Welcome back from Receiving aircraft ADS-B (position) signals – part 2!
Yesterday I moved the antenna up a couple feet from a “very temporary” position to a “less temporary” position. I still need to get it up on the roof. Either way, my reception and max range have increased by at least 20%. It is still in my garage, which is a terrible location, but at least is elevated.
New antenna placement
The antenna needs to be vertical for maximum reception and upside down works just as well as right side up!
New antenna placement results
I saw up to 82 aircraft being tracked this morning. You can see the big planes lining up for southerly landings at KDEN on three separate runways and a few planes taking off to the southeast.
Here is a screenshot zoomed out. I’ve got quite a few position reports from >100 nm out.
Proposed final placement of the FlightAware ADS-B antenna
I have a new weather station coming this weekend so I’ll try to combine roof trips to install the weather station and the 1090 MHz Flightaware antenna at the same time. I’ll also need to drill a hole in the side of the house to run the cable. Or maybe I do it all solar powered and use WiFi ?? I also have a 25W solar panel arriving this weekend. Keeping it physically isolated from the house would eliminate some lightning risk. Decisions, decisions. Be on the lookout for a part 4 with the results from the new roof placement! Part 4 – moving the antenna to the roof, has produced great results! I’m now seeing 150+ planes at once and getting over 700 messages per second.