I feed both FR24 and adsbexchange with two raspberrries. For now, antennas are inside but will be going in attic soon. I have used most of the various 1090 antennas made and found that indoors the tiny Radarbox $20 mag base antenna works as good, and in many cases better than that which you are using - indoors anyway. I have a collection of no longer used antenna. I am in a high traffic area of central Florida so from 40 - 80 aircraft with range out to 90 miles when over 40,000 feet. Once antennas moved to attic should be a big improvement. Do not want to go to roof due to lightning capital area and tropical storms.
That sounds like a solid setup, I need to add a second antenna as well. Also, that sounds like a very safe bet for where you live. Better to be safe than sorry.
Yep! RTL-SDR dongle will work too. The Radar Box dongle has some additional filtering and a pre-amp built in that makes it a little better choice for a dedicated ADS-B receiver but I used an RTL-SDR dongle for a couple years before building this dedicated box.
Nice build. I’m still learning RF, so if this question offends or doesn’t apply to these circumstances. After you have it reinstalled , what provisions do you take for lighting protection? Was there a ground wire that dangled from box and attached to chimney? I ask because I’m finally going to install a premade , store bought antenna. And as the install day approaches,I can’t help but think of all the ways I can screw up. Living in So California all my life, weather was what everyone else experienced and we either volunteered or wrote checks when stuff hit the fan. Now that we can experience disasters in the form of hurricanes ( will soon be a regular occurrence) , I want to make sure I’m checking all the boxes when I stick a giant lightning rod into the sky.
I live in a pretty high lightning area, so I have a copper ground cable running from my mast down to a 10' ground rod. In a perfect world, this would tie into the ground rod for your house too (my house was built before ground rods were a thing, so I installed a rod specifically for my antenna). Where all my antenna cables (VHF/UHF and HF) and the power cable (from the Pi) enter the house I have a ground panel (basically a sheet of copper inside a weatherproof box mounted to the side of the house) that's also tied to that same ground rod. That ground panel has lightning arresters for the VHF/UHF antenna, my HF antenna, and a 12v DC arrester (uxcell, ~$20 from amazon) for the power going up to the Pi. The goal is to keep the low resistance path to ground entirely outside the house so that the current from the strike never makes it inside to cause damage or fire. It won't do much to protect sensitive electronics from a direct hit, but it should do a fairly decent job isolating the electronics inside the house from nearby strikes to trees, etc.
If I ever rebuild this with new electronics that is absolutely what I would do. At the time I was designing around parts I had on hand (the only components I bought specifically for this were the fan, usb hub, and Radar Box dongle). POE would have doubled or tripled the cost at the time.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed! I located my Pi outside to keep it as close to the antenna as possible. This is to minimize length of the co-ax feed line from the antenna. Losses in co-ax increase at the higher 950-1098mhz frequencies used by ADS-B. Probably overkill, but it was easy enough to do at the time.
Thanks for the reply and makes perfect sense. Assume is was powered from your house. Would like to explore the idea of a self contained / solar powered power supply to make the entire unit independent. Thanks again for the videos!
i am curious u see in your video an RF LNA in your video did you get this to work with the USB dongle ? did not spend much time on it now but it blocked the signals and did not work as intended but did not have time to really check out if it is just a power problem as I use a very long cable to the dongle or it is not compatible as the adsbexchange and airnav receiver could haven an amplifier in it wich would explain the problem ? do you have experience in the use of it?
I feed both FR24 and adsbexchange with two raspberrries. For now, antennas are inside but will be going in attic soon. I have used most of the various 1090 antennas made and found that indoors the tiny Radarbox $20 mag base antenna works as good, and in many cases better than that which you are using - indoors anyway. I have a collection of no longer used antenna.
I am in a high traffic area of central Florida so from 40 - 80 aircraft with range out to 90 miles when over 40,000 feet. Once antennas moved to attic should be a big improvement.
Do not want to go to roof due to lightning capital area and tropical storms.
That sounds like a solid setup, I need to add a second antenna as well. Also, that sounds like a very safe bet for where you live. Better to be safe than sorry.
Nice set up i was looking for a device mit made in a video years ago and ran into your channel.
Thanks! Appreciate it!
Can I use RTL-SDR instead of the RadarBox dongle? will it work?
Yep! RTL-SDR dongle will work too. The Radar Box dongle has some additional filtering and a pre-amp built in that makes it a little better choice for a dedicated ADS-B receiver but I used an RTL-SDR dongle for a couple years before building this dedicated box.
Nice build. I’m still learning RF, so if this question offends or doesn’t apply to these circumstances. After you have it reinstalled , what provisions do you take for lighting protection? Was there a ground wire that dangled from box and attached to chimney? I ask because I’m finally going to install a premade , store bought antenna. And as the install day approaches,I can’t help but think of all the ways I can screw up. Living in So California all my life, weather was what everyone else experienced and we either volunteered or wrote checks when stuff hit the fan. Now that we can experience disasters in the form of hurricanes ( will soon be a regular occurrence) , I want to make sure I’m checking all the boxes when I stick a giant lightning rod into the sky.
I live in a pretty high lightning area, so I have a copper ground cable running from my mast down to a 10' ground rod. In a perfect world, this would tie into the ground rod for your house too (my house was built before ground rods were a thing, so I installed a rod specifically for my antenna). Where all my antenna cables (VHF/UHF and HF) and the power cable (from the Pi) enter the house I have a ground panel (basically a sheet of copper inside a weatherproof box mounted to the side of the house) that's also tied to that same ground rod. That ground panel has lightning arresters for the VHF/UHF antenna, my HF antenna, and a 12v DC arrester (uxcell, ~$20 from amazon) for the power going up to the Pi. The goal is to keep the low resistance path to ground entirely outside the house so that the current from the strike never makes it inside to cause damage or fire. It won't do much to protect sensitive electronics from a direct hit, but it should do a fairly decent job isolating the electronics inside the house from nearby strikes to trees, etc.
Why not use a POE this will give it internet also power up your PI.
If I ever rebuild this with new electronics that is absolutely what I would do. At the time I was designing around parts I had on hand (the only components I bought specifically for this were the fan, usb hub, and Radar Box dongle). POE would have doubled or tripled the cost at the time.
Great video! With the raspberry pi, is there a benefit to having it outside vs inside?
Thanks, glad you enjoyed! I located my Pi outside to keep it as close to the antenna as possible. This is to minimize length of the co-ax feed line from the antenna. Losses in co-ax increase at the higher 950-1098mhz frequencies used by ADS-B. Probably overkill, but it was easy enough to do at the time.
Thanks for the reply and makes perfect sense. Assume is was powered from your house. Would like to explore the idea of a self contained / solar powered power supply to make the entire unit independent. Thanks again for the videos!
i am curious u see in your video an RF LNA in your video did you get this to work with the USB dongle ? did not spend much time on it now but it blocked the signals and did not work as intended but did not have time to really check out if it is just a power problem as I use a very long cable to the dongle or it is not compatible as the adsbexchange and airnav receiver could haven an amplifier in it wich would explain the problem ? do you have experience in the use of it?
Would you just open it up.