Building a super cheap dipole antenna for receiving ADS-B with an RTL-SDR

Over on YouTube user Brian Su has uploaded a video showing his super simple dipole antenna that he uses for ADS-B. A dipole is essentially just two pieces of conductive wire, one connected to the centre conductor of the coax, and one connected to the shield. By cutting the dipole to the correct length good reception can be obtained. In the video Brian uses some copper wire for the dipole and also shows the antenna in action with RTL1090 and PlanePlotter.

Building a very cheap and effective 1090Mhz antenna for ADS-B reception

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Eurastus

Appreciate the effort, but a diagram might have been less work for you.. Here’s another idea…. create the dipole on a strip of PC board. No copper enchant? No problem… simply use a Dremel to grind out the pattern. Then drill a hole in one end of the board and hang it from the ceiling with a thumbtack and string. NOTE: ADS-B transmissions are vertically polarized, so your dipole is correctly oriented.

Benjamin Auver

A ten-line description and a couple of diagrams would have more than sufficed. Why post an entire video? Can’t people read any more?

Thrash Bandikoot

You’re an A$$. Someone went to the effort to make a video and all you can think about is complain. Yes people can read, but they can also watch videos.

Rahul Sharma

Completely agree. If instructions were written in the description, I would have given a thumbs-up.
Ra.

Richard Hughes

I am really excited! I more than doubled the messages / sec by aligator clipping a can to a stock antenna! 😉
Check my google plus posts https://plus.google.com/+RichardHughes260/posts/ejypEryqK5B