Category: Airband

RadarBox Optimized ADS-B Antenna + RTL-SDR Bundle Sale $39.95 + Shipping

Over in our store we're currently selling a RadarBox branded bundle that includes an ADS-B optimized antenna with 10 meters of coax, AND an ADS-B 1090 MHz optimized RTL-SDR dongle. RadarBox24 is an ADS-B aggregation flight tracking service similar to other services like FlightRadar24 and FlightAware. The set is RadarBox branded, but of course can be used with any tracking service, or just for your own private ADS-B station.

The bundle is now on sale for US$39.95 + shipping! The sale will last until stock runs out and this sale is only available from us. At other places like Amazon it is currently selling for US$64.95.

To purchase please visit our store and scroll down to find the RadarBox bundle "Add to Cart" button.

The antenna has 7 dBi gain, 50 (+-5) Ohm impedance, and is made from fiberglass and aluminum. It is fully waterproof and outdoor rated with 10 meters of coax cable and includes mounting clamps. The RadarBox RTL-SDR is specifically optimized for 1090 MHz ADS-B reception with it's built in filter and low noise amplifier.

The bundle ships out once per week and tracking is provided 1-2 days after shipping.

RadarBox Bundle: Includes 1x Outdoor ADS-B Antenna, 1x ADS-B Optimized RTL-SDR
RadarBox Bundle: Includes 1x Outdoor ADS-B Antenna AND 1x ADS-B Optimized RTL-SDR

Passive Doppler Aircraft Scatter with a VOR Beacon and an RTL-SDR

Over on YouTube Meine Videokasetten has posted a video showing how he's been using an RTL-SDR to detect aircraft landing and taking off via the scatter on a VOR beacon. VOR (aka VHF Omnidirectional Range) is a navigational beacon that is transmitted between 108 MHz and 117.95 MHz from a site usually at an airport. Although as it is an older technology it is slowly being phased out in some places. 

An interesting observation can be made that is unrelated to the actual operation and use of VOR navigation. When an aircraft passes near the VOR beacon it results in the signal reflecting and scattering off the metal aircraft body. As the aircraft is moving quickly, it also results in a frequency doppler shift that can be seen on an RF waterfall display.

In his video Meine Videokasetten uses an RTL-SDR and OpenWebRX to receive the VOR signal. He then pipes the audio output of that signal into Speclab which allows him to get significantly increased FFT resolution for the waterfall. This increased resolution allows him to clearly see the doppler scattering effects of aircraft on the VOR transmission. He notes that it's possible from the scattering to determine if an aircraft is taking off or landing.

Passive doppler radar on VOR beacon transmitter .:°:. A let's test it out

We note that back in 2015 we posted about the ability to "fingerprint" aircraft using this technique. Different types of aircraft will result in unique patterns on the waterfall. In that post they used analogue TV carriers which are not very common in most countries anymore, so it's good to see that this can be used with VOR signals too.

Comparing large and small aircraft with aircraft scatter
Comparing large and small aircraft with aircraft scatter with an analogue TV transmitter. From previous post.

Coole-Radar: A Retro Terminal Based Radar Display for ADS-B Aircraft Data

John Wiseman has been working on a cool old-school retro styled aircraft ADS-B radar that runs entirely within a terminal window. So no GUI desktop should be required. The project, called "coole-radar", is available as open source code on GitHub.

It takes decoded ADS-B data via a Virtual Radar Server webpage, so it should be fairly easy to set up together with an RTL-SDR and dump1090 that feeds Virtual Radar Server. The latest version displays a radar screen with decay-like effect, a list of currently detected aircraft, and a pixelated screen of the aircraft image downloaded from the internet.

Dash Mounted ADS-B With an RTL-SDR Blog V3

Reddit user [Bobcalamarie] recently [posted] about how he uses his car dash mounted Android tablet along with an RTL-SDR Blog V3 and a magnetic mount antenna while sitting in traffic to track aircraft overhead.

We’ve seen something similar to this once before when [Signals Everywhere] uploaded a video showing off ADS-B reception (among other things) to a dash-mounted Windows tablet and an Android head unit.

The software used by Bobcalamarie is the Android [Avare ADS-B] software which can be found in the Google Play Store. However, other applications exist for Windows, Linux, and other operating systems as well. Some software such as [Virtual Radar Server] even allows you to set-up alerts for specific types of aircraft. Which while we wouldn’t condone it, it might come in handy for someone in traffic.

What would you do if you had an SDR installed in your vehicle? We would love to hear what you have to say in the comments below.

Dash Mounted ADS-B Reception

RadarBox Optimized ADS-B Antenna + RTL-SDR Bundle 15% Off Sale

Over in our store we're currently selling a RadarBox branded bundle that includes an ADS-B optimized antenna with 10 meters of coax, and an ADS-B optimized RTL-SDR dongle. RadarBox24 is an ADS-B aggregation flight tracking service similar to other services like FlightRadar24 and FlightAware. The set is RadarBox branded, but it can be used with any tracking service, or just for your own ADS-B station.

The bundle is now on sale with 15% off! This brings the price of this bundle down to $42.45 plus shipping. The sale will last until 19 September and only while stocks last.

To purchase please visit our store and scroll down to find the RadarBox bundle Add to Cart button.

The antenna has 7 dBi gain, 50 (+-5) Ohm impedance, and is made from fiberglass and aluminum. It is fully waterproof and outdoor rated with 10 meters of coax cable and includes mounting clamps. The RadarBox RTL-SDR is specifically optimized for 1090 MHz ADS-B reception with it's built in filter and low noise amplifier.

The bundle ships out once per week and tracking is provided 1-2 days after shipping.

RadarBox Bundle: Includes 1x Outdoor ADS-B Antenna, 1x ADS-B Optimized RTL-SDR
RadarBox Bundle: Includes 1x Outdoor ADS-B Antenna AND 1x ADS-B Optimized RTL-SDR

Automatically Photographing Passing Aircraft with an RTL-SDR, Pi 3, and IoT Software

Arun Venkataswamy has recently completed a write up about his system which automatically captures images of passing aircraft. It works by using a Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR to listen to ADS-B broadcasts from aircraft. These broadcasts contain the live current location and altitude of all aircraft in his area. When a landing aircraft is detected to be passing near his house, the Raspberry Pi sends a signal to another Raspberry Pi connected to a camera on his balcony, and that snaps a photo of the passing aircraft.

In terms of software, Arun uses dump1090 as the ADS-B decoder. For communications between the two Raspberry Pi's he uses Node-RED and Mosquitto in order to communicate with MQTT. On the second Raspberry Pi, gPhoto2 captures images from the camera, and then ImageMagick is used to write some text about the aircraft and photo on the image. Arun's post goes in further detail about the code and conditions he uses to determine when a photo should be snapped.

In the past we've posted about a similar project where an RTL-SDR and Raspberry Pi based ADS-B tracker was used with a servo mounted video camera to track and record video of passing aircraft.

Automatically Taking Photos of Passing Aircraft with a Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR
Automatically Taking Photos of Passing Aircraft with a Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR

A Remote ADS-B, ACARS, VDL2 and Air Traffic Control Voice Monitoring Station with LTE Connection

Over on Reddit u/tsimola has posted about his remote ADS-B station that is accessed via an LTE connection. When an opportunity came up to install a remote ADS-B station on a tall building with unobstructed 360 degree views, tsimola decided to build the best ADS-B monitoring station that he could, and make sure that it would be easily to maintain and monitor from afar.

He notes that his ADS-B station consists of a FlightAware Prostick Plus and 16-element collinear coaxial antenna. The following components are also used:

  • Raspberry Pi 3 booting and running from SSD drive (Raspbian and ADSB Receiver Project package)
  • Power via UPS (1 hour and 45-minute runtime) and text message controlled power socket (for hard reboots)
  • Powered USB hub with three basic RTL-SDR dongles (ACARS, VDL Mode 2 and voice)
  • Three temperature sensors and one humidity sensor, 80 mm exhaust fan (filtered air intakes)
  • Magnetic switch for push notifications if the lid is opened (IFTTT and Webhooks)
  • LTE/4G router for Internet connection

In addition to the ADS-B station, tsimola has also added ACARS, VDL2, and AM voice air traffic control monitoring with a second station in the same location that utilizes three RTL-SDR dongles. This second airband station is connected to a 128 MHz tuned airband dipole antenna, with an LNA4all and GPIO labs airband filter.

As well as descriptions of the hardware, tsimola's post goes over his software choices and explains how it is securely accessed. We think that this is a very well put together build that should be replicated in other locations too.

A remote ADS-B, ACARS, VDL2 and Air Traffic Control Monitoring Station.
A remote ADS-B, ACARS, VDL2 and Air Traffic Control Monitoring Station.

[Also seen on Hackaday]

Android ADS-B Flight Tracker with 3D Aircraft Display

ADSB Flight Tracker is an Android App that allows you to display ADS-B flight data in either 2D or 3D. It works either with data shared from others over the internet via aggregation sites like adsbexchange.com, or via your own home ADS-B receiver data coming from an RTL-SDR and dump1090 server on your home network. You can also directly connect to an RTL-SDR that is running on your phone and this will allow you to get data faster with less lag. Using data shared by others from the internet could have a delay of a few seconds.

In order to keep using the 3D and RTL-SDR features you'll need to unlock them for a small in-app purchase of $2 for each feature. Initially you get about 30 minutes trial time however.

2D and 3D Screenshots from ADS-B Flight Tracker
2D and 3D Screenshots from ADS-B Flight Tracker

Some interesting 3D videos were also recently posted to the apps Twitter page @ADSBFlightTrkr.