How to: build your own ADS-B receiver

killbilly said:
I don't mean this the way it's going to sound, and I will apologize for it right now.

It's just that....you guys have a King Air with a G1000 and you want a home-grown ADS-B IN solution instead of having a 'real', tech-supported and warranted traffic solution?
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Yeah I could ask the boss to put in ADS-B solution but this year isn't the time for it. The company is in the energy sector so the oil prices do hurt us some. Plus I could use this in the small airplanes when I do that a couple times a year.

Also the amount of times we lose our xm data information I haven't been to impressed with the Garmin stuff.
 
My parts just came in last week, so I should be building it on Friday. Flying on Saturday to test it out. Thanks for all the reviews on the various flight apps (I use Fltplan).
 
Cessnaflyer said:
Yeah I could ask the boss to put in ADS-B solution but this year isn't the time for it. The company is in the energy sector so the oil prices do hurt us some. Plus I could use this in the small airplanes when I do that a couple times a year.

Also the amount of times we lose our xm data information I haven't been to impressed with the Garmin stuff.
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that the traffic you receive on an ADS-B In only solution is going to be limited.
 
MidlifeFlyer said:
Keep in mind that the traffic you receive on an ADS-B In only solution is going to be limited.
Click to expand...
It would be a lot better than nothing. Our aircraft does have ADS-B out when they installed the G1000 a few years ago but they said we needed another box to get the ADS-B In information. That way we could drop our XM subscription to music only and save a few bucks there.
 
JeppUpdater said:
We have a thread on here concerning this, but I didn't want people to see it and think 'oh that's old', so I figured I'd start a new one we can use for those who are building one themselves.

This is incredibly easy. I've never heard of a Raspberry Pi and never worked with Linux before. If I can do this, anyone can do it.

This all started a month ago on Reddit when a user built one himself and wrote all the associated code. He then boxed it up nicely for the end user, as you can see in this thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/3g7urb/the_11390_adsb_receiver_for_foreflight_or_pretty/

Building it is a walk in the park:
1 - order the equipment off Amazon (a Raspberry Pi 2 kit, a USB-based antenna receiver, and a battery pack) for around $110.
2 - once it arrives, write the program code from here to the SD card as a drive image.
3 - assemble the entire unit.
4 - turn it on.
5 - have a drink.
Click to expand...

Alright, I built one of these as well. The last step was the hardest, I had to use tools (bottle opener)!

Seriously, I had this whipped together inside of 20 minutes, no joke. Even the software part wouldn't have let me mess with my C:\ Drive. The SD card was the only one I could write to in the software, so no worries about accidentally wiping my HD. YMMV

Took this on 3 flights now. Traffic, as expected was spotty at best but I think that's to be expected with a setup like this. It just didn't detect a lot of the aircraft around me, perhaps that will change if/when the FAA starts full time broadcasting.

Traffic for me was just an added feature though. What I wanted it for was the weather information. I was occasionally able to pickup a signal on the ground, but more often than not it didn't receive anything until airborne (as expected with the ADS-B system, just not designed for ground use). No troubles once in the air though. Takes a few minutes for it to receive all the signals, as it's only going to get the information as fast as the towers broadcast it, but it has been getting good radar, metars, tafs, notams etc. All the stuff I wanted, and right there in ForeFlight.

I ordered a very short USB extension so I can attach the receiver to the side of the case, and also a switched USB cable for the power supply, but haven't yet received those.

If you are considering this, just do it. You won't regret it, it's awesome!
 
Parts came in on time, thanks to Amazon Prime. As stated above, assembly is fairly easy. It took me a little longer to do the software side of it, because I'm an idiot but after phoning a friend it worked out. Sea trials commence in the morning.

Somewhere I read that a second NESDR mini with the current software will have a better source for traffic. Does anyone have any info on that?
 
I may end up purchasing an additional receiver in order to access the 1080 frequency, however my understanding is that frequency is mostly used by air carriers and as such still wouldn't help to see the numerous light aircraft that aren't showing up on my traffic display. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the FAA starts the full time TIS-B broadcasting this month, that situation should be more or less remedied, no?

Does anyone have any idea what would be required to get a second receiver up and running for the other frequency other than just plugging it in? My guess is that it will also significantly increase the power usage as well.

I've used mine on several flights now, and have found the weather information to be absolutely awesome. The nexrad radar has been very helpful, dependable and accurate, and I've noticed that the metars are actually updated faster than the ATIS broadcast for the same airport. If trying to make a choice of where to divert to in bad weather, it's pretty awesome to be able to select the foreflight map to show ceilings or visibility and be able to see what's going on at all the airports around you. It's a hell of a lot quicker and easier than getting the information over the radio as well.
 
I came in last night, found the pieces my girlfriend thoughtfully put on the desk and put it together. Putting it together took about 10 minutes if that and then had to download the programs for the SD card. My only problem is that one file did not unzip properly, and some how got named "1" instead of being able to boot off it. Easy to figure out something was wrong as the unit had a steady red/green light and nothing else. Reformatted the SD card, put in it, and connected. It easily connected to FltPlan Go but would not pick up ADSB. I did take it flying this morning and about 1000' picked up the broadcast. Both my nexus with FltPlan and my friend/instructor with ForeFlight had no problem sharing the device or seeing NEXRAD and weather. I did not see any traffic but assume it was due to not many others out flying today given the earlier fog. I was pretty impressed.

I am the same boat as WS, is another receiver all I need to buy and plug in to get the 1090ES? Sounds like per the post there maybe a toggle to turn it on/off?
 
Runincolorado said:
I am the same boat as WS, is another receiver all I need to buy and plug in to get the 1090ES? Sounds like per the post there maybe a toggle to turn it on/off?
Click to expand...
It appears so from the earlier Stratux updates, but there's a caution about needing a powered hub or you may run out of power just using the battery pack:
IMPORTANT use an external powered USB hub if you are using TWO RTL-SDR devices. If not, the Pi is likely to go into a reboot loop from lack of power. Both dongles must be connected before boot.
Click to expand...


For everyone's info...the last couple days have brought some more recent updates (though officially still in 'pre-release'), including support for the RY835AI GPS via serial or USB hookup.

Someone has also hooked up a tiny AHRS unit and seems to be getting good results, so that's an exciting development!:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1i85zxy1ey6mn0/IMAG2231.jpg

There's also a thread about a guy using an old Linksys router case to make a case for those of you who still have those laying around (I did):

http://imgur.com/sMCkPok

I'm supposed to be flying all of next week so I intend to give mine a good workout. A note I saw: the "optimal" antenna length for 978 Mhz reception is about 5 3/4". If you extend just the first, smallest portion of the antenna and leave the rest collapsed, that's pretty damn close to perfect. I'll be giving it a try in rural eastern Oklahoma as well as north and central Texas so I should have some variety.
 
AHRS and GPS sounds amazing. Its awesome when a community comes together to create something so useful for all of us.
 
Yet another update.

I've had the chance to use it on some flights the last few days. Reception has been excellent with the antenna on the glareshield (I originally had it located back toward the seat to keep the unit out of the sun and reception was intermittent there). I also learned the antenna has a magnetic base and sticking it to something metal didn't seem to affect the reception either way. In rural eastern Oklahoma I got 1-3 towers at 5 and 6,000 feet, with better reception towards OKC and Tulsa. Using it near Dallas I was consistently getting 3 or more towers pretty much all the time. Data download seems to be relatively quick, with METARs popping up rapidly and radar pretty quickly thereafter.

I've done all my flying with it using an iPad Mini 2 with cellular service in airplane mode with the wifi on (which allows the built-in GPS to still be used).

As of now I've got two concerns/issues, neither of which I'm sure I can pinpoint to the Stratux or to ForeFlight itself:

1) Winds aloft: Because the ForeFlight imagery doesn't work with ADS-B, you can't go to "imagery" and look at different wind aloft charts to pick a different altitude. You also can't toss in a new flight plan a good distance from where you are and get headwind/tailwind data (close flights seemed to work okay). You can look at your departure/destination/local airports to get winds aloft, but I'd prefer a "big picture" winds aloft display. I feel like this is just an ADS-B meets ForeFlight issue which would affect FF no matter the ADS-B receiver used.

2) Traffic directions: There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to showing traffic direction or trend vectors. For example, see the image below...DFW is on a south flow, and all of the traffic stretching out to the north toward Lake Lewisville is actually tracking south on the west or east side localizers. As the traffic would update it would sometimes show the trend vectors all heading east, sometimes north. Never once did I see them all pointing south. Other traffic would also show perfectly normal with regards to their current direction trend (you can see a couple up to the north, one near Alliance, and one just off of Addison). Maybe something with airlines using 1090 Mhz? Individual groupings of traffic would also disappear occasionally but I think that's more a result of 978 Mhz being "on-demand" depending on an aircraft broadcasting "out" for it. Tomorrow I'm scheduled to be in a Mode S-out equipped airplane, so assuming that pans out maybe I'll see some differences.

7qrDX29.png
 
If someone could provide a screen shot of the radar that would be awesome, as of now I haven't be able to find one and what it renders like.
 
I don't have a screenshot for you, but I will say that it looks just as it does if you enable radar on wifi while on the ground. In ForeFlight at least.
 
Was looking through the ForeFlight guide last night, and thought it worth noting that the ADS-B radar color coding differs slightly from what you would see in ForeFlight if connected to wifi. ADS-B radar does not differentiate between precipitation types as the wifi radar info can, so you will only see the standard green, yellow & red colors for precipitation intensity while using ADS-B radar as opposed to the purples & blues for snow etc. while on wifi. There's more information in the guide.
 
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