The Summer Raffle

[Anmer]

Entries for the Summer Raffle can be posted between 1st September and 30th September 2013, inclusive.

All members who joined before 1st September 2013 are eligible to enter. That includes Mods.

Entry is easy but requires some creative thinking.

As this is a self-help forum for those interested in all things "radarspotting", all you have to do is answer the following question:

"What advice would I offer someone thinking of taking up radarspotting?"

That's not too difficult.  The objective is to share experiences and offer helpful advice to others.  For example, what equipment do you think is needed, what software to use, where to place the antenna?  What made the biggest difference for you?  Or whatever you think will help others to get the best out of the hobby.

To keep things simple, there's a limit of 400 words.  No images but links to other sites are allowed.

Any inappropriate posts will be deleted, including those exceeding 400 words, and the member disqualified from the raffle.  Only one entry per member.

All accepted entries will be entered into the raffle which will be drawn from the hat by my dearest wife.  In fact my only wife.

Prizes will include (and allocated in the order drawn).

1st.  A Flightradar24 Receiver with GPS antenna and power supply.

2nd. A Kinetic Mode-S Puck

3rd. A Taylor Made RF external 1090 antenna

4th. A Moonraker M10 receiver.   

...and anything else I can scrounge or buy at a discount. The ones listed have either been donated or offered at a discounted price and I would liike to thank the members and suppliers who are supporting the raffle.

Winners will be announced as soon as possible after 30th September and my decision is final.

So put on your thinking caps and be ready to post from 1st September 2013. And Good Luck.

Entries to be posted on this thread which will remain Locked until the start of the raffle.

[regchan]

help provide support to fellow users and advise on what the best setup like basestation, virtual radar server and active display lite and get the best position for the antenna  higher the better  as i always say and tell every one about the experiences you or i had and get the best out of the hobby and you have support from  radarspotting.com and other sites like your manufactures forums  but we at radarspotting are friendly and helpful

[charliebrown]

Join radarspotting.com (http://radarspotting.com/) and read the posts on the forum to find out about radarspotting.

There you can find out all sort of technical information and advice about different receivers,

Also, you can ask questions of the members who have a lot of collective knowledge and experience and you can even get even get online support to set up your receiver.

You can also share your data with others by uploading to other web sites such as Plane Plotter, Flightradar24 and Live Military.

http://www.coaa.co.uk/planeplotter.htm

http://www.flightradar24.com/

http://www.live-military-mode-s.eu/

All this for free (although you can donate as well) and the chance to win a prize if you are a member of the forum before the 30th September, 2013.

[viking9]

DONT! Unless you want your leisure time completely monopolised.

[north borneo radar]

Research

Do your research first! Have a look into forums such as this and FR24's to find out about what is ADS-B, how it works and its limit and what is available on the market to set up your own ads-b equipment.

Location
How many a/c might be at your area? Are you under a major flight route? What obstacles do you have around your place of living or work?

Have a check at www.skyvector.com to see whether you are at or close to major flight routes. Then use http://www.freemaptools.com/radius-around-point.htm to draw a radius of 150nm from your place to give you an idea of the possible coverage you get. In real life you won't get a good 360 degree circle due to obstacles around the surroundings such as a tall buildings, trees or mountainous terrain which will reduce ADS-B reception.

Receiver

It all depends on what you want to get from this. If you are just want to experiment, the R820T USB (£7, ebay uk) will be a good start. Setting it up will need some IT skill however. Other products include the mode s beast (292euro, DIY), SBS 1090 Puck (£250) and the SBS3 (£500).

Antenna & Cable

Getting a good antenna and cable is equivalently important if you wish to have good coverage as the supplied antenna for the dongle could only be used indoor where reception will be poor.

For ADS-B you will need to have your antenna located outside and as high as possible to have good coverage as ADS-B works principally by line of sight.

For antenna, you can build one or buy one. DIY antenna includes this www.modesbeast.com/g7rgq.html. Higher gain antenna gives more range.

For cables, the thicker the better as this can reduce signal lost. However if it is too thick it will be very stiff hence difficult to bend. Westflex W103 is a decent cable for 1090Mhz ADS-B. Keep it short.

Please refer to www.taylormaderf.co.uk, www.jmz-shop.de/mode-s-beast, www.1090mhz.com for antenna choices, cables and prices. 

What software?

If you buy kinetic's kit, you will have basestation included as the software. If not, then you can use planeplotter(one off payment of 25 euros), virtual radar server or the free adsbScope to view your aircraft.

Share?

Whether or not to share your feed is up to you. You can share to FR24, Planefinder and Flightaware just to mention a few.

Hope this helps!

[Sun Worshipper]

Where do you start on this one?

Firstly, decide whether you want to, or can justify, spend hundreds of pounds in the pursuit of what basically is a hobby.

Research, research, research what's out there and whether it will cater for your requirements.  Do not buy the first piece of hardware you see that's advertised in a full page colour glossy advert in a magazine.

Don't dismiss the free or small charge APPS which are just as good (and better than some virtual radar manufacturers products) and will give you exactly what you want for a fraction of the cost.

Join an impartial website like Radarspotting whose members can offer you help and advice and don't forget to post your experiences.

It can be addictive, so be careful.

Most of all, have fun.

[kered]

How to get into radarspotting
I would say the first thing to do is lots of reading on the different spotting websites to see whats available, what works and what not to get(eg Airnav radarbox) starting on this site,

Buy a cheap dongle to start with, good cable and an external antenna. You don't need an expensive radarbox to get good results.

Try out the various free programs available on the net for download an see what suits you best and what will run on your PC, OS.

Why the Dongle first? its the cheapest way to get started, works reasonably well distance wise with good cable(almost a must) and an external antenna, be it home made or bought, should the novelty wear off and you find its not for you you haven't lost much cash wise and you can use it as an SDR radio or its origional purpose TDT TV tuner.

Should you enjoy radarspotting it will serve you till you decide which decent receiver to buy or even get a free one from some of the Aircraft tracking sites like flightradar24, or marinetraffic and afterwards as a backup or a mobile receiver when traveling, also for SDR to tune to Acars, the airband for Air traffic control and many other interesting frequencies all with free downloadable software.

Happy spotting and be carefull its adictive.

[Bethsalem]

My advice to a newcomer to the hobby, would be keep things cheap and simple at first.
Perhaps just subscribe to one of the number of aircraft tracking sites available on the Web, such as FlightRadar24.com or PlaneFinder.net, to give just two examples.

If you would like to identify the local traffic that you can see from your window then you really don't need to start off by spending a fortune. Just get a hold of a DVB-T dongle from a retailer such as CosyCave, just make sure that it has the RTL2832U chip and either the Elonex E4000 or Rafael R820T tuner chip too.

Once you have your dongle which only costs around a tenner, you need to be able to use it to track aircraft rather than watch TV. A very easy and painless way to set things up is to follow the excellent tutorials of SonicGoose. These can be found at www.sonicgoose.com.

If you find the antenna that is packaged with the dongle is not enough for your needs then a suitable replacement can be bought cheaply. www.taylormaderf.co.uk is one webshop where a range of 1090MHz antennas can be found.

If you've been following SonicGoose's tutorials then you will probably already have chosen which software you would like to use to display your local aircraft traffic on your PC. If you don't want to spend any more money there are two free programs which will fulfil your needs. One is the RTL1090 software which is available from www.jetvision.de and then Virtual Radar Server, available from www.virtualradarserver.co.uk. Again, use the excellent tutorials on Sonic Goose's website to give you a step-by-step guide to getting everything working.

Now sit back and enjoy!

[flying_rog]

Mod Edit:  Ineligible entry.  More than 400 words.

Well, I'm about to start down the route of getting into radarspotting so perhaps I've recent experience about it...

What advice would I give to someone thinking of taking up radarspotting?

Start with the internet based web sites such as flight24 that give an immediate showing of what is possible. No effort needed and lots to observe. That way, it's possible to get the idea of what radar spotting is all about and see how the interest develops. However, watching the web sites brings to light the limitations that the internet sites seem to have. Why is that? Three things come to mind here. Firstly that the position of the aircraft reports are delayed slightly so some of the flight tracks lag behind what the aircraft are doing. Secondly, low flying airliners nearby may not appear on the internet sites (reason: no-one nearby is feeding in reports) and lastly that quite a few aircraft don't appear at all.

Curiosity aroused, then that's when radar spotting really develops. Having raised the interest, how to do something about it?

Start by using a search engine to throw up web sites to help understand what to do to get into the hobby - that works well. A big thank you by the way is offered  to all of the people who have spent time and money setting up and running them.

After that?

I'd suggest buying the USB "dongle" (it's about £10 delivered) and have a go with that. Yes, the installation of the software is a bit of a learning curve but I think that is part of the charm of the whole thing.
Then there is the research and making of an antenna (or maybe two?). Locating that in a high exposed position is a challenge in itself.
After that comes observing the wealth of flight information and the operational side of airfields and airlines. A well organised database helps here. Various maps can be tried out. The local area becomes opened up. Are there really that number of aircraft about? Quite what are their flight paths and what happens when the wind direction changes by 180 degrees?

Then further avenues open up. Money needs to be spent. A more sensitive receiver can be bought thereby extending the range of aircraft seen. Then there is the VHF ACARS system to explore. Perhaps even the HF ACARS which is an eye opener due to the propagation of HF. It's quite exciting (yes really) to listen to the burping sound and then see the location on the map given by the aircraft.

Raspberry pi owners can turn it good effect by using it as a USB extender – in effect the pi is located close the antenna (in the loft?) and then the pi passes on the signals via the home network to a more suitable placed PC to watch the action.
Users swap experiences (may I mention Mike (aka Anmer) and the rest of the Radarspotting.com Team here?) and that is another world to get involved in.
Those are my suggestions to someone thinking of taking up radarspotting.

PS – I'll pass on my success with the dongle and home made antenna in due course.

[IanH]

Ok, here's my offering. Deliberately not read anyone else's entry yet to avoid my thoughts being distracted

Word says 396 words so within limits.

================================================================

Starting out

For me, the obvious starting point is to take a look at FlightRadar24.com – that's where I started. Depending where you live, FR24 may provide you with all you need, particularly as for some locations it has now added (using MLAT) those aircraft that don't transmit position data (CRJ, ERJ, DHC-8 and older Boeings, but not military).

That's fine for a home-based broadband connection, but what if you are out and about or on holiday? Do you have wi-fi access or data allowance on a mobile device? If so, FR24, Planefinder and others have mobile apps that allow radarspotting to continue away from home.

So why buy hardware for radarspotting?

1)   Provide your own data:
•   where FR24 coverage is poor
•   out and about with no wi-fi access or data allowance on a mobile device
•   to find out those FR24 "blocked bizjets"

2)   Share data via PlanePlotter:
•   where FR24 does not provide MLAT aircraft, or you want those MLATs that FR24 doesn't show (military)

What hardware?

The availability of cheap (£12) DVB dongles has changed the whole ADSB receiver market. At this price, some effort is required to get the hardware/display software working on a PC but there are guides available.

The price jump to 2nd user Kinetic SBS-1 or AirNav Radarbox is considerable but these come as ready-to-use packages and include custom radar display software.
Moving up to the new receivers is another price jump but that buying decision probably occurs after trying out the cheaper options, finding out their weaknesses and reading guides/asking questions on forums.

Whichever hardware route you take, antenna location is vital since the ADSB signal is "line-of-sight". So the higher up, without any obstructions (walls, trees), the greater the reception range will be. But a long cable from the antenna to the receiver can cause signal loss. Finally you need to get the output from the receiver to the PC where you want to see the radar display.

My setup has the supplied antenna and receiver in the loft with ethernet to my PC downstairs. Range and performance are more than adequate for my use. Many receivers have only USB interfaces so either powered USB cables or USB/ethernet converters may be required to send the data to the PC with the radar display.

Whatever approach you take, sites such as http://radarspotting.com can help by answering your questions when problems occur.

[eyeinthesky]

Have a plan and know what you want to get from the hobby. Then see what equipment you need and check the cheapest  prices. Get the basic equipment to get you going and take your time to see if the hobby is for you, the reason for this is if you think it is not then you have not spent a lot of your hard earned money. If it is, then check for the best prices  but get the best equipment you can afford even if you have to save for it because the cheapest may not be always the best.
Then try to meet other radarspotters or join forums to exchange information and get some tips about the hobby.
Now enjoy yourself as the sky is your oyster LITERALLY.

[Xon]

1. Order cheap DVB-T USB it's only 10USD with shipping: EBay link with filters (RTL2832U, R820T, worldwide free shipping)

http://alturl.com/fg465

2. Download free software, ZADIG + VirtualRadarServer + RTL1090 or ADSB#

http://sourceforge.net/projects/libwdi/files/zadig/
http://www.virtualradarserver.co.uk/
http://rtl1090.web99.de/
http://sdrsharp.com/index.php/a-simple-and-cheap-ads-b-receiver-using-rtl-sdr

3. Download free hex/ICAO24 database and free database viewer/editor

http://pp-sqb.mantma.co.uk/
http://www.sqliteexpert.com/download.html

4. Install all

5. Play with all this and find best location for antenna, best is 360 degree view and highest possible location.

6. Test trial PlanePlotter and compare with free software, think about own licence it's only about 30€ for lifetime licence and many new features.

7. Build own, better antenna, everyone can do that it's really easy. Google keywords: antenna 1090MHz Super easy is this one:

http://antirez.com/news/46


8. Share data with others:

http://www.libhomeradar.org/
http://www.live-military-mode-s.eu/
http://www.adsbhub.net/
http://radarbox24.com/

9. Read about MLAT, Beamfinder, SSR, NOTAMs, AIP, AUP etc.

10. Usefull links

https://pilotweb.nas.faa.gov/
http://skyvector.com/
http://allmetsat.com/
http://www.airnavsystems.com/forum/index.php?board=4.0
http://skyliner-aviation.de/

11. Find local aviation/spotting association, check local spotting forum. Read also "Wordwide" forums like http://radarspotting.com

12. If radarspotting is yours hobby think about better receiver then DVB-T USB it's really worth.

[Graham Bell]

Read the various forums to provide a better understanding
of the world of virtual radar,and take advantage of the many tutorials available.
Useful links are available from associated forums.
Some forum members offer the opportunity to view their
setup via a remote connection,this will give you the chance to 
see what can be achieved,also along these lines are the
free websites which provide live radar screens.
If you opt for your own base unit which,of course,you can customise to your own taste and there are a host of free add-ons to try.
Select a base unit that you consider will best serve your requirements and install with care and patience,remember it is a radio receiver so if circumstances permit mount the antenna outside and as high as possible and keep the cable run as short as possible.Note that ADSB signals rely on the line of sight principal
Concentrate on one stage at a time get the base unit working to your satisfaction before moving on to the next task.
As mentioned earlier you can fine tune your set up to suit your needs and this can be done with the add-ons of which their are many,again install one at a time and when satisfied move on to the next.Remember that all add-ons effects computer performance so again check as you install.
From a personal view I consider that Flight Display and ADLite are as good as they get insofar that they provide comprehensive information as to routes, flight I.D.,height,speed and a whole lot more all of which compliments any set-up.
The world of virtual radar will give you an intriguing insight as to what is in the sky over you,so sit back and enjoy!
Finally do remember that if your computer skills are limited and you get yourself in a tangle that is when the forums come into their own the help and guidance that is available is legendary and it all given in a free and friendly manner and when you get frustrated and perplexed a forum member will get you up and running with two clicks of a mouse!!
I wish you many happy hours with your new hobby.
Regards-
G.B. 


 

[Sun Worshipper]

Any news on the winners yet?

Not that I'm expecting to win anything, 50 plus years and still unlucky!!

[Anmer]

I'm sorry for the delay.

My desktop threw a wobbly earlier in the week and I'm still struggling to get it working again, even with a full daily backup to restore.  It could be a failed disk or motherboard.

It's a long story but last night the OS partition says it was successfully restored but I have to test it.

Winners will be announced on Monday.