A dedicated ADSB antenna makes a difference
Steve, KI5ENW, recently retired from SDRplay wrote to tell of his success with a dedicated ADSB antenna at his home in Colorado;
“One advantage of full retirement is that I can delve into radio matters more deeply without the need to tear down a setup constantly and try a different receiver etc.
I decided to take a look at ADSB (aircraft transponders that broadcast around 1GHz) in more detail. I connected my trusty RSP1A to a Raspberry Pi400 and installed DUMP1090 and Virtual Radar Server on it. (Pic 1).
Pic 1
Previously I had been using my discone as the antenna, as that was the highest frequency antenna I had set up. The topography here is the issue, I’m about 1400 feet above COS airport and 2400 above Denver. The intervening terrain essentially blocks my view in certain directions and I don’t think discones are much good looking downwards. Still I did pick up some traffic as you can see from the range plot (Pic 2).
Pic 2
So I invested in a dedicated ADSB antenna (from ADSBexchange) and mounted it up next to the discone (Pic 3).
Wow! What a difference I could see immediately – many more aircraft are visible, especially at lower altitudes, for example traffic from the Air Force Academy. I’ll let it run for a while to prepare more detailed range plots, but as you see I’m already doing much better (Pic 4).”
If you have any stories you’d like to tell, with an SDRplay theme, then email me at jon.hudson@ sdrplay dot com and I’ll try to include them.