Setting up an ADSB feeder
Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast aka ADS-B is used in most modern aircrafts to determine it’s metrics and broadcast the same data. It includes position, speed, identification, altitude. Read more.
A feeder receives this broadcast data from the aircraft transponders and to hosts that aggregate this data — flightradar24 in this case. FR24 provides an easy plug n play to get started — DIY.
A few items are required to start off with:
- Any compute device: a computer or a SBC like Raspberry Pi will do
- Radio receiver that can use 1090MHz: A RTL-SDR is great for this
- An antenna that is tuned to 1090MHz
I already had a ground plane antenna built for ADSB. All I had to do was flash the FR24 image on my Pi, and hook up the RTL-SDR + antenna to it and bam! It just works!
This was fun weekend project that brought two of my interests together — radios and my newest interest aviation.
Update:
Bought a Rpi3b and got a new radar setup. Also bought LMR400 (ended up getting HLF400) and got the setup distance to <10m. I could immediately see improvements:
Update 2:
Since the Pi is now running 24x7, I wanted to disable the Power and Act LEDs on it:
# echo 0 > /sys/class/leds/PWR/brightness
# echo 0 > /sys/class/leds/ACT/brightness
I did this to test. Will add this to startup to make it persist across reboots.
I intend to keep the feeder going for as long as I can. Over the next iterations, I plan to make some changes:
- D̶e̶d̶i̶c̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶l̶o̶w̶e̶r̶ ̶p̶o̶w̶e̶r̶ ̶R̶P̶i̶.̶ ̶P̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶ ̶3̶b̶
- R̶e̶d̶u̶c̶e̶d̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶t̶a̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶w̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶t̶e̶n̶n̶a̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶r̶e̶c̶e̶i̶v̶e̶r̶
- S̶w̶i̶t̶c̶h̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶R̶G̶5̶8̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶w̶ ̶l̶o̶s̶s̶ ̶c̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶L̶M̶R̶4̶0̶0̶
- M̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶ ̶S̶D̶ ̶c̶a̶r̶d̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶S̶S̶D̶
- Air cooling for the Pi and the dongle. So some kind of enclosure with fan support
- R̶e̶m̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶R̶G̶5̶8̶ ̶a̶n̶t̶e̶n̶n̶a̶ ̶t̶e̶r̶m̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶-̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶r̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶t̶e̶n̶n̶a̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶R̶G̶5̶8̶
- Use solar power
