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Raspberry Pi type B + DVB-T Dongle to feed FR24

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  • Hey folks,

    yesterday I took my kindle with this thread into the bathtube. It's quite easy im only a few steps away. I will check on the weekend including to check where I can place the antenna up the roof. I have no power outlet up there thet is the only problem to resolve ?
    Best regards Christian
    -------------------------
    Equipment: ICOM IC-A6E AirBand Radio, RTL-DVB-T Stick with RPi-B

    Comment


    • Lots, longish feed from the antenna, power over ethernet, run on battery, wifi ... all have thier own challenge. First thing is to get a simple installation working then work on improving it. A home brew antenna is next.

      Sent from my GT-P5110 using Tapatalk

      Comment


      • Glad I've found this ! I am currently using a NooElec R820T + Raspberry Pi with the stock Dump1090 map. I have installed an external antenna which feeds the RTL with RGC-213 cable. The picture below shows the homemade groundplane 1090 MHz antenna and the VHF-Comm groundplane antenna and the not-used-anymore VHF TV antenna.

        foto 6.jpg

        Those interested can take a peek at the Dump1090 html webpage at http://sbfiadsb.no-ip.org . I am currently located at Foz do Iguacu, Brazil (SBFI/IGU).

        Ricardo
        Brazil

        Comment


        • Welcome aboard Ricardo,

          How far away do you detect the aeroplanes? (cannot see any now, there was one a few minutes ago though)

          Comment


          • Originally posted by peterhr View Post
            Welcome aboard Ricardo,

            How far away do you detect the aeroplanes? (cannot see any now, there was one a few minutes ago though)
            Thanks for the warm welcome, Peter.

            I've managed mixed results: loosing track of planes on short final on the opposite runway from home (RWY32) and detecting planes as far as 250 km away.

            I've tweaked my installation: trimmed some excess cable and removed a short, 5 meter hop of RGC-58 cable that was tucked in the plastic conduit on the wall. I managed to route the RGC-213 cable inside the conduit and now there is a 12 meter long cable hop from the antenna to the RTL. I've changed the MCX connector to a SMA connector on the RTL dongle and attached a small, 4 inch SMA-N pigtail. My first impression is that things improved a little, but only time will tell how much the coverage has improved.

            I feel pretty excited about this new hobby.

            Regards,

            Ricardo
            Brazil

            Comment


            • I wonder if it might be because your antenna just has no sensitivity at that low height?

              The nice thing about the low cost pi setup is it's not two expensive to put in a whole second rig behind an antenna set up for local use or an antenna on a yagi or behind a reflector

              Comment


              • Originally posted by peterhr View Post
                I wonder if it might be because your antenna just has no sensitivity at that low height?

                The nice thing about the low cost pi setup is it's not two expensive to put in a whole second rig behind an antenna set up for local use or an antenna on a yagi or behind a reflector
                Performance has improved, indeed. It's pretty consistent with FlightRadar's F-SBFI1 receiver. I managed to have a positive identification of planes located over Posadas VOR which is located 240 km. to the southwest but it's way too early to have.

                I am considering moving the antenna some 5-6 ft up. I suspect that the Ku-band sat antenna dish may be shadowing the ADSB groundplane antenna on the NE direction:

                foto 1a.jpg


                Any insights will be very welcome.

                Regards

                Ricardo
                Brazil

                Comment


                • Interesting bit of "useless" info....
                  Since the RasPi does not have cooling fans, it can very well get a bit warm. If you want to monitor at what temperature your RasPi is running:

                  watch /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp


                  And it will show the current temperature:
                  Every 2.0s: /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp Mon Nov 11 11:14:23 2013

                  temp=30.4'C

                  Mine is in a little homemade box, with 2 fans, hense a nice and low temp. Its ambient 32.6Celsius now

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by HermanZA View Post
                    Interesting bit of "useless" info....
                    Since the RasPi does not have cooling fans, it can very well get a bit warm. If you want to monitor at what temperature your RasPi is running:

                    watch /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp

                    And it will show the current temperature:
                    Every 2.0s: /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp Mon Nov 11 11:14:23 2013

                    temp=30.4'C

                    Mine is in a little homemade box, with 2 fans, hense a nice and low temp. Its ambient 32.6Celsius now


                    This may be helpful for troubleshooting. Mine is enclosed in an acrylic case, with heatsinks with no forced air cooling - so far. Local temperature is 30' C and it's istill 09:45 AM (daylight saving time). I'll salvage a tiny fan from an old AGP video card and install it right over the SDRAM heatsink, since the SoC is located beneath it.

                    I am impressed with the overall performance of my setup. With that simple groundplane antenna, a R820T stick and RPi I am feeding as T-SBFI2.

                    Ricardo
                    Brazil

                    Comment


                    • I want to thank Peter for his fantastic Rasppbery Pi tutorial. One newby question: How can you check that my stick/antenna is feeding data to Flightradar24?

                      Thanks!

                      Comment


                      • Log on to FR24 and your latest activity is in there under your account info :-)

                        sent from my phone that isn't an i anything!

                        Comment


                        • 41South is correct, if you are logged in as Premium user, your account will show you Last Activity.

                          On the PI you can run the following command:
                          tail -f /tmp/fr24feed.log Ctrl+C to stop the output.

                          It will show you interesting output like:
                          [n]your-site-code@83.140.247.21:8099/UDP
                          [n]connecting
                          [n]connected
                          [n]switching to UDP
                          [n]working
                          [n]pinging the server
                          [i]sent 4 planes in 1 packets
                          [i]sent 4 planes in 1 packets
                          [i]sent 3 planes in 1 packets
                          [i]sent 4 planes in 1 packets

                          .... when you see that, you are sending data. You might only PING the servers every few minutes, if you don't have any planes to upload.

                          But Peter might have a easier/better plan.
                          Last edited by HermanZA; 2013-11-18, 23:52.

                          Comment


                          • Welcome aboard Laserboy, where about in the world are you (nearest city)

                            Originally posted by Laserboy View Post
                            I want to thank Peter for his fantastic Raspberry Pi tutorial.
                            You're very welcome

                            Originally posted by Laserboy View Post
                            One newby question: How can you check that my stick/antenna is feeding data to Flightradar24?
                            I'd check the log as suggested by Herman, If you see 'your' planes with someone else's radar - particularly an F- Radar - on the FR24.com map, it's probably because they have a receiver that processes the data faster than yours does. For me this means my radar rarely is shown but if you are in an area that is unserviced you will make a big difference and it'll be time to start experimenting building antennas.
                            Last edited by peterhr; 2013-11-19, 07:11.

                            Comment


                            • Thanks for the warm welcome and the answers . I appreciate that and it works. I live in a relatively busy flying area. As the crow flies, its 33 miles East Southeast from Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam. My radar code is T-EHSB36, nearest airport is a former military airfield Soesterberg. At the moment I'm experimenting with the RTL Dongle from the window (low range). I have the antenna short time placed at the roof window. Immediately I saw a noticeable difference in the range of the number of aircrafts . Also, my data actually used by Flightradar24-map. This place, at the windows roof is currently no suitable place for some reasons.

                              I am a loyal user of Flightradar24. I have for some time a second Raspberry Pi which I rarely use . So I hope I can contribute, it is so easy when its works. For Longer-term hopefully with a better range. At the moment the Raspberry Pi is connected to the Internet by a WiFi Dongle (I am aware of possible delays with WiFi). But i working on it.

                              I'm subscribed to this thread, so I can follow your comments about your expertise in the future. ;-)

                              Comment


                              • How do I make a coverage map from my Raspberry Pi + DVB-T Dongle?
                                I have seen some pics where adsbscope was used.
                                Installed adsbscope on my PC but it can't accept data from outside the PC?

                                Thanks

                                Poul
                                T-EKCH5: Raspberry Pi 4-B (Buster) + FlightAware Pro Stick Plus + FlightAware 1090MHz Bandpass Filter Dark Blue + A3-ADS-B Antenna

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