ADS-B Receiver Hardware: What You Need

Summary: The computer, receiver, antenna, cable and power supply that make up a feeder, what is worth spending money on, and what is not.

A complete receiver is four things: a small computer, an SDR receiver, an antenna, and the cable between them. Height and a clear view of the sky matter more than any of it.

The Computer

• Raspberry Pi 4B — the comfortable choice, and what airplanes.live recommend.
• Pi 3B+ or Pi Zero 2 W — both work fine for a single receiver.
• Any spare laptop, mini PC or virtual machine running Debian or Ubuntu will do just as well. A machine that is already on all the time costs you nothing extra.

The SDR Receiver

These all use the same RTL2832U chip and decode 1090 MHz equally well. The difference that matters is the bias tee: a bias tee sends power up the coax so you can put a filter or amplifier at the antenna, where it does the most good.

• RTL-SDR Blog V3 — bias tee included.
• Nooelec Smartee — bias tee included.
• Nooelec Smart — no bias tee, so plan to power any amplifier separately.

A dedicated 1090 MHz stick is not required, but the very cheapest generic TV dongles drift with temperature and make poor MLAT timekeepers. It is the one place where the budget option costs you results.

Antenna and Cable

• An outdoor mast-mounted 1090 MHz antenna with an N-type connector is the upgrade that changes everything. DPD Productions is the usual recommendation.
• A small SMA whip or PCB antenna in a window will get you going and prove the setup works, even if the range is modest.
• Keep the coax short: RG-58 is fine for three to five feet; ten feet or more wants LMR195 or better, or you give away what the antenna gained.
• Outdoor installations want a surge arrester and weatherproofed connections.

Filter and Amplifier

In a built-up area, strong signals from other transmitters swamp the receiver. A Nooelec SAWbird+ ADS-B combines a 1090 MHz filter with a low-noise amplifier and is the common fix. It needs power, either from an SDR with a bias tee or a separate supply.

Power and Storage

• Pi 4B: a 5.1 V 3.5 A USB-C supply. Pi 3B+ or Zero 2 W: 5.1 V 2.5 A. Cheap supplies cause decoding problems that look like every other fault, so start with a good one.
• An 8 GB SD card minimum; an industrial-grade card lasts far longer under constant writes. The software itself uses well under a gigabyte.

Siting It

Radio horizon, not equipment, sets your range: the higher the antenna and the clearer its view, the further you hear. A loft is a reasonable compromise; a chimney or pole is better. You can check what a given spot would see before you buy anything, using our Line of Sight (Viewshed) tool — put the pin where the antenna would go and read off the terrain shadows.

The current list, with links to suppliers, is on airplanes.live/hardware.

UKAFG is not affiliated with airplanes.live. This section is a plain-English walk-through for members who want to help; their own guides at airplanes.live/get-started are the authority, and worth checking, as commands, images and hardware move on.