ADS-B Notes

Posted inpersonal, technology

I recently joined the ranks of those voluntarily feeding ADS-B data to various plane sites. This post will be updated with my experiences.

Registering With FlightRadar24

FlightRadar24 provides the Raspberry Pi image and instructions that simplifies turning your RPi into an ADS-B receiver with one minor hiccup. From the instructions:

The link to activate didn’t detect as expected because I segregate my IoT devices on a separate network. Activation uses L2 networking which requires the activating computer to be on the same subnet. I briefly connected my Mac Mini to my IoT network and, voila, activation completed.

Raspberry Pi WiFi Drops

Every couple of days, the Raspberry Pi lost its WiFi connection and stopped feeding FlightRadar24, requiring a reboot to reconnect. I subsequently swapped to a hard-wired connection and no longer lose connectivity.

Filter

I added a Dual 978-1090Mhz filter which isolates ADS-B frequencies and reduces RF noise (e.g., non-ADS-B frequencies), increasing the maximum range from ~65 nautical miles to 130+ nautical miles.

Adding FlightAware Feeder

The Raspberry Pi configured for FlightRadar24 can also feed received ADS-B messages to other flight tracking sites, such as FlightAware and PlaneFinder. Leveraging your initial FlightRadar24 setup makes sending data to FlightAware ridiculously simple.

Disable FlightRadar24 MLAT

I don’t yet understand MLAT, I definitely don’t understand MLAT when multiple feeders are enabled, but FlightRadar24 is adamant that it must be disabled in a multi-feeder option.

Browse to http://<your_rpi_ip_address>:8754/settings.html to disable MLAT.

Log Into Your Raspberry Pi

Most steps are executed on the RPi. Log in directly with an attached monitor and keyboard or SSH to the device.

Install FlightAware APT Repository

The FR24 image is Debian-based, providing easy installation using Debian repository tools. The FlightAware repository definition is downloaded and added to the device’s known sources.

pi@adsb: $wget https://www.flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/files/packages/pool/piaware/f/flightaware-apt-repository/flightaware-apt-repository_1.1_all.deb

pi@adsb: $sudo dpkg -i flightaware-apt-repository_1.1_all.deb

Install FlightAware Feeder

Two commands to update the known package sources and install the feeder, piaware.

pi@asdb: $sudo apt-get update
pi@asdb: $sudo apt-get install piaware

Configure piaware

Optional, configure piaware to allow automatic and manual updates.

pi@adsb: $sudo piaware-config allow-auto-updates yes
pi@adsb: $sudo piaware-config allow-manual-updates yes

Restart piaware

Piaware should be running, but just in case.

pi@asdb: $sudo systemctl restart piaware.service

Claim FlightAware Feeder

To claim your feeder, first retrieve the feeder id from piaware-status

To claim the feeder and associate it with your FlightAware account, browser to https://www.flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/claim/<feeder_id>. FlightAware suggests you wait five minutes to allow FlightAware to process the first batch of ADS-B messages.

Verify

After claiming your feeder, browse to http://flightaware.com/adsb/stats/user/<user_id>. If successful, the dashboard should indicate some level of activity, such as the AIRCRAFT REPORTED and HOURLY COLLECTION graphs or the POSITIONS REPORTED table.

Questions

  • Multiple instructions and community forums state that the Receiver on the FR24 Feeder Settings (http://<your_rpi_ip_address>:8754/settings.html) should be changed from DVBT Stick (Default) to ModeS Beast. In fact, I thought I had done so by directly editing the configuration file and restarting. However, my current configuration uses DVBT Stick (Default) and everything continues to work.
  • Theoretically MLAT is per-feeder and therefore could be enabled for piaware alone. I updated the configuration and restart, but the FlightAware dashboard still shows MLAT as disabled.
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