microADSB experience

[IanH]

Bought a microADSb via eBay back in June as a mobile unit. It worked very well in Corfu attached to a netbook.

Last weekend I visited my mother in London and as usual took the mobile spotting kit. All the ideals of antenna positioned as high as possible and out in the open have to be abandoned! Only option is to have the magmount in a downstairs window attached to the netbook - that way I am still "present" in the room 

The microADSB didn't seem to be pulling in the amount of data I expected from previous experience with a dongle. So a quick substitution and that was confirmed - much improved range and number of hits (although range was not too important sitting 4 miles from EGLL between 27L and 27R). Using PlanePlotter as display in both cases (directly for microADSb and via RTL1090 for the dongle).

So for difficult reception areas, a dongle seems to be better than the microADSB. I don't know whether the extra processing required for a dongle makes a significant impact on the netbook battery life compared to onboard processing of the microADSB since I was using mains power.

But outside, under blue skies, next to the villa pool, the microADSB worked fine for a long time! It will be going away with me again.

Ian


Edit: looking for some other information found an old thread that confirms my findings:

http://radarspotting.com/forum/index.php/topic,2129.msg9981.html#msg9981