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  • Its all about the antenna Im Running a DIY, which does OK to about 190nm, And as you fill find out NZCH2 is on a mighty high gain antenna that is also able to pickup close ground stuff. On a short run of some serious Coax (1")

    Before I switched to some good coax (LMR400) my max range was around the 130-140 mark with constant 100-110

    Theres a place in AKL that ships it to you for $5/m. And connectors can use up to 3db each one also so keep distance and connectors to a minimum.
    Posts not to be taken as official support representation - Just a helpful uploader who tinkers

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    • Originally posted by Oblivian View Post
      Its all about the antenna
      Cheers for that Oblivian. I would like to try a DIY aerial and aware that I need to keep the cable run as short as possible to reduce signal loss. Today with the portable dongle aerial secured with blutack on a 6' aluminium step ladder just outside the bedroom window I managed to catch DJ125 DUD/MEL on and off for about 2/3 of the distance it covered over land! No lock on the inbound or from JQ flights WLG/ZQN and AKL/DUD :-( I'm ordering a 3m extension USB cable to locate the mini aerial on the roof apex and suspect I'll see DUD activity clearly perhaps even some of ZQN too. Please feel free to email me if you like :-)

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      • Hi Deconz,
        My friend and I have built a G7RGQ Omni directional aerial and tried it out on a small pole in his back garden at Temuka.and were picking up planes on the West Coast and getting over 120 NM North and South. The directions for building it can be found on the site for The Beast ADSB.
        My setup in Geraldine is 10 metres of LMR400 from the 'DPD Productions' antenna to a Beast. Thie screen shot of Plane Plotter today shows my ranges with this setup280 NM QF-27 Jan 5th 2013.jpg.
        I have had invaluble advice from Oblivian (wonder why that name) and you will find his advice a great help. My greatest range with a small ADSB dongle previously was 276 Nm to the SE . I am not sure how far todays sighting of QF27 went to as it went off my screen at 260 NM

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        • Damn you get even further north than me and you are a lot more south Pete

          I too am on one based on the G7RGQ. Maxing about 177atm on a pole just above the roofline.

          Stuck my head out the door to snap QF today Happened to be looking at screen at the time when it passed. I got it 161nm east through to 172nm west.

          Lack of alt/direction etc but HEX only is what I get on outter 'first contact' fringes, so it may indicate some slipping data if that is what you are seeing Deconz. Signal there but not quite enough data.

          I'm on 5m LMR400, so that certainly shows my lower alt and antenna have a bit of room to move. Our woodend fellow is running the shipped microadsb antenna off the USB on an extension out the window (decoder bagged outside) and it stuck on a pre existing pole. Thats a suitable setup for starters.

          But like most things, you will want to push for more.

          Dunedin and Queenstown will be tricky, as both airports are in a 'hole' below mountain/horizon levels. Even the CAA need to use MLAT off their equipment on 5 of the peaks surrounding since the major cover disappears below about 1500ft.
          Posts not to be taken as official support representation - Just a helpful uploader who tinkers

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          • Thanks guys - much appreciated!

            I'm fortunate that from my roof apex I have an almost uninterrupted 360 degree view. I was not expecting coverage below 1500ft and would consider the project a success if I could "fill in the gaps" in Pete and Brent's southern coverage and also catch the deeply southern QF27/28 and AR1180/1181 tracks.

            I've seen plans today for a Coaxial collinear design which looks to be a rather tricky job to put together. Any thoughts on this one verses the G7RGQ?

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            • QF28.jpg

              The guts of high gain ones are often just those done on a commercial basis. Colinears are lots of little antennas stacked if you like. With the downside (often) that closer stuff is weaker/ignored a bit more in replacement for distance.

              Theres a guy from france making PCB based ones with a couple of correctly length strapping on a PCB board that seem to get fairly good range too



              Ive thought of the same about a colinear. But theres a lot of soldering involved, and seems easier to let someone else do it and pay them (even tho Im more than capable, its the effort involved)
              Posts not to be taken as official support representation - Just a helpful uploader who tinkers

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              • I see there is a new unit operating - QI - this unit seems to be picking up aircraft from CHC to Pv's location.

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                • Personal Email

                  John,

                  As requested, I have sent you a personal email.

                  Brent


                  Originally posted by deconz View Post
                  Hi Brent

                  My USB dongle arrived in the post yesterday afternoon. I'm having fun getting it going and wanted to message you off line about aerial options, especially seeing how far south you track! My email is john at eustonfellas dot net

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                  • I see there is a new unit operating - QI - this unit seems to be picking up aircraft from CHC to Pv's location.
                    Could he be in Ashburton . Be nice to know where he is with regard to Mlats.

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                    • I think there must be an element of sharing for me to get those high northern ranges. I notice ft is prominent when I get those distances north. When I was just using adsb Scope I rarely got further north than 175 NM and then only over near the west coast
                      Damn you get even further north than me and you are a lot more south Pete

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                      • Ah, so they are my tracks then lol.

                        In planeplotter, if you goto options and adjust the omit and turn off show contrails on shared data it will fix that

                        ppchart.jpg
                        Posts not to be taken as official support representation - Just a helpful uploader who tinkers

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                        • I have always had the shared contrail un-ticked, just the local ones. This is my options jpeg.I have also unticked 'Acept shared routes' and 'Accept shared regs and types' in 'Options/Sharing'. I can do no more.yet in the Aircraft list I see Pv,ft.d1 and latterly Q1 and this with all those sharing options off.


                          Options.JPG
                          Last edited by Petenz; 2013-01-06, 07:39.

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                          • In that case it should be showing just your coverage leaving lines to the north May just be the altitude they are at at that point. Beast is super sensitive to that sort of thing, After a restart today I hit 188nm again up that way.

                            The shared routes and reg/types options are what auto fills out your basestation.sqb file if you are missing entries in them. But does mean if others have it wrong, you get it wrong too.

                            You will always get shared data in the AC list (including your own as Pv), unless you hit the blue box on the top row with the 2 arrows and change it to outgoing only (like I do since Mlat wasn't working). Pointing up is you sharing to the others, both will let their data show in yours.
                            And blocked, is that.. no data will be going to Planefinder either.

                            I only ever see lots of my own, sometimes x7 and d1.. but mostly wellingtons Dk. Which means I don't get much of a chance with Mlat as we would all need the same aircraft and the overlap between me and wellington isnt there.

                            And its annoying how much they appear/disappear depending on the datapacket you get from the server at the time.

                            That must be qJ? as qI is running french version
                            Posts not to be taken as official support representation - Just a helpful uploader who tinkers

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                            • I noticed that my blue box at the top had an arrow pointing up after I changed the Sharing options. Now I get nothing in the Sharers box in the Aircraft list.

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                              • MLAT

                                Originally posted by Petenz View Post
                                I noticed that my blue box at the top had an arrow pointing up after I changed the Sharing options. Now I get nothing in the Sharers box in the Aircraft list.
                                I was sharing up until a while ago when I got an email to say that my clock was out of sync, so I switched sharing off. I think from memory, I was using one of the MS clock sevices and that is clearly not accurate enough.

                                Can someone enlighten me as to how best to use a clock service which meets the requirements of MLAT? I am keen to give MLAT a try even if only for the Scott Base flights.

                                Thanks in advance.

                                Brent

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