8 June 2012

RTL-SDR port of gr-air-modes feeding Xastir

After some finger trouble getting the RTL-SDR port of gr-air-modes working, I've now bodged that too for a Xastir feed.  I'm surprised to say this, but compared to the USRP B100 & WBX combination, this is working amazingly well.  So far I've had good tracks out to 137 miles, whereas the best I'd got in 6 days with the USRP/WBX was 90 miles.

This includes two tracks in Dutch airspace, one arriving and one departing.  Pretty amazing for a device that was overpriced at £25!



And a bit further again, 157 miles:


He came right past me and then on out to the west, being tracked for 213 miles.  Note that the packet counts are the number of position reports being forwarded to Xastir.  Many more ADS-B frames are being received than that.




And something out in the North Sea. Didn't see anything that far out up there with the USRP/WBX.

More ...


2 comments:

g0hww said...

I've been having issues with locks on the database again. As others have pointed out, it pays to put the database file on a RAM disk.

g0hww said...

The latest pic was taken with both the dongle and a dedicated L-band antenna shoved up in the loft, on the end of a 5m USB cable. No preamp or filter.