Bake a Pi

[IFlyATL]

Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve had it up and running since September, originally seeing a distance of around 50 miles with the antenna on the outside of the house (sma extension cable was reason for db loss); moved it to inside the house and no extension cable and doubled the distance I could see.

I’ll try the gain today and see if it improves.

Thanks again, appreciate your willingness to assist.

[abcd567]

IFlyATL:

Which antenna are you using?
Using a better antenna will improve range.

Another factor may be that the dongle is getting overloaded by interference from Cell/Mobile signals, UHF & VHF TV signals, and many other communication signals. In this case adding a Filter will help.

[IFlyATL]

Typical 1090 MHz SMA antenna. Dongle is FA version with built in filter. Free hanging the antenna from beam in the attic, ~ 18 inches from roof rafter using plastic zip ties.

[abcd567]

IFlyATL:

1. FA donggle with builtin filter (Dark Blue color) is good.

2. The Radarbox antenna in the photo is also good one. Do you have exactly this antenna or a similar looking antenna?

[abcd567]

IFlyATL:

Your range may be limited due to dongle oveload caused by Cell/Mobile phone signals. Please Check RF Interference at your location by the method described in this thread. Please see below attached two scans showing how adding a filter removes the interference.


Do I Need A Filter?

[IFlyATL]

1) agreed, it’s done well for me this far; no complaints.

2) I have that exact antenna and another similar; I forget the vendor.

3) I had it mounted on the outside of the house which required an sma extension cable. When I brought the antenna inside, I did not need the extension and, ironically, removing it improved the reception vs being outside. When time allows, I’m going to play with the “spider” antennas and see if those improve reception.

[IFlyATL]

I have this filter in place currently.

IFlyATL:

Your range may be limited due to dongle oveload caused by Cell/Mobile phone signals. Please Check RF Interference at your location by the method described in this thread. Please see below attached two scans showing how adding a filter removes the interference.


Do I Need A Filter?

[IFlyATL]

ABC - as of right now, this is what I'm feeding to each. I'm going to start unplugging everything but the FA dongle and antenna and see what, if anything happens since FR24 and RB "should" be pulling/pushing to/from the FA device and antenna.

[Runway 31]

The light blue filter for is North American frequencies, dark blue filter is required for elswhere as the frquencies are diferent

From Flightaware

FlightAware is excited to announce the availability of a 1090 MHz-only bandpass filter for the ADS-B community outside of North America. This is something many of you have asked for. The filter we’ve offered in the past wasn’t great at blocking GSM mobile phone interference that can be found outside of North America. This new filter is an economical bandpass filter option that provides better attenuation of 950 MHz GSM. Those of you building PiAware sites in urban areas or other areas with 950 MHz mobile phone interference (found outside of North America) may find this very useful. We are pleased to offer this through our retail product launch partners in Europe: ModMyPi 262 and Moonraker 169 and they are available for sale today. We hope to add more retail distribution partners in other areas of the world going forward.

Alan

[IFlyATL]

antenna unplugged from the FR24 dongle and as we all expected, the feed coming from the FA device is still feeding all three services. Next step is to relocate the FR24 and RB feeds from Pi2 to Pi1 and have all three running on one device.

Since finding this thread, I've accomplished more in a few days that I have in months in trying to consolidate. Thanks all! Your contributions have been extremely helpful. Now, if I could just increase the range (haven't messed with -gain setting yet), I'll be ecstatic.

-C

[abcd567]

Next step is to relocate the FR24 and RB feeds from Pi2 to Pi1 and have all three running on one device.

Since finding this thread, I've accomplished more in a few days that I have in months in trying to consolidate.

Two days ago I have directed a member of FlightRadar24 forum to this thread.
That member had exactly same setup as you, i.e. Piaware on Pi1 and FR24 & RB24 on Pi2. Are you the same person?

Now, if I could just increase the range (haven't messed with -gain setting yet), I'll be ecstatic.

Try tweaking gain setting.

If that does not improve your range, then most likely it is defective antenna, or it's integral long coax (may be 5 meters?).

To check this, make a simple DIY Quick Spider (made of commonly available TV Coax RG6), and try it. You will need a "Pigtail F-female to SMA-male" to connect this antenna to FA Filter/Dongle.


.

[abcd567]

antenna unplugged from the FR24 dongle

If you were using a splitter to connect two dongles of Pi1 and Pi2 to same antenna, then remove the splitter, and connect antenna cable directly to Flightaware filter+dongle.

The splitters have a insertion loss of minimum 3 dB for an ideal splitter, and most commercially available ones will have insertion loss of 5 to 8 dB.

3 dB insertion loss reduces the signal to 1/2
6 dB insertion loss reduces the signal to 1/4


.

[IFlyATL]

yes, that was me. No splitter - realized only a few moments into trying that scenario that it negatively impacted my signal.

Thanks to your suggestions, and lots of reading past few days, I've now consolidated the two RPis down to one and have all three services (FA, RB, FR24) running and feeding successfully.

I've also tried the gain setting - no improvement, receiving the best I can from within the attic. I reside in a very tree'd neighborhood so I'm assuming that is impacting my distance.

[IFlyATL]

And yes, those are the exact examples I'm going to tinker with to see if there's an increase in performance.

Next step is to relocate the FR24 and RB feeds from Pi2 to Pi1 and have all three running on one device.

Since finding this thread, I've accomplished more in a few days that I have in months in trying to consolidate.

Two days ago I have directed a member of FlightRadar24 forum to this thread.
That member had exactly same setup as you, i.e. Piaware on Pi1 and FR24 & RB24 on Pi2. Are you the same person?

Now, if I could just increase the range (haven't messed with -gain setting yet), I'll be ecstatic.

Try tweaking gain setting.

If that does not improve your range, then most likely it is defective antenna, or it's integral long coax (may be 5 meters?).

To check this, make a simple DIY Quick Spider (made of commonly available TV Coax RG6), and try it. You will need a "Pigtail F-female to SMA-male" to connect this antenna to FA Filter/Dongle.


.

[thechipman0]

Hi, I have been reading your post on setting up rb on raspi. Although you have done a fantastic job it seem that i need to put my memory card into a windows computer to download the necessary files. Is there a way I can do this straight from pi as my computer gave up the ghost? Also I'm not sure if my problem is the files or me. Everything appears to be working except that I do not seem to be feeding to rb. I have read many posts as to possible problems and tried them all. Mlat is running but can't sync to any stations, I have input lon and lat and antenna hight but still not feeding. I havebeentrying to work this out for 2 weeks now and I am begging you to help.my station is EXTRPI020882 I'm hoping you can put an end to my frustration before I just give up. Thank you