my new receiver

[satcom]

Perhaps in the new year we can look at running one dongle for Mode S and one for airband via PP 's SDR scanning facility and Andy's rtl 1090 multi dongle set up   

[dongle]

Agree about the E4000 just tried it and the range is about half of the 820T
Having said that , there's a chance that anyone with that might be able to use if for VHF airband.

You've got cracking coverage there , hope you'll consider being a GS at some time in the future.

That was with the E4000 and a rally simple home made GP antenna made out of wire, with a short 75 ohm coax to a small home brew pre-amp.

What is a GS?

[dongle]

As an example of how much better the RLT1090 is in comparison to gr-air_modes, since I installed it, I can see planes on the taxiway at the local airport which is four miles away. I never had that before, even though I could see them over the runway. Now I see them down and taxing back to the terminal.  The altitudes shown are obviously in relation to sea level. Checking on Google Earth, the plane on the taxi way is at 74 meters above sea level which is more or less the 250 feet indicated.

[satcom]

Further tests today show that the 4000 series rtl dongle does deliver good raw data , although it takes it a couple of minutes to run up to operating  speed for some reason.

The curves it produces are good enough for Mlat , so if you have an old 4000 stick lying around , that will do fine with the caveat that it doesn'y match the range of the 820T

[dongle]

Further tests today show that the 4000 series rtl dongle does deliver good raw data , although it takes it a couple of minutes to run up to operating  speed for some reason.

The curves it produces are good enough for Mlat , so if you have an old 4000 stick lying around , that will do fine with the caveat that it doesn'y match the range of the 820T

You asked me earlier in the thread if I would consider becoming a GS...

What's a GS? Is it something to do with sharing plane data?

[satcom]

Hi Dongle

yes , there are two levels of sharing with PlanePlotter , normal ADS B ..a/c that send their position , and raw data , thats a low level data that non plotting a/c send.
Using the latter you can help the network locate and plot military stuff , biz jets and GA traffic . The latter is achieved using PPs unique Multilateration [Mlat ] facility

But  thats something you might consider in  the future , for now , just enjoy your dongle  and familiarise yourself with  the world of Virtual Radar 

[dongle]

Ah - OK Satcom. Thanks for the info.

By the way - when you said above that the E4000 seems to improve 'as it comes up to speed', I think it may be due to the Local Oscillator in the E4000 settling down to a steady state right on the frequency. I saw elsewhere a month or two ago, comments about the thing warming up and settling down like that. Very familiar to anyone who has run crystal control WSPR beacons and such like. I'm a radio ham with an interest in making weak signal beacons  in another life and have seen that a lot. My 500 milliwat beacon on 10.140 MHZ is heard almost daily in Australia and in various other far flung places.