FEDEX plane mysteriously vanishes off the coast of Gloucester MA!!

[ecomodded]

That home brew antenna from the link is pretty nice but sure has a ton of connectors in play.
Each connection causes at least 1 dbi in lost sensitivity. If he was to solder the wires and grounds instead of using the connections he would save about 15 dbi in sensitivity/power, making cleaner power with less noise.

[Xringer]

His location is so good, he can pick up planes 100 miles away on a paperclip..
My new antenna is 30 feet up on the tower. It provides great coverage around here.
It picks all the local planes, flying above 200-300 feet, and a few on the local runways.
The high flyers can be heard out to 170 miles, in most directions.

Right now, I'm watching planes flying SW above Long Island, almost all the way to JKF in NY.
Weird to be able to see planes off the coast of NJ, when I'm north of Boston..

I will see some signal loss when all the leaves come out..
But, the signals are so strong, it might not be too bad..

I did an experiment the other day.. Posted it here:
DPD ADS-B Vertical Outdoor Base Antenna | Plane Finder Forum

I installed a switchable attenuator at dongle.
I was curious to see what would happen if I cranked in -9dB of loss.
That would subtract out the gain of the antenna.

I turned off both AGCs in the dongle and used RTL1090 to observe signal levels.
-3dB cuts the signal in 1/2, and (see chart below) was hardly noticeable. (RTL1090 doesn't display in dB)..

-6dB cuts the signal to about 1/4, but not a single plane 'fell' off the display.
At -9dB, (about 1/8 the normal signal power) I started to see the signals drop down on the planes around Long Island. (170 km /95 nm).
However, many of those planes didn't drop off the display.

Just for kicks, I turned the attenuator all the way up to -20dB.(1/100 of the power).
No planes inside 50 nm were lost. They started to thin out a little at 75 nm..


That kinda tells me that foliage losses might not even be noticeable..
Not like trying to pick up a TV station in central NH..

[ecomodded]

That tower sure beats the suction cup on the window mount ! sweet.
A few more watts and you can track flights from Asia.


Curious have you been using a flight simulator ? and are you a pilot ?

Also
Have any practice landing at dodgy military bases ?
Yes ,surely I jest

[Xringer]

The coverage area reaches all the way up to Canada!
Well, maybe 15 miles into Canada..
Canada!! Photo by Xringer | Photobucket

Have not used a flight sim in many years.. I have given up flying RC..
I've got a few DIY RC planes that I'm selling soon..

I'm not a pilot, but I took some glider lessons back in the early 1970s,
when I was first getting into RC and PCs and fight sims weren't available..
Didn't want to crash my RC glider that took a month to build..

I try to get rides on small planes from friends that will give me some stick time.
I love to fly, but will never go for a license. I almost got into Hang Gliders.
Took some lessons and loved it. But, broke my ankle at work.. Now I hate ice..