Virtual Radar South West

[Archive-8]

Back up and running:-) it's made quite a difference, used to get about 20 to 25 aircraft on screen, with my scanner aerial. With my home brew 16 element aerial is now showing 40+ aircraft.

And I have tracked a flight from Southampton to Guernsey.

 

[Archive-8]

New record for me 46 plotted

 

[Analoguesat]

Well done Chris - nice setup

 

[Lazarus]

Well done Chris - nice setup

Nah. No tyres or hedges.

 

[blademedia]

found this yesterday will set something up at some point

 

[Analoguesat]

Blademedia - if you have a spare netbook running win7 or later its 15 minutes work to get up & running. Plus an hour to build an antenna

 

[blademedia]

thanks will have a read up, used that for radio, should be a antenna somewhere clearing workshop out so should find it

 

[Archive-8]

@blademedia i used this


To make my outdoor twig.

I bought a 2m length of conduit, 2m of coax, and f plug and a joiner, insulating tape and some amalgam tape.

I also use a noo elec txco dvb-t2 dongle, uputronics (saw) pre-amp and on 20m run of coax between the dongle and aerial.

I use a dell optiplex 380 base unit as my server/receiver unit.

 

[Archive-8]

This is the new Splat from the 16 element twig, it's only been running for about 2 1/2 hours.

 

[blademedia]

thanks Chris collinear antenna ? quite busy with dish install before winter sets in will give me something to do after

 

[Archive-8]

thanks Chris collinear antenna ? quite busy with dish install before winter sets in will give me something to do after

Yes it's a co-lininear antenna.

Antenna height is what counts.

I feed the ads-b data with quite a few other groups.

Including Flightradar24, radar360, south west aviation & ads-b exchange.

And a few friends have private access to my server.

So when I am away from home I still have a view, as anything with a web browser can view it. I have mine password protected.

 

[blademedia]

Yes it's a co-lininear antenna.

Antenna height is what counts.

I feed the ads-b data with quite a few other groups.

Including Flightradar24, radar360, south west aviation & ads-b exchange.

And a few friends have private access to my server.

So when I am away from home I still have a view, as anything with a web browser can view it. I have mine password protected.

sound's good have you tried antenna horizontal give you more distance but nulls on the blind spots ideal with motor for tracking, will look forward to playing with this thanks for the info

 

[Analoguesat]

thanks Chris collinear antenna ? quite busy with dish install before winter sets in will give me something to do after

The homebrew co-linear is what Im running as well.

I dont get quite such impressive ranges as Chris but Im in a deep valley so my range is quite restricted in some directions. A win7 setup is dead easy to get going. Ive also experimented with a raspberry pi3 and whilst Ive had success getting it actually going (eventually) Ive failed miserably at getting it to feed any results to the tracking sites. Putting the feeder in ALWAYS breaks something! I shall try again over the winter when Ive got some time.

However Im getting a respectable range north east & south - this is my current splat diagram (Rings are at 20 mile intervals)



Have a go bm - its fun & interesting - after a few days observations you get a sense of the regular flight - eg Saturday mornings sees an Air Tahiti go over here from Paris to Los Angeles to Papeete.

Plenty of help here on the forum if you need it.

 

[Analoguesat]

Chris has a 1090mhz amplifier on his setup - I shall be purchasing one over the winter too. And possibly an airband scanner so I can hear whats going over.

 

[Archive-8]

Use the code lfw10 can't remember if it's in upper or lower case.

1090Mhz ADS-B Filtered Preamp

It's worth £3.50 off. Mine has the basic saw filter, but you can add a ceramic filter for an Additional £48.

So the pre-amp no discount £35.99 (saw)
Pre-amp ceramic filter £83.99

 

[blademedia]

will certainly give it a go, used to love messing with scanner years ago listening to phone conversations etc need to read more on this
A new TETRA voice and multiframe SDS decoder - rtl-sdr.com

 

[Analoguesat]

BM idf you are on facebook join the 360radar group - the setup instructions they have on the site are the best Ive seen - and as a bonus its run by a bunch of hobbyists. Once you are set up & running with them you can add in extra feeder settings should you want to contribute to flightaware, flightradar24 etc.

To begin with though Id recommend them - very helpful for beginners.

 

[Archive-8]

I quite agree with @Analoguesat 360radar is very useful.

 

[Analoguesat]

FWIW - I live in what I would consider is one of the quieter airspace areas of the UK, and Ive logged almost 400 flights passing over today. Down in Milton Keynes you should easily log loads more

 

[blademedia]

will certainly set it up and follow advise, its finding time any spare time is put into dish project, retired 3 months ago never been as busy up/down country paint this move that sort garden etc