https://ibb.co/hH9GRSg Hi again guys, the link above shows you my dump map which right now has 13 aircraft listed but concentrated to my home location and not out further than 10nm........The other photo shows adsbexchange in civilian mode and it's tracking 23 aircraft and as you can see is saturated in South East Lower Michigan. I should be able to see most of those! I got the new FlightAware Pro in today and it seems to be working much better than the other SDR.....but something is telling me that its not really working right still! Any more suggestions? We have some bad weather coming and the only other choice I have equipment wise is to hook the discone back up tonight and see how it fairs with that. Thats the only other antenna I have. Update : Was gonna attempt a run to the roof but it's unsafe to do so. So my Comet GP 2/440/50mhz antenna will have to do for now until the snow leaves the roof.
Only thing I can see being an issue right now is the antenna.....but nothing is wrong with the antenna and the feedline is 100' of LMR 400 flex (brand new). I do have a mag mount with a straight 30 inch black antenna thats meant to be cut to the desired length......Imma run it outside and see if I get any kind of changes.....lol this is quite frustrating.
1090 is sensitive. Dan got ADSBx a 1090/978 combo antenna, currently out in testing and so far performing well! Nothing fancy .. just zip ties in the peak of the tile roof. A big window with clear view of the sky will also work - if it's not EMI shielded glass.
For 1 GHz transmission or reception, this is far too long without the use of a preamp. As James and MDA suggest, use a small, tuned element antenna (coke or spider) with as short a transmission line as possible for test purposes for the time being. Don't worry about getting the roof/remote antenna to work with the long coax run, just get something to a window, and confirm that the system works as a whole. Then worry about adjusting the external antenna system.
I agree with @Todd as well. This is the following just sitting next to me in a window. Using a very cheap 50' SMA to N cable from amazon. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FVWCKKE/ RG-58 49.2FT $17
Just a very stupid question, isn't your SMA plug SMA-reverse (without pin)? This SMA-R is very popular in WiFi applications. In this case you'll need SMA to SMA-R adapter.
The coke or spider antennas are low cost by design, but if you are creative, you can use recyclables and things in your junk box to keep the testing antenna cost really low. My permanent antenna is a just a plastic peanut jar, an SMA chassis mount connector attached to the underside of the peanut jar lid, the flat base of a pie tin attached to the top side of the peanut jar lid, four screws, four nuts and a 67 mm wire soldered onto the SMA center connector. The only thing I had to buy was the SMA chassis mount connector (less than $1.00US). By attaching the (FlightAware) SDR directly to the SMA connector on the underside of the peanut jar lid, you do away with the transmission line losses completely because you have eliminated the transmission line entirely. The same can be done with the coke or spider designs as well. A USB OTG cable is connected to the SDR USB connector and routed out of a hole cut near the base of the peanut jar in order to reach the Raspberry Pi.
