I apologize that I posted about my antenna last week and I was going to add to that post but I cant find it. I have been using a 6 element collinear antenna that I made out of coax and it is out side about 25 feet above the ground. My range has maxed out about 100 miles give or take 10 miles. Someone suggested that I make a simple spider 1/4 wave ground plane and see what my range is. So I made it and put it in the attic. It is about 10 feet lower than the collinear antenna and inside the attic. I am still getting about a 100 mile range. Right now the farthest aircraft is 102 miles. My presumption is that I am not getting the gain that a collinear is supposed to be getting. My collinear is made out of RG-58 and the feed is RG-58. I am using that coax because I had it. So I am looking for suggestions. I just read about a Franklin antenna. I am wondering about building one of those. I also wonder if I should be using a different coax? Also wondering if at my location 100 miles is going to be my range. I am in Birmingham, AL and there are mountains in the area. I have both receivers, 1090 and 978. The 978 is at the top of the mast and the 1090 is below it. While I made a 978 1/4 wave ground plane, I have not tested it yet. So I will appreciate all suggestions and advice? Thanks.
https://github.com/wiedehopf/tar1090#heywhatsthatcom-range-outline Check your terrain limits. RG 58 is probably suboptimal ..... just look up the attenuation at 1090 MHz.
RG-6 is 3.3dB at 30 feet. So that's halving signal. But it's better than LMR-195 that we use at 25 feet. Are you using ADSBx image? We should check gain, noise, and what is going on locally in the RF spectrum.
Start with a optimal line of sight: http://heywhatsthat.com/ Add to tar1090 https://github.com/wiedehopf/tar1090#heywhatsthatcom-range-outline Screenshot your graphs1090 and post your gain settings as well. I can look at it remotely, but that requires enabling ZeroTier. Entirely up to you.
Where do I find my gain settings? I was going to post the tracks from 8 hours but it looks like it has to be posted on a photo site first, and I don't use any photo site.
