RTLSDR & PlanePlotter

[jazzbassNick]

Sorry for the brief post, on a break at a gig.

gr-air-modes tunes the usb stick and will broadcast the data on port 30003, just like an SBS.
SDR# isn't involved at all. I can elaborate more later

 

[SCPD]

This would help me alot. I dont know much about GNUradio. Whenever you have time to elaborate please do.

 

[PlanepPlotterUK]

Sorry for the brief post, on a break at a gig.

gr-air-modes tunes the usb stick and will broadcast the data on port 30003, just like an SBS.
SDR# isn't involved at all. I can elaborate more later

Thats great news ...thanks

It is important however to remember that the performance of these devices is limited and coverage , even using the correct antenna could well be low.The sampling rate will also be very low...but they provide a cheap introduction to the world of ADS B for the hobbyist and I suspect that once the RTL units become more popular as 1090 receivers , the users will then move on to the dedicated receivers which are now available at much lower prices than they were a few years ago.

Meanwhile COAA [PlanePlotter] will I am sure endeavour to offer any assistance it can.
Remember too that PlanePlotter trial version is free and will show your own ADS B input , from an appropriate receiver , even during the free trial period.

 

[jazzbassNick]

This would help me alot. I dont know much about GNUradio. Whenever you have time to elaborate please do.

I didn't get too much into it, but just enough to accomplish the task at hand. hee hee.
For whatever reason, I found rtl-sdr and GNU Radio w/Realtek RTL2832U and Elonics E4000 to be pretty helpful too. gr-air-modes is listed down below right under his blurb about SDR#.

Ubuntu on the VirtualBox runs using one of my sticks. All it runs is gr-air-modes. I don't even log into the v-box. I fire it off via ssh, either from inside the house on my netbook or using putty if I'm on the same machine. My windows apps all run on the same machine, pointed to the v-box's IP, port 30003.

I just made an easy tuned collinear out of coax and seem to be picking up close to 35nm which is fine for me.

My ACARS feed is from an old Pro-2022 going to one of those $6 usb sound cards, on the same windows machine hosting the v-box. winsend2 has the option of running it's acarsd (lib v2 dll) decoder and it'll pipe in mesages from the ADS-B box.

@PlanepPlotterUK

Yeah, lucky me - my 21 days expired before I had everything running, so it's been pretty worthless and frustrating since I can't see PP in "all its glory". A total "won't even launch with limited functionality"? meh - there's guys doing development, and that's fine for me.
I'm not going one of those guys that's going to spend $100+ for a dedicated receiver.

 

[KS4JU]

I posted a how-to awhile back on how to use the RTL-2832U, gr-air-modes, and Planeplotter a few weeks ago. I can plot aircraft out to about 60 - 70 miles just using the stock antenna sitting on my desk.

The RTL-2832U SDR and ADS-B | Ham Radio Science

 

[SCPD]

Thanks for the link and the reply. One day when i have time i will try to dedicate my feed server to running virtual box and do what you did. I dont think i will have a problem picking up the adsb signal. The main problem for me is the software. Your page is going to help me a lot.

View attachment 38457

Thanks again
Mike

 

[KS4JU]

Actually this is pretty easy to do following the instructions in the article. Especially if you have a spare PC. Just install Ubuntu, GnuRadio, and gr-air-modes and the software can send the data directly over TCP to plane plotter running on a windows box.

 

[PlanepPlotterUK]

Thats a great guide...and for those like me who want to vitualise on a Windows PC there are some "How To " note here

How to virtualize Ubuntu on Vista

At the moment I dont have a spare PC to set up , but if anyone has a go and gets it working , let me know
so that I can check the quality of the data as it goes through PP

 

[jazzbassNick]

@KS4JU

Of course! So sorry - no slight intended. Your page was bookmarked on my windows box and I was replying from my linux netbook. Your post really helped me get my arms around it (as I mentioned in the comments there...hehe).

 

[wierdo]

I have an RTL-SDR dongle working with a modified gr-air-modes emulating a Mode S Beast (sans Mode A/C at the moment). Originally I was using rtl_tcp to forward the I/Q frames from my Windows netbook to a Linux VM, but I broke down and installed Linux directly on the netbook. Despite only having a quarter wave ground plane antenna made out of some electrical wire hanging up in the attic, connected with RG-6, it gets fixes out to 80 miles or so with good reception within 40, at least in the directions where trees aren't an issue.

Oh, one tip, be sure to use the build-gnuradio script, it builds everything for you once you have a working Ubuntu install, including installing all the packages you'll need to successfully build GNURadio. A link to it is on the GNURadio wiki. The only difficulty with running it in a VM is that VirtualBox has poor USB2 support, so you have to use rtl_tcp to get the data into the VM.

With the Beast emulation, Beamfinder even kinda-sorta works, but I won't know how well until I can figure out which IID goes with which site.

I'm sharer MF, by the way.

 

[jazzbassNick]

I haven't had any issues with the USB on my VM.

Pretty stoked - today I'm up to about 70 nm. Not bad for RG6 hangin' in a tree hee hee.

 

[KS4JU]

Here is an article testing the RTL2832U / gr-air-modes based ADS-B receiver with a commercial ADS-B antenna and a quick comparison to a commercial ADS-B receiver.

RTL2832U ADS-B Performance Testing Part II | Ham Radio Science

 

[jazzbassNick]

Here is an article testing the RTL2832U / gr-air-modes based ADS-B receiver with a commercial ADS-B antenna and a quick comparison to a commercial ADS-B receiver.

RTL2832U ADS-B Performance Testing Part II | Ham Radio Science

Thanks for posting this. I was curious but didn't have the time or the equipment to find out.

 

[KS4JU]

For what it's worth, it looks like the RTL2832U / R820T chipset may be a much better candidate for ADS-B reception.

$10 ADS-B Receiver - RTL2832U / R820T | Ham Radio Science

 

[jazzbassNick]

Sweet

I've been seeing the 820 show up in the SDR# group - thanks for giving it a spin.

 

[giulliu]

Hi to all,
I build a basestation with a cheap RTL china dongle

Here my setup:
- antenna http://www.qsl.net/dl4mea/picadsb/adsb-ant-drawing.gif (6€)
- In-line sat amplifier 18db (11€)
- 45m cheap sat cable (10€)
- Sat DC insert (5€ for injecting 12v PC power to supply the amplifier trough the cable)
- China RTL 2832U+ E4000 dongle + BAV99 (diode for protection, all of china dongle don't have it and without, you burn the frontend in about 3 sec.;-) with an external antenna)
- Old celeron Linux 12.04 PC as a basestation server
- Gnu Radio+Gr-Air-Modes (nice setup all-in-one is here The RTL-2832U SDR and ADS-B | Ham Radio Science )

The instance of gr-air-modes feed the data to FlightRadar24.com and any other client like Plane Plotter, Virtual Radar in the same time also Google Earth for see the 3D vision about the fligth.
The range of my station is about 180nm, you see the real time flight with the attached file on Google Earth (my Base Station is near Capoterra)

For any question and help, I'm here.
Giulio

p.s. sorry for the bad english...it's my first post that not use any translator.....I hope it's "understendable"

 

[PlanepPlotterUK]

Here's an alternative that works under Windows

I have had a couple of these devices for a while but never got around to trying thr Ubuntu route.
However Jetvision.de [ Andy ] has developed a bundle of software which works under Windows

The results are excellent , bearing in mind these are the slower 4000E units

Shows a sample image of the RTL PlanePlotter combination

Message rate is around 60 in Mode S
The main PP features are available , cleared to altitude , wind data etc and
Beamfinder works , although the slow message rate is limiting

Mode A/C is also being developed

This set up passes the raw data test for mlat , but does not function as a
ground station due to the slow data flow , all in all this is a
massive step forward , especially for Win users.

This may well be an ideal second device for local/airfield use and in fact , with a suitable external Mode S antenna could provide a cheap way to longer range tracking

All in all an excellent step forward........congratulations Andy !

You can find out more and , how to set up the dongle by joining

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rtl1090_english/

The files section has the latest version of the software together with a detailed walkthrough of the set up procedure.

Regards

John

PP Support