Got a whisper from a friend about his cheap single-board computer.
Have now two of these running with RTL-SDR receivers, decoding ads-b.
Works very good, much cheaper than original pi’s
armbian linux
$10 Orange pi zero.
opdate 08.07.2017
There have been some reports of some instability regarding the wifi on these devices, but I have been running mine 42 days without any incident.
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Mast head mount of the rtl-dongle gives low transmission line loss
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Weather proofing of the receiver. Small plastic bag inside, bag open towards the lower side so any condensation can escape, secured with duct tape. This is going to survive heavy winter storms, no problem. The problem is the radiation of the Sun killing the plastics, so there will be some duct tape maintenance.
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Raspberry pi 3
5dBi Antenna erected on the roof where I work.
Receiver range: receiver has not been running for many days yet, but so far It show coverage about expected. Light area: new receiver @ work. Dark area is my first receiver @ home. Rings @ 20 nautical mile.
Receivers are feeding the flightradar24 and planefinder networks. If you know about anyone else interesting in a data feed, please let me know.