My first collinear antenna

[FR24-BB8]

@abcd567

I have now tested your cantenna design (btw the beer was delicious )



And I get nearly identical coverage as with my spiders



To bad I can not see my max range on the site you linked to. It seems that I get around 175 nm at best.
I can see though when sitting in front of VRS that it sometimes picks up 1-5 signals from aircraft (according to fr24 map) is about 200 nm away, but not enough messages to get on the range plot.

As next step I will try to get a better amp suited for right frequencies than the one I've got now.

[FR24-BB8]

Just to let you now, i switched place on the amp and the filter, so instead of having antenna-filter-amp-reciever i have now antenna-amp-filter-reciever. It looks promising right away. I also installed the spider i've had the best results with. I'll let you now the increase when it's been running for a day or so.

I know i should place the amp so close to the antenna as possible for best results, but for now that is not possible. I´ll look into that when i get a "proper" amp.

[abcd567]

@FR24-BB8
Too bad that heywhatsthat.com does not work for your location.

I have heard of another site "Radio Mobile", but never tried it. May be it will work for your location.

http://www.cplus.org/rmw/english1.html

http://www3.telus.net/hendersb/documents/Radio Mobile.pdf

[FR24-BB8]

So here is the comparison from the different places of amp, with the same spider antenna. Both up for approx 24 hrs. Just to clarify i have about 4-5 m of coax from antenna and both amp and filter is positioned right next to my RPI receiver inside, the amp is a TV-amp with a frequency range 40-862 MHz and the filter is FA bandpass filter.

Antenna-filter-amp-reciever:

SPIDER_COPPER_WITH_FILTER_AMP.PNG

Antenna-amp-filter-reciver:

amp_switched.PNG

I can see an improvement in all directions. And according to FR24-stats my top range is 186 nm. I´m getting near 200.

EDIT:
Here is the spider i used in both of these plots. This is the one with the best results from all the different antennas i´ve tried.

image1.JPG

[FR24-BB8]

My first collinear antenna

Can someone assist me in this. I just ordered this inline amp for approx $11 from a online shop in Sweden. But it does not say on the product details page what I should feed it with, 5 or 12 volts? Can I use power inserter of 5 volts on which it is written max. load 100 mA. Or a 12 volt with same max. load?



@abcd567 @SpaxmoidJAm or anyone else?

[abcd567]

@FR24-BB8
The amplifier in picture is Satellite Amplifier, which are rated for dc voltages 14v to 18v. These have some tolerance, and work even with dc voltages 12v to 20 v. Current requirement is generally below 100mA.

[FR24-BB8]

@FR24-BB8
The amplifier in picture is Satellite Amplifier, which are rated for dc voltages 14v to 18v. These have some tolerance, and work even with dc voltages 12v to 20 v. Current requirement is generally below 100mA.

Ok, thx for the information.

[Yxespotter]

Can someone assist me in this. I just ordered this inline amp for approx $11 from a online shop in Sweden. But it does not say on the product details page what I should feed it with, 5 or 12 volts? Can I use power inserter of 5 volts on which it is written max. load 100 mA. Or a 12 volt with same max. load?

I'd use the 12 volt supply, or preferably one in between.
If I'm not mistaken, this looks very much like the AP20 amplifier with a different label. Internally, the two main components are a 78L05 regulator and a BGA2709 mmic. One caution is that the power supply is passed-through, meaning that you don't want to use the amplifier with a dc-shorted antenna without having a dc-block in place. The alternative is to open the back of the amp and disconnect the pass-through.

I noticed that at 12 volts they were noisy, but at 7-9 volts they gave a good 'boost' without as much noise.
Although not everyone likes them, I've had some good success with them. For the price, they added some noticeable, but cheap, distance to my range.

Yxespotter

[FR24-BB8]

I'd use the 12 volt supply, or preferably one in between.
If I'm not mistaken, this looks very much like the AP20 amplifier with a different label. Internally, the two main components are a 78L05 regulator and a BGA2709 mmic. One caution is that the power supply is passed-through, meaning that you don't want to use the amplifier with a dc-shorted antenna without having a dc-block in place. The alternative is to open the back of the amp and disconnect the pass-through.

I noticed that at 12 volts they were noisy, but at 7-9 volts they gave a good 'boost' without as much noise.
Although not everyone likes them, I've had some good success with them. For the price, they added some noticeable, but cheap, distance to my range.

Yxespotter

Hi and thx.

I've just ordered a 12 volt supply.
I do not use a shorted antenna right now (but I'll have that in mind). I'm using a bare copper spider mentioned a couple of posts above. About the noise, I'm also using a FA bandpass filter, maybe that will take care of the noise.

Thx again for the info.

[abcd567]

DC Voltage Blocker for Antennas with Short

http://benl.ebay.be/itm/370609430351

http://benl.ebay.be/itm/121125240936

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[FR24-BB8]

My first collinear antenna

I have just installed the new inline amplifier 950-2150 MHz and will get back with range plot later on. It seems at first that i've at least have same coverage like with my 40-862 MHz amp. Maybe I'm at my geographical max already?!?

@abcd567
I searched the forum for a thread where you described how to install dump1090-mutability on the PI, but can't find it. Can you share the link?
I am running FR24 image on the PI right now.

Thx in advance.

[abcd567]

I have just installed the new inline amplifier 950-2150 MHz and will get back with range plot later on. It seems at first that i've at least have same coverage like with my 40-862 MHz amp. Maybe I'm at my geographical max already?!?

Purchase a commercial antenna Like Flightaware 26 inch on Amazon, or Slovakian on eBay, or jetvision on jetvision site. Install the commercial antenna outdoor at a high location, plus an amplifier. This will give you range up to your geographical limit, which may be larger than what you get now.

@abcd567
I searched the forum for a thread where you described how to install dump1090-mutability on the PI, but can't find it. Can you share the link?
I am running FR24 image on the PI right now.

Thx in advance.

I have tested the procedure on Rasbian Jessie fom raspberrypi.org, and Piaware img from Flightaware, with FA & FR24 data feeders installed. I have NOT tested it with Pi24 img from FR24. I am planning to do it this weekend.

The link to the procedure is below:

How to Install dump1090-mutability_1.15~dev on RPi

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[FR24-BB8]

i´ve been running my setup with an 20 Db inline amp and a DIY spider for a couple of days now and finally got coverage over 200 nm, not much but at least some (the outer red ring is 200 nm)...

SPIDER_COPPER_WITH_FILTER_NEW_AMP160724.PNG

Anyway, it seems that i got better coverage with this setup. My goal now is to get the antenna placed at a higher location so i can get better coverage to the south and maybe increase it all the other directions.

[abcd567]

@FR24-BB8
There are 3 things which give a major boost to reception: antenna height, antenna height, and antenna height.

[FR24-BB8]

@abcd567

Yeah, and i have two freaking large birch trees at my north that is covering my line of sight. I´m thinking of taking a chainsaw and take them down some night.

It will be interesting to see if the coverage increase in the autumn when the leaves are gone.