Any benefit to "GPS HAT" on RPi used for FLightradar24 feed?

[rjbeilstein]

I notice that there are now a couple of inexpensive GPS "hat" boards available for the Raspberry Pi, which provide position data -- but more importantly lock the clock to GPS time (as well as providing a local NTP server). Would there be any utility in installing this on an Rpi being used to host a FR24 feed? If it would improve (or enable) MLAT processing, then it's likely worth the money. If it will not provide any benefit over synchronizing with a pool NTP server, then it seems like it would be just an unnecessary expense (since I already know where my unit is located, and it's not going to move).

Thanks!

[Oblivian]

Nope. MLAT is available off the standard Pi Feeder. However only used as a reference with a GPS enabled FR receiver. And not going to make it any more accurate or preferred over another. Your observation at the end is correct

The issue lies with the speed the way the data is obtained. In a FPGA chip based processor, like beast/FR24 receiver - the data is near instant and in correct format as it is received. With a USB DVBT dongle, not only does it need to talk to the USB interface hardware (delay) it then also needs to attach to the slower chip in the stick, use software to receive, cache, decode, modify and then package signal into a readable format before parsing to another piece of software. Back out the chipset - All adding delays.

So they're at present all NTP mapped and used as common reference for calculation clarity server-side

[rjbeilstein]

Kind of what I expected. Since there is no way I could afford to buy a Beast receiver, I'll just do my small part with my non-GPS RPi.

Thanks!

/Bob