New Sydney ADS-B Station

[Grahame Hutchison]

I have almost completed the setup of a new ADS-B Station for Sydney, located in the Northern Beaches.

Thanks first up to AirNav Systems for supplying me with a free RadarBox receiver, as one of 50 people in
the world they selected to expand their global reception network.

ADS-B operates at 1090MHz, so the antenna, location and coax is critical for good reception. After searching
a number of suppliers and forums, I decided to go for a special antenna from DPD Productions in California. Their
57 inch 9db gain model looked to be perfect, however it was too long to ship at a reasonable price, so Dave
made me a special slightly shorter version that just fits the max shipping dimensions for the US Postal Service
(performance will be only slightly less that the 57 inch model). Being a special, it took about 10 days to build
and another 10 days for delivery using the US Postal Service. Dave from DPD productions was extremely helpful
all the way through the process, so very happy to recommend DPD.

I received the antenna last Tuesday and mounted it on the roof ridge on Anzac Day. Immediately the reception
was very good, but mainly on the eastern quadrant. The best reception with the antenna mounted in this location
has been 280nm (518km) which is about as good as it gets.

DPD Productions Antenna mounted on the new 3 metre mast.


The screen shot below shows the Polar diagram of the reception, which has been excellent from north around to
the south east. There are regular plots out as far as Coffs Harbour, and 100nm plus out to sea.

This afternoon I mounted the antenna on a three metre mast on the ridge of the roof, instead of being just at
roof height, and the polar diagram is now starting to build quite well out in a westerly direction. The 3 metre mast
gives me a better outlook to the west, and being a line of sight transmission, any obstacles will affect the signal
received. It will take a day or two to build the new Polar diagram for this antenna setup.

Only thing left to do now, is to replace the RG58 coax with RG213 to maximuze the signal from the antenna.

[Kurt A]

Great news Grahame. The antenna mast looks beaut. Will also be great to see the plotter diagram again after a few days 24/7. Keep us posted.

The 280nm hit looks like it came from the south at about 160 degrees. Did you manage to capture the HEX and Altitude of that hit? As there's been a few spikes of late popping up again. However, I occasionally get QF93 and VA11 passing by in that direction from, MEL to LAX, when they're flying a more northerly route. Which reminds me, I really must keep my SBS Plotter blacklist up to date

Will you share to PlanePlotter also? Let me know your code if you do. PM if you prefer.

Had actually debated the idea of creating a separate Aircraft Plotting Sub Forum here (ie: for all things related to ADS-B and Mode-S, including discussion on all the various SBS-1 devices and for people to talk about their own feeds, share info and problms etc) Might be a good way to keep in touch with some of the Sydney and other Australian based sharers.... hmmm, food for thought.

Great post, and look forward to more interesting SBS stuff from you in the future.

Cheers,
amsy

[Beau Chenery]

What an upload to Flightradar 24?

[Noel White]

Welcome to the world of ADS-B Grahame.

A few of us tried to import DPD antennas last year but were not successful due to the US postal requirements regarding length. Interesting that Dave has come up with a solution.

Can I make a suggestion regarding the RG213 coax? Check out LMR-400 coax first.

While LMR-400 is more expensive than RG213, the db/100 lost is about half. It may not mean much for local plots but if you are chasing distance, every little bit helps.

http://www.timesmicrowave.com/cgi-bin/calculate.pl

Cheers,

Noel

[Tony G]

Very nice. I'd love a set up like that, but I'll probably loose my job, relationship and become vitamin D deficient.

[Grahame Hutchison]

Thanks Noel, I have left the purchase of the coax until last, as I would like to install the best option, however first up wanted to ensure that the antenna location was optimal. Thanks for the advice on the LMR-400, I will definitely follow up on your suggestion.

PS: I just checked the figures on you web site link for my setup, and LMR-400 has a Total Run Attenuation of 1.9Db and Efficiency of 63.9% , while my existing RG58 has a Total Run Attenuation of 7.2dB and 19% efficiency. RG213 was 3.3Db and 46%. LMR-400 definitely looks like the way to go based on these figures - I should see even more improvement on reception.

I checked the setup of my custom build antenna, and Dave says it is a 7 element instead 10, and around 6Db instead of 9Db - still does a great job.

At the moment I am publishing the RadarBox screen (5min refresh) at http://www.16right.com/ under ACARS Map (just scroll down). I had to restart my laptop yesterday evening, and it looks like the Polar plot needs to build again from the ground up. At the moment there is a spike plot to the west that looks abnormal.

Kurt: I did not see the details of the 280nm 160degree plot unfortunately.

At the moment I am looking at where RadarBox save the logs etc. so I can see if there is an opportunity to integrate the existing ACARS feed with the new ADS-B data, and publish the results on www.16Right.com.

[Peter Agatsiotis]

well done Grahame, lot's of fun.
I bought the Radarbox in 2007 and was one of the first in Oz to get one (s/n 00082).
took it overseas in 2008 and without it there was no way of picking up the a/c I saw at various airports. Screen gets full quickly at busy airports so was consantly paging up and down.

It has suffered some sensitivity issues and range now is minimal, that's why I bought the SBS-1E in 2009.

I have RG58 low loss cable (12m length) going into the SBS-1E, and as i face south I can pick up flights right up to the Vic border but behind me is a double storey house so limited hits until they pass behind it or over it. Aircraft landing at SYD, I lose at 2500-3000' depending on runway but am close to Bankstown and Richmond so get them down to 100-200'.

With regards to Radarbox logs, they have MyLog which stores all logged a/c and u can use the reporter to create daily logs for e-mails or you can export selected data to a csv file.

The display on Radarbox is better than Basestation as it takes care of overlap better.

Enjoy.

[Grahame Hutchison]

Thanks for your comments Peter, I am enjoying the ADS-B setup already, and had a look at MyLogs this morning. If I can source some LMR400, I think that should complete a very nice ground station.

I have a clear outlook out to the North and out over the Pacific to the East, there is a tree line to the South that appears to reduce the signal somewhat, and not bad to the West, I will see what the afternoon departures to Asia and Europe do to the western plot.

I have seen departures from YSSY pop up at 1000ft, but no Lat/Long until around 2000ft.

This mornings Polar plot has grown quite nicely.

[Kurt A]

Originally Posted by Grahame Hutchison

If I can source some LMR400, I think that should complete a very nice ground station.

Hi Grahame,

I sourced all my pig-tails and lengthy LMR-400 from Rojone. They're out at Ingleburn if you fancy the trek. They have very good service and will cater for custom jobs. So just tell them the length of cable run and whether you need SMA or N connectors either end etc, and they'll give you a same day quote on email.

http://www.rojone.com.au/category/c-...oaxial-cables/

Just keep in mind, the LMR-400 is quite a stiff and thicker cable than RG-58 for example, so it's not as easily bent around tight corners. But a straight run from antenna through the tiles in to the roof cavity should work easily, and with that quality cable, it'll be up there for years. Just remember to waterproof your exposed connections.

[Grahame Hutchison]

Thanks Kurt, much appreciated.