Range isn't great but it has tiny antenna and is very susceptible to interference. But that's not bad at all, orientation affects it as well, Antenna needs to by vertical to get below reception. Expanding foam to seal it in. Boy did that make a mess. Works for about 5-7 hours on that battery. Unit will be powered by 100W solar and a marine deep cycle for remote installs. Home unit is going to plug into an outlet outside and be mounted under the eave with 25' foot run of coax up to tripod mounted 26" FA antenna. Dan has 1090/978 combo antennas on order from China.
"Franken Feeder." Cool! Questions: 1. The head sink -- is that the solar charge controller? 2. Are you using one of the TMO M2M SIMs for the data conduit (as discussed elsewhere in the Forum)? (Can't see too well deep into the case) 3. Can you furnish a link to the antennas you used? I'd like to take a look. Comment: I've had good luck using RTV to "mount stuff" -- just a little dab or two will usually do it. And, its easy to remove/reposition/service/etc. And, I often use the same thing to seal penetrations -- a long bead of it in that situation.
1) The heat sink is to passively cool the Pi and the SDR. Arizona is hot, but this in the shade stays cool with no fan needed. $20 for the heat sink, that hardest part is cutting the hole. I haven't figured out how exactly I'm going to put the charge controller in this setup, they do need cooling. 2) Yeah up until yesterday it was using the TMO M2M, the problem with the M2M in a place like PHX is there is too much air traffic and not enough bandwidth for it on the 64k. So we setup UDP and turn the buffer down, if it can't send data then it drops data. This keeps it real time. 3) Antenna: https://www.banggood.com/ADS-B-PCB-Antenna-1090Mhz-Antenna-ANT-p-1351107.html Good for short range 50-100 miles. Here is the same setup but with the 26" antenna on the roof. It getting 225 miles with a little more filter and boost I was able to get 300 miles last year on clear day.
I picked up 2 of those PCB antennas to try... they made a great bookmark... Then I just just bent up a J-Pole and that thing rocks! Nice setup though!
Hah. Yeah those PCB are short range fun. I might have to make the trip to Yuma and have you show me the J-Pole.
Dude, there is a Photo and drawing in my New Antenna Thread... 1 piece of copper wire, 1 bend, install it into a 3/4" PVC with a Cap on the top.. done!
