I think the location is the most important use to live in a location that i can barely get 120nm since we changed to a different location most i ever got has been 515nm my average is around 278nm i got 8 adsb antennas around 9 metres high they all perform different like for example the kinetic sbs3 is very fussy with the right antenna works excellent the airnav xrange 2 works excellent with many of my antennas,gns5890 is very fussy my theory is there really best antenna or best location.
That would be due to tropospheric ducting caused by a frontal system or temperature inversion as 515nm is over the horizon due to the earth’s curvature, unless your antenna’s thousands of feet in the air.
That 515nm due to humidity being high but my average is around 278nm.I also have the Jetvision Active Diapason works excellent for its size with the original white cable haven tried it with LMR400 cable.
But without changing location, a good DIY should outperform such a cheap general antenna.
I started with exactly that antenna and it improved performance immediately by 30% just following the suggestion of replacing the tip with a wire.
I think we all started out with an antenna like that. Mine wasn’t even upstairs near a window, it was just outside of a downstairs window near my PC stuck to a big steel can that was sitting on a stepladder. I think my range was more like nautical yards than miles but it was a thrill to be able to watch airplanes flying around nearby (very nearby in my case.) Then I moved it upstairs via a coax extension cable, then replaced the springy whip with a 5.2cm high wire, then contrived a makeshift thing to put it outside the window on a roughly 6.9cm steel can, then replaced the whole thing with a cantenna made from an aluminum can and some scrap coax, then got one of those Chinese-made stripline PCB flat colinears which is what I’m still using and works quite well. Range, message rate and number of aircraft improved at each stage. By this time next year I may be using something different and (hopefully) better, who knows?
Humidity has no effect on range. If it did I’d be seeing planes over the horizon every single day as it’s almost always > 80% here. Your ability to do so was due to troposheric ducting as I already said. The humidity was a side effect of whatever the local weather conditions were that caused the ducting. Correlation does not equal causation.
At the moment, I have
JetVision 1090 MHz Antenna ADS-B GPS combined antenna
Vinnant COL1090/5-S
AirNav ADS-B 1090 MHz
“Spiderman”
“Coketenna”
But for my case, with good cable, Jet A3 and Vinnant is tie.
My opinion, the cable is very important too.
My Vinnant 7.5 does not really outperform the Jetvision
If you’re already on a good location reaching the max range limited by terrain only, even a nominal better antenna can’t do miracles
It all depends on your current reception. If you are already at max and limited only by terrain, there is not much room for improvement if you simply change the antenna.
I meanwhile tested four different antennas with only minor differencies because my terrain limits me.
Any other improvement requires having the the antenna on a 50m pole
Currently i do have connected the Jetvision only, because of the GPS add on i need for the Airsquitter. There i have tested the Vinannt without significant difference
Is that true for the whole Germany (like a federal law) or just in some neighborhoods?
In US the only legal limitation is if you live really close to airports. Or if you agreed to neighborhood HOA rules when you bought the house (I would never buy a house in an HOA area).
but it was a thrill to be able to watch airplanes flying around nearby (very nearby in my case.) Then I moved it upstairs via a coax extension cable, then replaced the springy whip with a 5.2cm high wire, then contrived a makeshift thing to put it outside the window on a roughly 6.9cm steel can, then replaced the whole thing with a cantenna made from an aluminum can and some scrap coax, then got one of those Chinese-made stripline PCB flat colinears which is what I’m still using and works quite well. Range, message rate and number of aircraft improved at each stage. By this time next year I may be using something different and (hopefully) better, who knows?
