Plane Spotters / Flight Radar Thread

[iamtheoneneo]

A few weeks ago at around 10pm I saw a massive plane in the sky followed by a smaller one. I checked the radartracker and it was not listed, so I assume it was military and it was a massive carrier or something followed by a fighter jet

What was strange was that the Plane was moving away from my view point and had 3 massive glows at the rear all inline with each other (I assume engine exhausts) and you could see this right the way to the horizon.


I cant figure out what it was at all, or did I randomly just stumble on a test flight?

 

[Feek]

Could an SDRPlay be used in this way ? I have one sat somewhere that I never quite got into, but if I can coax it into working as a mini flight radar, it would be awesome !

It can but it's fiddely and nowhere near as straightforward as using the cheap dongle. I was looking at an SDRPlay a while ago but never got around to buying one. It's a useful tool that I could use for a panadapter with my TS-590SG. I'm looking out for a second hand one at a reasonable price but they don't come up very often.

That's a pretty clever little tool!

It's a good tool, I found it pretty accurate for here.

A few weeks ago at around 10pm I saw a massive plane in the sky followed by a smaller one. I checked the radartracker and it was not listed, so I assume it was military and it was a massive carrier or something followed by a fighter jet

Many military aircraft transmit ADS-B, it's just that some sites won't publish them. Of course, with your own receiver, you can 'see' what they are. I had a couple of Ospreys fly over my house last weekend heading towards Mildenhall, massive noise and they showed up perfectly on my tracker but weren't listed online.

 

[Lisapete]

Dongle - Grab an RTL-SDR V.3. Works really well and has bias tee if you need it. Or even just a £8 cheapie dongle from eBay will work.

If you've got the Uputronics preamp/filter, don't even consider that "FM blocker". You've already got a bandpass filter in the Uputronics kit.

Just trying to find said stick you speak of.

 

[Feek]

This page and the one I bought is the second one down "RTL-SDR Blog R820T2 RTL2832U 1PPM TCXO SMA Software Defined Radio (Dongle Only)".

 

[lude1962]

Is this worth buying for a beginners bundle?

 

[Super Tigers]

Currently listening on 8131 khz USB , this is the winter frequency of the Russian TU95 bombers, using online SW webSDR. Russian traffic on the frequency, so we might get another visitation from the Russians sending a mission out to Syria, this evening. Quick response fighters and tankers might get launched later.

Lude, that beginners bundle looks OK, but I haven't any experience of it though.

 

[lude1962]

I'm about a mile from the sea so would be dual purpose, boats and planes. Antenna are probably a bit weedy, its only for a bit of fun (that's what they all said when they first started). If I can detect one plane or boat I'll be happy.

 

[Super Tigers]

I'm about a mile from the sea so would be dual purpose, boats and planes. Antenna are probably a bit weedy, its only for a bit of fun (that's what they all said when they first started). If I can detect one plane or boat I'll be happy.

I can pick up planes from approx 80 miles using a cheap stock aerial supplied in this package - https://www.amazon.co.uk/NooElec-NESDR-Mini-Compatible-Guaranteed/dp/B00P2UOU72/ref=sr_1_4ie=UTF8&qid=1479493898&sr=8-4&keywords=sdr

 

[Feek]

Is this worth buying for a beginners bundle?

Yes, that's perfectly fine. The aerials won't be up to much for ADS-B as they're probably too long! The original receiver I was using was much older than that and less sensitive and I was still hearing stuff over 200 miles away with that little spider aerial I built. There are some simple aerial designs here.

 

[Lisapete]

This page and the one I bought is the second one down "RTL-SDR Blog R820T2 RTL2832U 1PPM TCXO SMA Software Defined Radio (Dongle Only)".

Was more thinking of something perhaps within the UK.

 

[Danny UK]

I've got a similar setup here with a NooElec dongle and a Flightaware antenna mounted in my loft, with it plugged into a HP Microserver. I upload data to Flightradar 24 and my radar name is T-EGLC100.

I just checked the stats on Fligtradar24 and it's showing my maximum range in the last 30 days as 325nm, but my average is only 61nm. This is probably due to the local geography, but I've also got a 12m cable between the dongle and antenna for if I ever get round to mounting it externally, but it is a manufactured cable from TP-Link, rather than something I lashed up!

 

[Feek]

Was more thinking of something perhaps within the UK.

Any dongle based on the 820T2 receiver will work perfectly well, I'm sure there are some UK suppliers.

Danny, you're probably killing it with that length of cable. It's most likely to be something like RG58 which means you'll be losing 6dB of your signal, around 75% in the coax!

I raised my outside aerial by 10ft yesterday and moved the preamp to the base of the aerial. It's made quite a difference.

The shaded area is my maximum tracked range in each direction. My average over the last 24 hours is around 225nm.

 

[Danny UK]

Unfortunately the route to outside isn't straight forward, so I need the cable length. The cable spec is KMS-400 (LMR-400).

 

[Feek]

Much better - Off the top of my head I reckon that's only about 1.5dB loss.

 

[Cosimo]

I raised my outside aerial by 10ft yesterday and moved the preamp to the base of the aerial. It's made quite a difference.



The shaded area is my maximum tracked range in each direction. My average over the last 24 hours is around 225nm.[/QUOTE]

Very impressive coverage!

 

[Lisapete]

Feek got some photos of your setup please.

 

[Feek]

Nothing worth showing inside, it's a dongle and a RPi plugged into the end of a length of coax.

Outside is this aerial.

20ft pole, sleeve, 10ft pole. Preamp/filter in the box and the aerial on the top. The base of the bottom pole is 7-8ft above the ground (I've not measured it exactly).

 

[Lisapete]

Nothing worth showing inside, it's a dongle and a RPi plugged into the end of a length of coax.

Outside is this aerial.

20ft pole, sleeve, 10ft pole. Preamp/filter in the box and the aerial on the top. The base of the bottom pole is 7-8ft above the ground (I've not measured it exactly).

Thinking of putting mine on the side of the garage on a pole with a T&K bracket. I'm a 1m RG59 cable to link off the antenna to the LNA then into the stick. So tying for min loss. Power over erhernet is what I'm doing.

 

[Feek]

PoE is the way to go. I used the coax simply because it's what I had available here and it was convenient but I'm already thinking ahead to next year and what else I could do. Something like a 5ft pole mounted on the chimney would be well in the clear and if I could do that safely with it all mounted up there and using PoE then that would be good. But the roof is pretty steep and I'm not sure of the condition of the chimney.

 

[Lisapete]

PoE is the way to go. I used the coax simply because it's what I had available here and it was convenient but I'm already thinking ahead to next year and what else I could do. Something like a 5ft pole mounted on the chimney would be well in the clear and if I could do that safely with it all mounted up there and using PoE then that would be good. But the roof is pretty steep and I'm not sure of the condition of the chimney.

I could so chimney also. I've easy safe secure access to it. Not sure how much much of a pole I'd fit there. I have a double sockets in the loft so POE is possible and then homeplugs for the network would be possible. Garage is all ready wired both network and power so not too bad. Apex is 16ft where the pole/mast would go.