I threw together my ADS-B Station earlier this week and used a wide band scanner antenna I already had had in my garage attic. Tonight, I built a quick 1090 MHz J-Pole antenna out of a single piece of 8 GA copper wire. I had some RG-59U laying around (I know it isn't the best, but it was available and asking to have 1 end cut off), so I soldered it straight to the feed point. 2.5" short radiator, 7.8" long radiator, 0.25" spacing, 0.25" from the bottom feed-point. The entire antenna was slide into a piece of 3/4" PVC and mounted on my Garage roof on top of a small mast I already had up there, so it is a around 23' AGL. The plan it to compare the next few days results with the previous days and see if I gain or lose. I came into the house and pulled up my local feed on FA Skyview and caught an A-10 doing runs in the Barry Goldwater Range here in SW Arizona...
I hooked up the new J-Pole at 0400 UTC on 29 June 2018... I'm thinking I'm already looking better at 1530 UTC
Thanks for feeding. You can check J-Pole dimensions here: http://m0ukd.com/calculators/slim-jim-and-j-pole-calculator/ Unfortunately results are metric .
Yes sir, my are real close to that. It seems to be working much better, I currently have 11,000 more positions than the entire day yesterday. The next step is to figure out a weatherproof enclosure and put the antenna on my High Roof (30-35' AGL) and a shorter cable run
If you don't care about surge protection try G7RGQ antenna (I can reccomend that one, it can perform better than stock antennas like FA or Jetvision A2). Easy to build, bend radials ca. 10 degrees down to reach best performance).
Very cool, that looks pretty easy to cook up. I defiantly need to get the antenna on my higher roof, the SE quadrant is totally blocked by my house...
Tonight, I made J-pole #2 and mounted in on my high roof, about 40 feet AGL (240' Above Sea Level) to give me the best, unrestricted 360 degree view of the horizon. Again it is made out of a single piece of 8 Ga solid copper wire with gommets slit on to keep it centered in the PVC pipe I have it connected with 35' of RG-6U to my RPi 3 with Flight Aware Pro Plus Stick running PiAware/ADS-BEx feed ZCons-51143. The best part is that not this setup is current in the house, and in the Air Conditioning... so hopefully it will not need a fan... The original #1 J-pole (on the low roof, 18' AGL) I made is now connected to the Pi Zero W running a generic RDL-SDR Dongle running Jhonny's Stripped down ADS-BEx feed. It is already picking up MUCH better than the Chinese made PCB Antenna... Here is the J-Pole I made tonight, then I slipped it into a piece of 3/4" PVC tube with a cap on top... Then I made a mount to slip under the roof tiles to hold it secure and it clears the peak of the roof looking East...
Height Is definitely your friend in the ADS-B World... My receiver coverage 14 hours since I put an antenna on the high roof
Just a Little Update on the J-pole Antenna Setup at 40' AGL Looks like it is doing quite well for me... Not bad for a length of copper with and 20 minutes of my time...
That's impressive .. I've got a 42" omni on the roof and a 26" omni in the attic - difference is about 10% ... but even roof one doesn't get your range
I do live in the middle of no where, and I am 1 of 2 2 story houses in the Subdivision... it has a pretty clear view to the horizon
