RTL SDR Dongle and RB

[N9JIG]

I have recently bought a couple RTL-SDR dongles and have them on the same PC as my RadarBox. When I rearranged the USB hub today and started AirNav RadarBox 6.01.001 it found the SDR first and apparently tuned it to 1090 and started decoding. Since the SDR is connected to a scanner antenna and not a tuned 1090 MHz. antenna it only sees a few aircraft vs the hundred or so I typically get this time of day.

First off: It is kind of cool that I could use this with a cheap $20 dongle, I suppose that it would work better if I connect it to the specialized antenna though.

Second: How do I force the application to use the RadarBox instead? I use the SDR for other purposes and it is a PITA to have to unplug it, start ANRB and then plug the SDR in again.

Third: Since the SDR has no ESN could I conceivably use it mobile and leave the RB at home?

[abcd567]

Mobile sdr? I have done it on my android phone:




.

[Runway 31]

Some my technically knowledgeable amongst us may have the answer but starting up the radarbox one first and then the other one is the only way I know of doing it

Alan

[N9JIG]

The issue is that when I start the RadarBox it finds the SDR and connects to it. To avoid this I would have to remove the SDR from the USB port, start the ANRB application so that it finds the RB then plug the SDR in.

Another question comes to mind here though: If the ANRB application will work with off the shelf SDR's does it not check for an ESN? Is the serial number one enters into the application just a product key not tied to the hardware?

[abcd567]

Unfortunately all generic DVB-T dongles have same Serial Number: 00000001. Flightaware's all ProStick dvb-t dongles have Serial Number: 00001000.

I faced similar problem when I installed dump1090 (ads-b) and dump978 (uat) on my RPi, with two DVB-T dongles plugged-in, one connected to 978 Mhz antenna, other to 1090 Mhz antenna. These  two dumps will randomly grab the dongles at start. Although dump1090 and dump978 both had provision to specify the device number (actually usb port number) as 0, 1, 2, .... and I did specify device 0 for dump1090, and device 1 for dump978, the grab was sometimes still random.

[vonsmalhausen]

abcd567, what is the application you run on the Android to make it function like if it was connected to the normal software on the PC ?
did not know this is possible, it sure would help me out "in the field"

[abcd567]

abcd567, what is the application you run on the Android to make it function like if it was connected to the normal software on the PC ?
did not know this is possible, it sure would help me out "in the field"

Hi vonsmalhausen
The application on my Android phone is Flightaware's "Flight Feeder",  which was available upto 2016 at Google Play Store (Free of charge). It had a decoder software (dump1090) and data feeder to Flightaware.

By end of 2016, Flightaware decided to discontinue using Android Phone/Tablet for data feeding, but it remained available on Google store for next couple of months.

Flightaware finally removed it from Google Play Store, and made it's source code as open source. Its source files are available on Github by the name "Flight Scanner". However in order to use it, one has to first built an installation package (.apk) from the source code.

https://github.com/flightaware/adsb-flight-scanner-android

Luckily an already built .apk package "ADS-B Flight Scanner- Version 2.0.29" is available from a download site, and I have downloaded and installed it from there.

https://apkpure.com/ads-b-flight-scanner/com.flightaware.android.flightfeeder

.

[vonsmalhausen]

thanks, will have a close look at it  :-)

[abcd567]

thanks, will have a close look at it  :-)

Flightawsre removed the data feeder part of the original "Flight Feeder" when they made it open source. They also replaced word "Feeder" from in its name by "Scanner", so it is now "Flight Scanner".

Even if  someone still got old "Feeder" version, it wont login and their servers wont connect it to feed data to Flightaware.

The data output is however locally available on Android Phone/Tablet at ports 30005 (beast) and 30002 (AVR), and can be pulled by any computer through network.

The google map with planes, and the aircraft tables are viewable on Android Phone/Tablet, as well as on the browser of any other desktop/laptop/tablet on the same local network to which the phone is connected via wifi.

[vonsmalhausen]

thanks for this info, i managed to download and install the FlightScanner app on my phone, it does not look like the screenshots with the menu's you posted earlier, but if it just gets the planes plotted on the map, it is fine for me ( the idea behind this, is to use it round airfields when i go spotting, but can not take my laptop with me, and have no WiFi connection to use FR24 )
now i have to find me a connector to plug the USB end of the dongle in to the phone, and check it out :-)

[vonsmalhausen]

well, got me a connector, but no flights show up on the map
the blue light shows on the Micro Radarbox, so it should be connected
problem is, i can not find a way to a set-up menu, only can pop-up a basic menu for map type, speed and altitude units.

[abcd567]

well, got me a connector, but no flights show up on the map
the blue light shows on the Micro Radarbox, so it should be connected
problem is, i can not find a way to a set-up menu, only can pop-up a basic menu for map type, speed and altitude units.

Yes, you wont see any planes unless in Settings you set the antenna location manually. By default it is "Antenna Location: Auto". I took and posted the "Settings" screenshot after removing my Latitude & Longitude for privacy reasons. This reverted  "Antenna Location" to default "Auto" and misguided you.

Here is the screenshot with antenna location entered manually. This time I removed the decimal part of latitude & Longitude in Photoshop :)

EDIT:
I keep my phone's GPS off to minimize battery consumption. It may be possible that if Phone's GPS is turned ON, "Antenna Location :Auto" will set the antenna location from GPS, and planes start showing on map. I did not try this, but you may try by turning ON the phone's GPS, and keeping Flight Scanner's setting "Antenna Location : Auto".

IMAGE 1 of 3 - SETTINGS



IMAGE 2 of 3 - HALF-SCREEN MAP + HALF-SCREEN TABLE



IMAGE 3 of 3 - FULLSCREEN MAP

[vonsmalhausen]

no, i do not see the same as on you're screenshots,
this is what i see :
image 1, the quick set-up, usually when i put my antenna there, connected to my PC via MicroRB/RB1 i get aprox 25/30 hits
image 2, FlightScanner running on my phone with MicroRB connected
image 3, the only menu/setup i can turn on

thanks for the help/info so far ( really appreciated ) but i think my technical knowledge in this has reached his limits

[abcd567]

The software running on your Samsung Android Phone is NOT Flight Scanner by Flightaware.

There are 2 possibilities:

(1) You have installed another flight tracking software on your phone

OR
 
(2) The software showing on your phone is built-in into the MicroRB dongle.

If case (2),  use Generic DVB-T like I am using (DVB-T + FM + DAB,  RTL2832U + R820T2)

[vonsmalhausen]

yep, already thought is was not the right software,
i think i found the software you use, but i don't feel confident to set it up
so i just will let it go
again thanks for the time and effort you putted in to trying to explain me :-)