Hello,
I am looking for pointers for a remote, standalone ADSB receiver.
Something like a Rasperry Pi with a Dongle and a WLAN stick.
Has anybody tried this or a different combination ?
Apart from a low power consumption the package should be compact and light weight.
My Google searches did not lead in the right direction.
Background:
I am spending a short holiday on the Baltic sea.
At the beach I admired the huge size and fantastic shapes of the kites used by a surf school as advertisement.
This reminded me that Mr. Marconi used a box kite to pull up the antenna he used for the first transatlantic transmissions.
Short and longwave radio enthusthiast also have used kites to pull up their very long single wire antennas.
Putting the small ADSB antenna on a kite is trivial but how to connect it to the receiver ?
The long cable would cause a significant signal loss.
So my thinking is to use a kite to lift the ADSB receiver and connect it to a computer on the ground via a wireless connection.
This would eliminate the long antenna cable and its signal loss but bring added weight due to the power supply.
My hope is that the kite flying above most of the local obstructions would give a much improved range.
Apart from that its a crazy project for the next summer holiday at the coast. :P
RPi 3 and a FlightAware (or any suitable) USB DVB-T SDR receiver? But how are you going to supply the power?
Hello Anmer,
thank you for your reply.
I was thinking on the external power pack eg used for emergency charging of smartphones.
As suggested by https://www.raspberrypi.org/help/faqs/#powerBatteries (https://www.raspberrypi.org/help/faqs/#powerBatteries).
I dont have any experience with the microcomputers.
The Rasperry seems to be well estalished with the ADSB dongle scene, so looks like an obvious candidate.
But are their any other microcomputers which could be used - Beaglebone, etc. ?
Reading the link you gave suggests power will be your biggest challenge, plus weight.
The RadarCape is based on a BeagleBone but is not cheap. And you still face the power "challenge".
I've got two RadarCapes in my loft (my own and one from FR24).
They are definetely to big and power hungry, apart from the danger of destroying a significant investment in a crash. :'(
I was also looking at other micro boards e.g. Andruio, Dragonbone.
On the eay found out that Windows 10 IoT (Internet of things) also runs with the Rasperry.
Am wondering if that could save me the Linux learning curve.
There is a good write up in radiouser mag this month
Quote from: mhm on April 01, 2016, 11:20:03 AM
There is a good write up in radiouser mag this month
About what?
Rasperry Pi with a Dongle
Would you like me to do the usual
Thanks Mike. If you don't mind.
Maybe you need to get into how much weight a kite
can carry for a given size?
NASA seems to know. :)
https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/kitelift.html
Albert
Thanks for the NASA link.
This site to seems to have what I am looking for
http://www.sotabeams.co.uk/antenna-lifting-kite/#reviews (http://www.sotabeams.co.uk/antenna-lifting-kite/#reviews)
http://www.sotabeams.co.uk/kites-faq (http://www.sotabeams.co.uk/kites-faq)
These kites are for long wire antennas, but one user claims that he has used them for flying a packet radio relay.
That should be in the same league as a ADSB receiver.
It is very dangerous to fly a kite using wires to the ground. Large
electrical charges can build up.
Benjamin Franklin found that out in 1752 !
Just an update :
I got my lifter kite as a birthday present. :)
A local electronic magazine had a special offer for the Raspian Pi3 which I could not refuse
So I am learing to use both now.
Not sure what is more challenging - the kite or the Pi ;)
Found out that i cant fly the kite near my home as I live to close to the airport. :(