ADS-B

A forum for the discussion of civilian aircraft communications as heard throughout the New England area and its adjacent waters.
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Scott
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ADS-B

Post by Scott »

I had time to get my old ADS-B antenna back up this weekend. I am using it with an Airspy feeding the ADSBSpy program and then to Virtual Radar Server. It works very nicely.

It appears there is a little bit more military activity in full ADS-B now than there used to be. It's been a few years since I've had this type of setup online. There was always Mode-S milair traffic but it never actually appeared on screen without some sophisticated triangulation using the PlanePlotter Network, and my experience with that was that it was often less than accurate.

I followed a Reach flight in over the Atlantic, just south of my location at 34000 feet, enroute to an unknown destination, and was able to go outside and see it as it passed. Neat.

Using the Airspy in this manner is just another way to make that versatile SDR work for you. Antennas now appear to be a lot less expensive than they used to be and they don't need to be super-high for obvious reasons. I believe most if not all civilian aircraft are mandated to be using ADS-B sometime during 2020; I say that without looking it up but recall such statements. Obviously now there is a lot less activity than there would normally be but there is still quite a bit to watch if you're interested.
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e737
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Re: ADS-B

Post by e737 »

Definitely more using ADSB..Im using a Mode S Beast running piaware and was able to pick up F15s in yankee MOA using mlat and listening on comms
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Re: ADS-B

Post by jbella »

I just found ADSB Exchange and am mulling over getting a setup and feeding. Still a novice at that type of stuff.
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Re: ADS-B

Post by Scott »

Not much going on....but it's still fun! :D
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Re: ADS-B

Post by jbella »

During the flyover the other day the F-15s didn't show up on the ADSB exchange. Nor did they show up on PlaneSpotter.

Would it be that they there was no one close enough feeding it? Or do fighters not run ADSB? (Which I would find unlikely in an metro area)
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Re: ADS-B

Post by disp617 »

Jim, 95% of the time the fighters will not show up and if they do it's usually by accident. Just about everything else does.

Scott, thanks for showing Virtual radar server. I've been using plane plotter and I have to say Virtual radar server is much easier to use than plane plotter
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Re: ADS-B

Post by Scott »

I was part of the PlanePlotter network for years. It has a significant learning curve to it. All contributors have to be on the same playing field, most importantly in sync time-wise, for it to work properly. There were always those that were not and it yielded some less than desired results. To watch planes back up a few hundred miles in an instant was quite interesting! Although I must say for the most part it was a very good quality system. But I finally fell out of it for a while and when I considered getting back into it this is the route I ultimately took. I can see what I am capable of receiving and that works fine for me.

I initially tried to put the Kinetics SBS-1er ADSB box I have back online. It is quite a little transmitter in and of itself as it added many spurs and birdies to all of my Airspy devices and scanners. I then remembered the ADSBSpy software that comes in the SDR# builds, and the rest is history. I always liked VRS so it was the "final product" regardless of the hardware being used. In my case the Airspy Mini is perfect for the task. It's fun to have this capability again and in a much simpler form; I can run it when I feel like watching it. VRS is an amazing piece of software that does a great deal, the ADSBSpy app is as simple as run it and it works, and the two interface together very easily.
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Re: ADS-B

Post by CG »

The orange Flight Aware dongles have a preamp built in and are pretty good for the ADSB.
There is a thread on RR about the various modifications to the basic URL that can be done to customize the interface.
I use the quick link of
https://tar1090.adsbexchange.com/
to get to the map and can be running in a couple seconds.

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Re: ADS-B

Post by Scott »

Thanks for this info Chris. There is now a Pro Stick Plus available that has a built-in bandpass filter for 1090 MHz. I grabbed one. I have a Pi sitting around unused so I'm going to give that a try; it'll free up the Airspy I'm using and allow me to share my data, so that's a win/win.
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Re: ADS-B

Post by JFR »

There was a new ADS-B requirement on Jan 1, 2020. Pretty much everything but fighters are running it now, although I have seen A-10s and T38 trainers out in the Central US.
If you go to https://tar1090.adsbexchange.com/ and select "U" at the top of the map, you'll see a LOT of military aircraft. Most of the other ADS-B reporting service filter a lot of the .mil stuff out.

-JR
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Re: ADS-B

Post by Scott »

The FlightAware Pro Stick Plus arrived today. I had the Raspberry Pi prepped and ready to go, and as advertised it is truly literally plug and play.

Instructions: https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/build

Really nifty setup; thanks again Chris. Nice to finally have a use for this Pi that's been sitting idle for a while. Judging by what I'm seeing on the screen I'm thinking that the Pro Stick Plus is outperforming the Airspy Mini, which actually did very well also, thanks to it's preamp and filtering. Very cool.
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Re: ADS-B

Post by garys »

I'd like to thank Scott for dragging me down THIS rabbit hole.

He's a bad man. First, it was "SDR on the Cheap." Sure, cheap. After buying multiple dongles, then an Airspry, then a used laptop to run it all, then the Fastlane version of DSDPlus, then a second SDR set up for traveling, it sure doesn't seem cheap. :rolleyes: Not to mention hundreds of hours listening and trying to identify new DMR and NXDN stations.

A few months ago I read this thread and went the ADS B Exchange website. Interesting, but a bit confusing at first. BTW, don't press the "I" button unless you are tracking a plane. :eek: It took me an hour to figure that one out.

Now, I've updated my 536HP with all of the Logan and Bedford TRACON frequencies as well as the Lincoln and Plymouth sectors. I spent about three hours last night following planes in and out of the area. Totally wasted time.

Now you tell me that I can buy hardware to receive the signals directly and provide a feed! I'll probably have to learn how to program Pi hardware too.

Thanks, buddy. :t

Seriously though, it's actually pretty interesting. I've slowly learned how to read the data on the map. I've used Flight Aware to track flights I'm waiting for, but never realized that there is much more data available. It's pretty cool, but I don't know how I'll ever get any work done.
We're peace loving people, we're not hunting trouble, but if trouble should find us, we'll stand up and fight.
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Re: ADS-B

Post by garys »

If you get tired at looking at airplane traffic.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/ho ... 2.7/zoom:7
We're peace loving people, we're not hunting trouble, but if trouble should find us, we'll stand up and fight.
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Re: ADS-B

Post by murphcc1 »

I use both, get down the canal and know what kind of traffic is coming around the corner........
Watch the planes all the time, POTUS flights, mil flights in Europe (watched a drone do a loop around EU)
Interesting, but with there was more military, I can't get anything on my scanner, have an SDS100 with a multi band Larsen hanging in my window, can't even get Otis tower and only 5.5 miles away, hills between us.
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