New Zealand Radar

[dimsim]

I've got a Raspberry Pi with a cheap R820T mini stick off ebay, with an antenna from www.1090mhz.com (you can buy the DVB stick from there too). Ther are plenty of guides around for setting up a Pi+DVB with fr24 (start here). Mine's a little more complex than most, as I used Power over Ethernet to let me put the whole thing outside under the antenna mast (to minimise cable length).

The most important thing is having a good location for the antenna. Indoors doesn't really work, it needs to have a good view of the sky with no close obstructions (buildings, trees, etc).

Sounds perfect - I've been looking for a good excuse to have a play with a Pi. I also live in the country and have kilometres or flat land all around the house and a hockey stick on the roof with CAT5 to it... Pi+DVB here I come

[Oblivian]

http://www.rtl-sdr.com/adsb-aircraft...-with-rtl-sdr/ for a general guide too. If you want to start down the PC route first

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

[Matt_R]

Sounds perfect - I've been looking for a good excuse to have a play with a Pi. I also live in the country and have kilometres or flat land all around the house and a hockey stick on the roof with CAT5 to it... Pi+DVB here I come

Apart from the obvious RPi and DVB-T stick, i've got the following:
USB Hub that can be powered
PoE injector (inside the house, to send power to the Pi) Gowifi
PoE splitter to take the ethernet+power and split it (ethernet to Pi, power to USB Hub) GoWifi
Weather-proof box to put it all in. Gowifi
Cable Glands for the cable-entry into the box Gowifi

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ze63w737ded5pds/2014-01-29%2016.21.35.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qbu80qxfy6w52sr/2014-02-02%2010.45.10.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wckfig48oldkkjq/diagram.jpg

[North Borneo Radar]

Apart from the obvious RPi and DVB-T stick, i've got the following:
USB Hub that can be powered
PoE injector (inside the house, to send power to the Pi) Gowifi
PoE splitter to take the ethernet+power and split it (ethernet to Pi, power to USB Hub) GoWifi
Weather-proof box to put it all in. Gowifi
Cable Glands for the cable-entry into the box Gowifi

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ze63w737ded5pds/2014-01-29%2016.21.35.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qbu80qxfy6w52sr/2014-02-02%2010.45.10.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wckfig48oldkkjq/diagram.jpg

very nice set up! I presume you drilled holes to allow the cable glands to be fitted?

[peterhr]

Apart from the obvious RPi and DVB-T stick, i've got the following:
USB Hub that can be powered
PoE injector (inside the house, to send power to the Pi) Gowifi
PoE splitter to take the ethernet+power and split it (ethernet to Pi, power to USB Hub) GoWifi
Weather-proof box to put it all in. Gowifi
Cable Glands for the cable-entry into the box Gowifi

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ze63w737ded5pds/2014-01-29%2016.21.35.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qbu80qxfy6w52sr/2014-02-02%2010.45.10.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wckfig48oldkkjq/diagram.jpg

I did experiment with a similar setup, but found that doing POE with a 5v supply I got too much volt loss on 10m of CAT5 that the Pi + Dongle wouldn't work

* For power I used a 12v supply (later upped to 15v so it could power an antenna cable in line amp intended for satellite LNB - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/350657754545)
* Power injector set - to take 12v up the CAT5 to the project box containing the pi - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200841109556 (sold for CCTV power use)
* Power regulator to give the 5v required for the Pi - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321261232073 - power converter runs cool, no heat concerns - good for 10-22v supply (though the gubbins from a cigarette lighter USB charger would have worked just as well and been more available)
* Some adaptors to suit the power sockets on the injector set - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/190802003356 (sold for CCTV power use)

Yes could go wifi, still have get power to the Pi and get wifi to work ... I suppose it would be attractive if it was running off a solar panel, 12v battery and power regulator

Ebay references are to illustrate the items - not to recommend particular vendors.

[Matt_R]

I did experiment with a similar setup, but found that doing POE with a 5v supply I got too much volt loss on 10m of CAT5 that the Pi + Dongle wouldn't work

I'm not doing PoE with 5v, I'm doing it with 48v (802.3af) and converting it to 5v in the outdoor box.

I work with IP phones and various other 802.3af gear, so I had most of it sitting around spare

[Matt_R]

very nice set up! I presume you drilled holes to allow the cable glands to be fitted?

Yep, drilled a pair of holes in the bottom of the box.

[peterhr]

I'm not doing PoE with 5v, I'm doing it with 48v (802.3af) and converting it to 5v in the outdoor box.

I work with IP phones and various other 802.3af gear, so I had most of it sitting around spare

Excellent

(the POE notes might help others )

[tsimola]

Hi all, just sharing my experiences here :-)

I've been playing with Rasberry Pi and RTL -dongles for couple of months now. I'm running stock Raspibian on RasPi, two Realtek RTL2838 dongles. One for ADS-B (dump1090, FlightRadar24 feeder, feed to PC with VirtualRadar) and other for ACARS decoding (acarsdec).

Both dongles are attached directly into RasPi.

Antenna for ADS-B is eight-segment coaxial-collinear, following instructions from here: http://www.balarad.net/. Feeder cable is just half a metre long - the dongle is outside at the balcony behind five metre active USB -extension cord.

ACARS antenna is just dipole antenna cut to mid airband frequency.

There's a bunch of surprises here:

First, not so much of a surprise, absolutely all the stability problems with the receivers were gone after i changed the USB power adapter to more powerful! It's 2 Amps now. RasPi manages feed enough power to the dongles.

Second, my location is so far from ideal that it's not even funny! I'm located in Auckland CBD, in an apartment building facing North North-East, 4th floor. Cross the alleyway is six storeys high building blocking the sky up to 45 degrees high. East is completely blocked by highrises. To the West I can see Southern end of the Harbour Bridge and Chelsea sugar factory.

All the instructions said "ADS-B works line-of-sight". But check this out:

http://www.openheatmap.com/view.html...esCallisthenic

This is ADS-B raw data (position, altitude) from around 20 hours time frame. I got an idea from here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/comme..._from_flights/

On this map there is good set of flights to North-West looking from my place, Auckland CBD. BUT, I was genuinely surprised to see so much contacts in front of Manukau Harbour Inlet! From my point of view it's completely blocked: From my balcony, "behind" me is the apartment building, many other buildings, the ridge where K Road and Great North Rd are. And still I have a signal from planes just 4000 feet up. Put mouse over a "blob" to see the altitude.

A question: is 1090 MHz signal bouncing that much from surrounding buildings, that it is eventually caught by my antenna?

ACARS is just interesting to read:

[#1 (F:131.450 L:-42 E:0) 18/04/2014 21:06:57 --------------------------------
Aircraft reg: .ZK-ZQA Flight id: DKOQF-
Mode: 2 Msg. label: RA
Block id: T Ack: !
Msg. no: QUSY
Message :
1
HI
PARK BAY: 11
PAX GATE: 27
BAGGAGE CAROUSEL: 8
A-C OPS 147 AKL 1540
REMOTE BAY 11

THANKS, QANTAS SYDNEY

I really can't hear Auckland Tower from here, but I think ACARS Ground Station is located at the Waitakere Ranges? ACARS uplinks are so clear. But this is a story for that other thread...



Cheers,

Tomi (NZAA13)

[nzradar]

Clearly you are getting reflections from the buildings around you, not unusual for 1090MHz.

[nzfatmatt]

Just noticed Mikes mention on new feeders. F-NZPM2. I had noticed today the MLAT planes heading a bit further south today. It seems like F-NZPM1 maybe still offline.

[nzradar]

F-NZPM2 formally T-NZPM1 so hopefully some MLATs further down the island. We shall see.

[North Borneo Radar]

F-NZPM2 formally T-NZPM1 so hopefully some MLATs further down the island. We shall see.

Good that now you got a FR24 receiver Mike! Range looks quite good towards the south, way past Nelson a bit!

[nzradar]

Good that now you got a FR24 receiver Mike! Range looks quite good towards the south, way past Nelson a bit!

And I have another 5m extension to the mast to put up Saturday!

[North Borneo Radar]

And I have another 5m extension to the mast to put up Saturday!

Cool! Will keep an eye after Sat just to have an idea how is the range.