New Zealand Radar

[Templeton]

Seems someone else has joined in the mix

We now have a Net1 uploader covering Christchurch/wellington region. Even taxiing A/C on the ground at NZCH!

That would be me

I'm in Templeton (as you might guess) and have an Aurora SSRx receiver with a high gain, low noise 23cm pre-amp and a very basic homemade G7RGQ antenna.

I'm just uploading with PP but have emailed a request for the feeder software.

Cheers
Steven

[Oblivian]

You my friend. Are a legend. Can't beleive how sensitive it is on the deck. Beaten me to the punch of my mission to make a 2nd channel and directional antenna.

And NZCH is more or less a next door neighbour to you (keep an eye out for antennas ). Also with a high gain antenna. I made myself a G7RGQ but got mixed results during testing (as you will see by rest of this thread)but seem to match a pre-made Hitech one.

Was it part of the activity here that got you into it per chance?

Dammit, now how am I meant to test my own setup if you guys keep upping the ante and beating me

Feel free to pop into the chat room in the evenings if you want a natter with the rest of us kiwis. You'll find me and NZRadar/NZPM hanging around now and then.

[Templeton]

Thanks, Oblivian. It probably helps that I have a rural path to the airport and loads of amplification - the pre-amp is tuned for max gain (33dB) at 1180MHz and has a 1200MHz high-pass filter (which blocks cellular interference) but still has about 24dB at 1090 (it's from mini-kits in Australia). Without the pre-amp I don't receive any ground movements.

I've been interested in receiving ABS-B for years but couldn't "justify" the cost of an SBS receiver. I bought a microADSB rx in October last year but was disappointed with the range - taking it up Huntsbury I could see A/C further than I could receive them so I realised it was a sensitivity issue ! However, adding the pre-amp created a big donut null of about 20km radius so I got the Aurora after reading about it on radarspotters. Even with the pre-amp there's no donut with it including A/C that are almost overhead on approach - I'm about 100m off the 02/20 centre line.

I gave my brother the microADSB and he's had good results with a stack of 8 colinear segments made from coax so I might give that a go as well.

[Oblivian]

Jeebus. Thats a hell of a lot of signal

I was going to go down similar path initially. The Firmware updates to the Micro have helped a little. But still dodgy when at the airfield. Between buildings I got ground data though.

With my DIY on RG58 on the roof and micro I was getting as far as Lake Rotoiti initally. Which I was impressed with. HW V2 FW v7+

My next test antenna was possibly going to be a coax colinear. It seems to be what is hidden inside the high gain PVCs. Using NZPMs (on loan) Hi-tech tuned one at present, and similar results to the DIY G7CRQ I made(which astounded me)

The last report I sent from my beast indicated I was being over-run by noise here too. So not sure if its our dodgy GSM networks or what the go is, so a filter has been considered. Someone at work has a 1090 amp he has offered, but I'm cautious as they say it can overload the beast as it has high sensitivity already.

[Oblivian]

Templeton - NZCH and I have had a thought..

If you are a Reg'd Planeplotter user like us perhaps we should see if we can get some MLAT going now that we have 3 confirmed contacts running it. I (ft) saw there was a 2nd uploader in CHC earlier tonight which I guess is you? (Xl) - If you are far enough away from him (Definitely are from me) it may be worth our while to see if we can boost the coverage between us of Mode-S only contacts.

I've been sharing for a while (83,0003 uploads) and just validated myself as GS to make a start.

[Templeton]

I was wondering about MLAT myself... I have the x7 sharecode. I'll request GS validation.

I'm only about 5km from Prebbleton so that's not ideal but might still get some results.

[Oblivian]

As they say, more the merrier.

Just noticed after a fresh redraw of PP a turnaround today..

http://www.flightradar24.com/2012-05-07/18:34/PBN71 Didn't complete its exit first time around.

[nzradar]

Airwork ZK-TLF

Hi guys, AWK12345 headed down to CHC. Boeing 747-4Q8 with hex C81EB6. Nice to see a new one.

[Oblivian]

Well Ill be damned. Old Toll unit come home to roost. Ill add it before I see it

[quaternary]

Hi there,

Well this all looks like a lot of fun.

So I've splashed out and bought myself a microadsb, which arrived last week. I put the demo antenna on the roof (too easy with the magnet in the base - cool), got the adsbscope running, got the fr24feed.exe software from flightradar24, an alias - T-NZCH4 (yeah!) - and it's all go. And looking on the FR24 website, I even spotted my alias flick up there briefly, like for about 5 seconds (I quickly grabbed a screen shot, so I could verify later that I hadn't dreamed it), before the much more powerful receivers of NZCH1 and NZCH2 took over, rightly so.

So that was all a fun few hours of work (not without a bit of referencing to this very thread I have to say - so thanks very much for that). One difference is that my version of the microadsb receiver is devoid of any physical dipswitches - perhaps that's progress?

Physically I'm located about 5km from NZCH towards town, so I'm not sure if I add much spatial variety in terms of getting MLAT going, not that I know much (actually nothing) about that.

The latest thing is I've just downloaded PlanePlotter and thought I'd get that up and going, as it seems a more spec'ed sibling of adsbscope, by the looks of it.

Mark

[delcomp]

PP

Hi Mark and welcome onboard the Uploader Band wagon,.

Before you splash out your €30 for PP,. may I suggest you have words
with T-NZCH1 (our Craig)Oblivian
As to weather its worth it,. as to upload I understand that the scope
dos the job equally as well..

spend your €30 on a better Antenne and put it as high as Possible.

Regards David

[Anmer]

The latest thing is I've just downloaded PlanePlotter and thought I'd get that up and going, as it seems a more spec'ed sibling of adsbscope, by the looks of it.

Totally different application.

PlanePlotter offers you a whole portfolio of features and options including Multilateration (Mlat) which adsbscope doesn't.

[Oblivian]

More the merrier!

But not a lot is beating Steve and his 33dB gain (T-NZCH2) much these days! I see myself flicker now and then, but only a glint in the servers eye too.

You are correct with the Dips, later versions are SW controllable now. Much like the beast.

Yeah, I can help out where possible if I haven't been already with my thread ramblings. For a simple text per-aircraft dbase and local range/coverage view ADSbsope is fine and dandy, but for keeping track on what hits you have and working more advanced with databases PP is the perferred. Though I do have some regrets with it at times. I am simply using it to keep an eye on tracks and ranging more than anything. But am uploading to another site and MLAT data incase a few more of us come online and then the Mode-S onlys may start showing up.

Theres not a lot of alternatives out there for now, some find the GUI getting a bit behind the times when you can do fancy stuff with the likes of Basestation to make it look quite close to a real radar screen.

Sing out if we can help more. The other 2 lads are out Templeton way, I'm new brighton and theres someone I'm aware of in the wings out at Woodend but not yet getting full antenna coverage.

[Templeton]

I got T-NZCH3 - I assumed T-NZCH2 was the feeder formerly known as NZCH...

B787 (N787BX) is supposed to be heading to NZCH tomorrow after visiting NZAA today.

[Oblivian]

Oh hell. Well that confuses things even more. I was well off course with my guessing then

I have tomorrow off especially for our visitor