr periods. I only bought one pcd antenna so there is a possibility of a issue with the pcb, but i dont think I will buy another as they are either poor made (and i got a bad one) or the design is suspect.
All the antenna variations where tested against an unchanging reference rig and all the results are reported are a Ratio between the unchanging reference rig and the test rig. If the number of flights drops or rises on a given day I can still compare the results for previous days, as I am only looking at the ratio between the reference rig and the test rig not the actual count.
- All tests where run from 00:00 for a minimum of 22hrs.
- All ADSB data was recorded from the Flight Aware web site.
The Reference / Control rig is:
• Location: UK, Oxford, Loft +6m above ground
• Antenna: Tuned 1/4wave Marconi 45deg
• Antenna: Constructed from 2.4mm Brass tube and an N-type connector.
• Rx: Noolec SMArt, Aluminium Enclosure, 0.5PPM, SMA connector (2017)
• Filter: 1090Mhz surface mount, 50 Ohm, SMA connector Passband: 1086 ~ 1094 MHz
• Processor: Raspberry Pi 3
• Operating Sys: PiAware 4.0
The Test rigs are:
• Location: UK, Oxford, Bedroom +4m above ground
• Antenna:
• Rx: Noolec SMArt, Aluminium Enclosure, 0.5PPM, SMA connector (2017)
• Filter: None
• Processor: Raspberry Pi 3
• Operating Sys: PiAware 4.0
I love a 1/4 wave, simple and work really well.
Some are missing ground plane soldering at the connector.
Anyhow … looks like you got a bad one.