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  • SDR

    From Nigel Reed@1:124/5016 to All on Fri Oct 10 01:20:20 2025
    Software defined radio is something which is pretty new to me, having just discovered it the other day while trying to figure ways to get airport arrival and departure times, for free, from a reliable source without having to result to scraping.

    It seems that people use these cheap SDRs with rpis or their computers to pick up location information from passing aircraft and feed it to various flight tracking sites to help increase their accuracy. In return, many of these sites will have you additional benefits above the basics and a few, FlightAware, for example will give feeders a $89pm business account for free.

    After installing mine today, I've been getting signals from aircraft 40,000ft in the sky and about a 45 mile radius, which is pretty good considering the small antenna provided is sitting on my desk. They recommend being outside with a clear view.

    I know this isn't exactly HAM related, but since an SDR can pick up signals on the bands we use, it fits!

    I was wondering if anyone else has used SDR for any fun projects that they'd like to share. I'm always interested in new ideas.
    --- SBBSecho 3.30-Linux
    * Origin: End Of The Line BBS - endofthelinebbs.com (1:124/5016)
  • From Sean Dennis@1:18/200 to Nigel Reed on Fri Oct 10 13:07:18 2025
    Hello Nigel,

    Friday October 10 2025 01:20, you wrote to All:

    It seems that people use these cheap SDRs with rpis or their computers
    to pick up location information from passing aircraft and feed it to various flight tracking sites to help increase their accuracy. In
    return, many of these sites will have you additional benefits above
    the basics and a few, FlightAware, for example will give feeders a
    $89pm business account for free.

    I have a good friend who does this! He's Danish and a former Fido sysop named Kaare Olsen (name has been "Englished"). Let me talk to him; he has an account on my BBS as he also ran Maximus/2 in the day and see if he could post in here to help you out.

    As for being off-topic, I know the moderator and don't think he minds. <G>

    -- Sean

    ... "I don't think you can spend yourself rich." - George Humphrey
    --- GoldED/2 3.0.1
    * Origin: Outpost BBS - bbs.outpostbbs.net:10323 (1:18/200)