Not sure what equipment I need

Discussion in 'Feeding' started by 9thfloor, Nov 12, 2019.

  1. 9thfloor

    9thfloor New Member

    I'd like to add ADS-B data to my Youtube Live stream of an airport. What is a good receiver and antenna? I typed in ADS-B receiver on ebay and got a lot of results. I'm not sure which are appropriate for what I'm doing.
     
  2. 9thfloor

    9thfloor New Member

    I have plenty of space for a large antenna and am on a hill above the city. I've read that it's best to put the Raspberry pi at the base of the antenna, since the signal attenuates quickly. Is this true?
     
  3. wiedehopf

    wiedehopf Administrator Staff Member

    If you use good quality coax or an LNA at the antenna, there is no need to thave the RPi near the antenna.


    That's the gear often recommended here, personally i prefer the rtl-sdr LNA because the builtin filtering is that good and you are sure to not need an extra filter.
    https://www.rtl-sdr.com/new-product-rtl-sdr-blog-1090-mhz-ads-b-lna/

    https://github.com/wiedehopf/adsb-wiki/wiki/Useful-items-for-purchase

    The short cable mentioned here is when you have the LNA near the receiver.
    If you want to place it near the antenna, that needs different cable.

    But i agree with the coax choices above, and if you use one of those having the LNA after the coax run is just fine.
     
  4. 9thfloor

    9thfloor New Member

    Ok, I ordered these two things:

    RTL-SDR BLOG 1090 MHZ ADS-B LNA
    RTL-SDR BLOG V3 R820T2 RTL2832U 1PPM TCXO SMA SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO (DONGLE ONLY)

    I didn't read your post precisely though and now I see you listed two FlightAware SDR's, one for each band. Hmm.. I guess I'll experiment with what I ordered. It would be nice to get the 970 band too though. I'm in the Washington DC area so I'm not sure how much there is on the 970 band because I'm in the flight restricted area.
     
  5. 9thfloor

    9thfloor New Member

    I should also mention I don't really want to feed to FlightAware. I'd rather feed to a free service.
     
  6. wiedehopf

    wiedehopf Administrator Staff Member

    The FA SDRs are just hardware, they perform the same function as other rtl-sdr compatible devices.
    (so no need to feed FA if you use them)

    Get started with 1090 MHz, you can always add 978 MHz later, it needs a second receiver, you can't receiver both frequencies at once with one receiver.

    You'll need to turn on the V3 internal bias-t using software, that can be a bit tricky.
    Set up your system without the LNA first and check that everything is working.
    When that works add the LNA and enable the bias-t (puts 4.5 V on the coax for the LNA to get power).
    Also when using the LNA, you'll need to use lower gain so the nearby aircraft don't oversaturate the rtl-sdr receiver.
    I'd say with that many close planes and the LNA/receiver combination you'll want a gain of 20.7 or maybe even lower, 16.6 or 19.7

    Some notes in case you are not using the adsbx image:

    You can set up dump1090-fa without feeding FA, the webinterface has some branding though.
    You can use this though: https://github.com/wiedehopf/adsb-scripts/wiki/Bundle-install-for-dump1090fa
    It gives you 2 additional webinterfaces without branding.
    Also check out the adsbx discord: https://discord.gg/P6QZ5KA

    Are you doing the DCA live stream? (It's great!)
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2019
  7. 9thfloor

    9thfloor New Member

    Ok, thanks for all the info. I ordered the FlightAware antenna and an LMR400 N-Male to SMR-male cable, so I guess I have everything I need. Just have to wait for it all to get here.

    Yes, this is for the DCA live stream.
     
  8. wiedehopf

    wiedehopf Administrator Staff Member

    Are you using a Raspberry Pi or another computer running Linux?

    If you are not using the ADSBexchange image, i'd just use dump1090-fa, then you can easily follow this guide to enable the bias-t: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/getting-the-v3-bias-tee-to-activate-on-piaware-ads-b-images/
    (it says piaware images, but it works just as well for the package install of dump1090-fa on a Raspbian image)

    Great live stream! How would you like to integrate the ADS-B data?
    Expose the webinterface to the web?
    Or are you gonna run VRS on another computer? (that's the interface you see on the global radar for adsbexchange)

    If you expect many users or don't want lighttpd on the internet, it's not hard to setup nginx with my tar1090 interface.
    (apache shouldn't be too complicated either but i haven't looked into that)

    I really appreciate that live stream so if you need any help configuring something or integrating it, let me know and i'll make it work (would even program some stuff for you if the existing solutions don't appeal to you).
     
  9. 9thfloor

    9thfloor New Member

    Thanks, glad you're enjoying the stream.

    I'm not sure yet if we're going to use a computer running Linux or a Raspberry Pi. I'm still trying to figure out what it's going to look like on the screen, then all the other software will be chosen to fulfill that. Originally I just wanted to download the ADS-B data to a SQL database, then sort it and display it on one of the cameras. Sort of like the LAX virtual stream does. But, I was just reading about Virtual Radar and other programs, and it would be cool to run one of those as a stream. We have enough bandwidth to run several more cameras. It's just a matter of figuring out what people want to watch.

    Thanks for offering to help. When the equipment gets here I might have more questions.