What is the bandwidth of the flightaware ProStick?

I would like to know the bandwidth of the FlightAware ProStick, in case that in the future I want to tune the dongle in the future.
Thanks in advance,
Willfrd

hardware can various frequencies, for adsb you are using dump1090 at 1090mhz

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Like any other rtl2832-based dongle, the maximum bandwidth you can get out of them reliably is somewhere around 2.4MHz-2.5MHz.

The “bandwidth” and “frequency range” are two distinct things. As Oliver (obj) has already mentioned, “band width” of the tuner chip is around 2.4MHz-2.5MHz.

If the question is about “frequency range”, it is dependent on the tuner chip. The tuner chip R820T/R820T2 go from 24-1760 MHz (but with reduced performance above 1500 MHz).

However since ProStick uses an rf pre-amplifier chip also, the frequency range depends on the frequency range of the rf pre-amplifier chip also. This we need to know from Flightaware.

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Thanks for your answer, in the page of the ProStick it only says “Amplifier: 19dB with 0.4dB noise figure and OIP3 +39dB”, does that give us any answers? No, no?

I think you need to clarify your question, I don’t understand what you are asking.

Sorry for that I´ll try to explain myself better… Basically I am planning to buy a usb dongle for ADS-B reception that in the future I may want to use for other things such as ACARS. Initially I was thinking on buying a R820T but I am now considering on buying the FlightAware ProStick… Now my question is just as I can use the R820T for other uses as it says in RTL-SDR http://www.rtl-sdr.com/about-rtl-sdr/ can I use the ProStick for exactly the same uses? or does pre-amplifier chip affect the frequency range? This we need to know from Flightaware. , because obiously the ProStick Plus is not an option in my case as it has a 1090 filter and that makes it . BTW I may be using the incorrect term when I say “bandwidth” sorry but I am not really familliar with this subject.

The common team for what you are asking is frequency range (lowest to highest useful frequencies).
Bandwidth(Frequency wise, not USB wise) is how wide a signal frequency the device can listen to at the same time. 2.4-2.5Mhz will get you quite a few acars channels.

The Pro stick is only $20. I probably have 10-15 RTL-SDR style dongles (Pro sticks 1.0 and 1.1 and the plus, RTL-SDR and nooelecs as well as several airspys). You could always see how it works on other frequencies and buy another dongle if it doesn’t work out. There is no reason why the pro stick won’t work well at ~130Mhz where acars is used. The amp

You can even run dump1090/piware, acars and UAT978/dump978 on the same RPI. I have this running on an Odroid XU4(which is just an RPI on steroids). I need the extra processing power for an airspy running airspy_adsb. acars and uat978 don’t take up too much cpu. Most of the improvements are gained by the antenna system(coax, antenna, antenna location/height and filter).

This may be useful: post190976.html#p190976

Ok guys thanks for all your answers, see you soon, take care :wink:

i have one rpi 3 running two dongles one r820t for acars other pro stick for adsb, i have another rpi 2 running one r820t for adsb and in past was for pager messages decode, all works fine so basically for your question the answer is yes you can use r820t or pro stick for different thinks.

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Thanks again :slight_smile:

The prostick was designed to maximise amplification but it also slightly distorts the signal over a plain RTL dongle.
The built-in amplifier works over a fairly wide band. At 1090MHz the gain is 19dB but at around 100MHz the gain is just a couple dB.

You can use the prostick to pick up ACARS and listen into radio chatter in the 100MHz band but you will also hear a bit of distortion and noise.
It isn’t much of a problem from some people but for those that listen a lot to radio chatter it can be annoying.

If you want ACARS and radio chatter definitely get the “RTL-SDR.com dongle” (amazon carries it). They specifically designed features into that dongle to pick up those frequencies with very low noise and distortion.

Can i ask where there are any specs or links what you quoted on the pro sticks, only i have never heard of the Pro sticks 1.0 and 1.1 ???

Thanks in advance

Rob

Rob,
Here it is.
flightaware.com/adsb/prostick/

sorry i must be missing something somewhere regarding the v1.0 and the v1.1

are you saying the plus is the v1.1 then? only i ask because from what i can see they are both named v1.0 in the two images.

Also i was not aware that both orange and blue i shall call them till the version number query is clarified were TCXO rated,

Early 1.0s just had the amp.
Later 1.0s and 1.1(orange) have the TCXO chip as well as the amp.

The pro stick plus(blue), first version was labelled 1.0, has TCXO, amp and a saw filter.

The Pro stick is orange. The Pro stick plus is blue.

now thats very interesting and how do you know what ver 1.0 orange is yours ? example the two i have how do i tell they are TCXO please

No sure how to tell the difference. I am sure someone here can tell you.

For ADS-B purposes, it makes very little difference. The frequencies are so high and the bandwidth so wide(and variable) that it shouldn’t really matter.
I haven’t set the offset on any of my setups.

My NooElec premium ppm offset runs at 0.356 but this particular prostick i have here is 10.0 so quite some difference and by that it must be the non TCXO version.

Thanks for your help and replies mate.

Rob