ADS-B DIY Antenna

[ab cd]

This is the spider I finished yesterday. Spidey II. It will be featured in the upcoming film "Spiderman II - Grudgematch". I will pit this spider against the original. We'll see who's the winner. But not today. It turned cold and windy since I took the picture this morning.

Soldering Expert!

How you saved SO239's core insulation from getting damaged by so much heat?

The only reason I did not add legs to my 4-legger is soldering. It was very easy to make 4-legger: used 4 holes in SO239's flange to fix 4 legs by screws . This seems to be the reason 4-legger are more popular than 8-legger amongst DIY enthusiasts.

 

[DougJohnson]

That's maybe due to the low cpu power of the raspberry pi and maybe some added noise into the usb port?

Try to buy a raspberry pi 2. Costs the same and it has 4 cores cpu

I'm not fond of this theory. My Pi B running at standard clocking does up to 550 messages/sec at 25% CPU. Dump1090-mutability has an option to write a log file that may provide some clues. Run the "top" command from ssh to see the resources being consumed.
-- Doug

 

[jepolch]

Soldering Expert!

How you saved SO239's core insulation from getting damaged by so much heat?

The only reason I did not add legs to my 4-legger is soldering. It was very easy to make 4-legger: used 4 holes in SO239's flange to fix 4 legs by screws . This seems to be the reason 4-legger are more popular than 8-legger amongst DIY enthusiasts.

Well, not an expert, but I have gotten a lot of experience. I found that by using a hot (800 Watt) soldering iron, "tinning" each piece before joining, then joining pieces quickly preserves the center insulation from melting. Like I said that took experience. I melted the first one pretty badly. Try using the method shown in the picture below.

 

[jepolch]

I've more horsepower that I just use for reply faster



BTW You have set a max rate for the non OC'ed raspberry pi.

In the config.txt (/boot) try to:
arm_freq=900
core_freq=333
sdram_freq=450

Then reboot.
This should overclock your raspberry at bit without any risk (harmless) and you should decode more messages. I'm running this settings since a year and it is extremely stable.

By the way, I increased the core_freq to 333 and it didn't improved the message count.

 

[ab cd]

Well, not an expert, but I have gotten a lot of experience. I found that by using a hot (800 Watt) soldering iron, "tinning" each piece before joining, then joining pieces quickly preserves the center insulation from melting. Like I said that took experience. I melted the first one pretty badly. Try using the method shown in the picture below.

The method you described and the method shown in in picture are very smart. Thanks!

 

[jepolch]

The method you described and the method shown in in picture are very smart. Thanks!

Thank you. Let's just hope it works.

 

[ab cd]

When I type http://<IP address of RPi on LAN>:8080 from any computer on my LAN, I see Dump1090 Google Map.
If I open RPi Port Forwarding for Web Server, and from anywhere in the world type http://<Internet IP address of my Router>:80, it shows lighttpd's Placeholder page. How can I make lighttpd to show dump1090's Google Map with planes?

In short: How can I see my planes on my phone/tablet when I am away from my home network?

 

[Sjacket99]

I went into my router and went to DMZ. Put the last 3 numbers of the IP of the Pi. Save it. Then whatever your IP address is from your internet provider gave you. Type that in the browser then type :8080 after it. Worked for me.

 

[ab cd]

Thanks, I tried, but instead of dump1090 google map page, another page "lighttpd server placeholder" appears (see screenshot below)

 

[xforce30164]

Hi all, I just found this forum yesterday, but am quite the enthausiastic hobbyist/student myself. I currently got lots of packages on their way to me, (got one sdr with simple antenna, two more sdr's on their way + power amps + inserters etc). love all the info in this very usefull thread! When i get back from holiday (currently in france) I'm going to solder a (few) spider-tenna(s). (i'm an ex-electrical engineering student, currently studying computer science/software engineering).

@abcd, what dump1090 version are you running right now on your pi? Looks like the router does not send you to the correct port. (Or maybe it is sending you to the pi's :80 instead of 8080?)

 

[giacomo1989]

Are you using urlort/dump1090?

 

[ab cd]

I am using dump-mutablity, and it seems I have installed lighttpd web server alongwith it.

sudo apt-get install lighttpd && sudo lighty-enable-mod dump1090

 

[xforce30164]

hmm, I'm using dump-muta aswell but without the lighttpd afaik, build from the github, works fine with FA. (though im using virtual radar server locally on my laptop to look at the output as I personally like the way it shows the planes a bit better)

(When you're back home) You could try and connect to port :80 of the pi and see what page you get/is shown, if it is the same, i guess your router isn't sending you to port 8080 of the pi.

 

[jepolch]

I am using dump-mutablity, and it seems I have installed lighttpd web server alongwith it.

sudo apt-get install lighttpd && sudo lighty-enable-mod dump1090

dump1090 uses port 8080. dump1090-mut uses port 80, but you must add the directory, like this: http://192.168.1.3/dump1090/gmap.html

Edit: I should have said lighttpd uses port 80.

 

[ab cd]

I have installed SSH client on my Android phone, enabled port forwarding for SSH on my router, and now can access RPi even when I am away from home, through internet. See images below:

1 - SSH running on my phone


2 - Google play store page for juiceSSH

 

[jepolch]

Hi all, I just found this forum yesterday, but am quite the enthausiastic hobbyist/student myself. I currently got lots of packages on their way to me, (got one sdr with simple antenna, two more sdr's on their way + power amps + inserters etc). love all the info in this very usefull thread! When i get back from holiday (currently in france) I'm going to solder a (few) spider-tenna(s). (i'm an ex-electrical engineering student, currently studying computer science/software engineering).

@abcd, what dump1090 version are you running right now on your pi? Looks like the router does not send you to the correct port. (Or maybe it is sending you to the pi's :80 instead of 8080?)

Welcome! It sounds like it will soon be Christmas at your house with all those new toys! What kind of power supply and amp did you order for you antenna? I have one Motorola amp and one I made myself.

 

[xforce30164]

Welcome! It sounds like it will soon be Christmas at your house with all those new toys! What kind of power supply and amp did you order for you antenna? I have one Motorola amp and one I made myself.

Hmhm, can't wait till I get back . I already have some variable DC-supplies from uni I'm going to use or test with to start. (those lab supplies where you can select output voltage and current between 1-20V IIRC). The amplifier is a basic 20dB amp, quite cheap, so I'm not expecting great results, but wanted to give it a quick try, later I'll be doing some more measurements/research/reading and choose another one if these work reasonably. (Had to order somewhat rushed, because we had to leave for the airport to catch the flight )


@ab cd, nice SSH setup with the router-forwarding.

It also makes me wonder, I can't access /dump1090/gmap.html so maybe my mutability instalation is somewhat mixed with the old dump1090 instalation

 

[ab cd]

Hi all, I just found this forum yesterday, but am quite the enthausiastic hobbyist/student myself. I currently got lots of packages on their way to me, (got one sdr with simple antenna, two more sdr's on their way + power amps + inserters etc). love all the info in this very usefull thread! When i get back from holiday (currently in france) I'm going to solder a (few) spider-tenna(s). (i'm an ex-electrical engineering student, currently studying computer science/software engineering)..........

WELCOME ABOARD! Take a plunge into the world of DIY ADS-B

Spider 8-legger is a good antenna to start with. Gives good results, and is simple to make, if one has moderate to good soldering skills.
For those who don't want to bother for soldering, 4 legs, fixed to 4 screw holes of connector SO239 is an easy choice. The 4-legger also works good, but somewhat inferior to 8-legger.

After your system takes off, you can start building & trying other types of antennas, starting first with simple ones like Dipole & Cantenna, then moving on to more difficult collinears like CoCo, Franklin & Coiled Whip.

Don't worry about Amplifier's quality just because it is cheap. Most Satellite amplifiers are good for ADS-B, and are quiet cheap. I have purchased 3 pieces of RCA D903 amplifier, 13-18 dB, during last 2 years. These cost only $4 each, but give very good performance.

Power supply is also not critical. These amplifiers are rated to work at any voltage between 13V - 18v DC, and have good voltage tolerance. My power supply, rated for 15V, measured 20V with a multimeter, and is powering my amplifier for 2 years without any problems. I purchased a cheap power supply which seems to have a poor regulator and a heavy iron cored step-down transformer. A better option is a switching power supply which does not have bulky & heavy transformer & has far better voltage regulation. Since the power requirement of these amplifiers is very small (25mA to 50mA), even a tiny power supply is sufficient to feed these amplifiers.

You can purchase power inserter from eBay or Amazon. Alternatively it can be home made. It has only two components and a housing (recycled TV Splitter). The components are (1) A capacitor to block DC from reaching Receiver DVB-T Dongle, and (2) An Inductor to act as choke to prevent RF to bypass to the power supply.

 

[xforce30164]

Thanks for the detailed summary abcd ! I'll see how it goes, and maybe I'll even give the home-made splitters a try (As i have more than enough components lying around/available at uni). right now im fixing (or trying to fix) my mutability installation.

 

[ab cd]

Thanks for the detailed summary abcd ! I'll see how it goes, and maybe I'll even give the home-made splitters a try (As i have more than enough components lying around/available at uni). right now im fixing (or trying to fix) my mutability installation.

Nice to see your FA statistics building up.

You can also feed Planefinder - instructions here:

POST #1 - Installation & Configuration of Raspbian, RTL-SDR Drivers, Dump1090

POST #3 - Installation & Configuration of Planefinder data feeder

POST #5 - Installation & Configuration of Dump1090-mutability