Thank you for this informative video. I built this on Sunday and connected it yesterday. My previous antenna was the stock antenna that came with my inexpensive USB ADS-B receiver from Amazon. I had placed it at the highest peak of my attic. The max range I had been seeing with that over the past week was about 112nm. I ordered the needed MCX to coax adapter and after receiving it yesterday I placed this new antenna side-by-side with the old one in the attic, and once connected I immediately and regularly started seeing aircraft at nearly DOUBLE the distance I was receiving prior to this. Last night's max distance was 216nm.
I built one similar to this, I cut 16 pieces to 116mm. I stripped the ends to 2.5cm, taped the joints like you did and put it in 1/2" pvc pipe with 2 caps and drilled one end for the cable connector, mounted it to 10' stick of conduit. I am reaching out to 150 nm. Not bad for living in a valley surrounded by bluffs and trees! I am using a Ads-b 1090 filter from FlightAware and a SDRPlay RSP1a receiver. FlightAware also makes a decent RTL-SDR dongle with low ppm. If you are running Dump1090, be sure you make the ppm correction in the script/configuration file!
I found a piece of cable TV coax in the trash that gave me 2 8-section ADS-B colinear antennas. I matched one up with a small filter and installed them each into some PVC pipes. Considering I did zero velocity calculations they both look awesome when connected to an analyzer and perform great. My filtered one currently lives on my brother's roof. I just recently I found another mangled cable that rendered a 5-section colinear that also is working extremely well. Once you have the hang of construction it is easy to do.
One point I would like to make is try not to score the copper wire with your knife. as this puts a groove in the copper which will effect the signal travelling down the wire as signals travel down the outside of the copper wire and not through it. (its called skin effect). One other little tip is get some plastic shirt buttons and use them as spacers between each section. So you dont get any shorts by any missed wire strands. Hope that helps. Cheers Mark G0NMY
Thinking of building this. How well does the 11cm elements work for Airband frequencies? (108 to about 137MHz?) 1090MHz may have a different length, right? Do I need to build two different antennas? I know, noobie questions, but I am one. :)
To summarize what I think I'm seeing: 6 pieces 15cm total length each with 2cm of bare copper at each end, leaving 11cm of jacket. Stack the six pieces as shown and add to the seventh (longer) piece, which only has one end stripped, and the other retaining the original F connector. Has anyone else tried this yet?
You don't show how to connect to the antenna or how to connect the feed line to the receiver. It looks like you have several antennas of these short antennas connected together by tape. What exactly is the situation? And does it help to feed the antenna outside somehow and put it up at great height? Many thanks.
All you need for the antenna part is a length of coax cable that has the two F-connectors. This type of cable is the same type used for cable TV. All you are doing is cutting up the long piece of coax cable into six pieces and then sliding them all into each other keeping the one connector at the end. You would make the segments out of this cable and one end should be left with the connector, which you would hook up to the adapter. This is the adapter I used to connect the "F-Connector" of the coax cable to the USB adapter amzn.to/2C95HaL This antenna is called a Coaxial Collinear Antenna and is VERY VERY sensitive to ads-b signals, so it has a great gain. Here is some additional info that I found: www.balarad.net/ Let me know if you have any further questions :)
15cm is one complete segment, end to end. That includes a 2cm bare copper stripped end, an 11cm insulated segment then another 2cm bare copper stripped end.
Sorry for the confusion, it would be 15cm total length (sheathed and unsheathed parts) and after you take away 2cm of sheathing, you would have a cable with 11cm of sheathing remaining. Best thing to do is take a look at the measurements on the ruler :)
You would love my Runways - How to choose the right one video :) Yeah, maybe not 10,000x better, but you have to admit its a lot better than a stock antenna!
@@TheThriftyPilot can you define "stock antenna?" I am currently running a flight aware 1090 which is about 5dbi gain, so what are you comparing this home brew antenna to? You are showing no "before and after" adsbexchange, fr24, or FA aware data to back this up. I am all for a home made antenna, but at least show some stats to back up your claim. This is a very vague video with nothing whatsoever to back up your information. I am currently in the top 600 feeders of all 3 of the aforementioned flight trackers and I am also an RF engineer, so we like to see data that backs up a claim. My single pi3b+ alone is feeding all 3 feeders with a custom image.
Its a pity that you failed to put in the measurements, or the final 1/4 wave element at the top. I'll have to do a video and show you how its done so that anyone can actually follow the video and make a good one.
@@SynSauce this site goes into a little more detail regarding the antenna being made in this video: www.radioforeveryone.com/p/testing-diy-homebrew-ads-b-antennas-feb.html?m=1
@@SynSauce it’s called a COLLINEAR ANTENNA and the RTL-SDR site has a video similar to mine and additional information related to this exact antenna type. Link below. www.rtl-sdr.com/homemade-ads-b-collinear-antenna/
Just made antenna today and amazed by change in performance of my station. Fantastic improvement to reception.
That's great!
Thank you for this informative video. I built this on Sunday and connected it yesterday.
My previous antenna was the stock antenna that came with my inexpensive USB ADS-B receiver from Amazon. I had placed it at the highest peak of my attic. The max range I had been seeing with that over the past week was about 112nm.
I ordered the needed MCX to coax adapter and after receiving it yesterday I placed this new antenna side-by-side with the old one in the attic, and once connected I immediately and regularly started seeing aircraft at nearly DOUBLE the distance I was receiving prior to this. Last night's max distance was 216nm.
That's great!
I built one similar to this, I cut 16 pieces to 116mm. I stripped the ends to 2.5cm, taped the joints like you did and put it in 1/2" pvc pipe with 2 caps and drilled one end for the cable connector, mounted it to 10' stick of conduit. I am reaching out to 150 nm. Not bad for living in a valley surrounded by bluffs and trees!
I am using a Ads-b 1090 filter from FlightAware and a SDRPlay RSP1a receiver.
FlightAware also makes a decent RTL-SDR dongle with low ppm.
If you are running Dump1090, be sure you make the ppm correction in the script/configuration file!
I found a piece of cable TV coax in the trash that gave me 2 8-section ADS-B colinear antennas.
I matched one up with a small filter and installed them each into some PVC pipes.
Considering I did zero velocity calculations they both look awesome when connected to an analyzer and perform great.
My filtered one currently lives on my brother's roof.
I just recently I found another mangled cable that rendered a 5-section colinear that also is working extremely well.
Once you have the hang of construction it is easy to do.
Nice!
One point I would like to make is try not to score the copper wire with your knife. as this puts a groove in the copper which will effect the signal travelling down the wire as signals travel down the outside of the copper wire and not through it. (its called skin effect).
One other little tip is get some plastic shirt buttons and use them as spacers between each section.
So you dont get any shorts by any missed wire strands.
Hope that helps.
Cheers Mark G0NMY
The shirt buttons is a good idea!
i just finished doing one...i can't wait to try it. thanx man.
Awesome!
Thinking of building this. How well does the 11cm elements work for Airband frequencies? (108 to about 137MHz?)
1090MHz may have a different length, right? Do I need to build two different antennas? I know, noobie questions, but I am one. :)
Not too bad. You should check it out if you have some extra coax laying around :)
@@TheThriftyPilot Thank you for your response. I'll report back on how it went. :-)
The elements would need to be a lot longer to work on VHF air band.
What range are you getting?
To summarize what I think I'm seeing: 6 pieces 15cm total length each with 2cm of bare copper at each end, leaving 11cm of jacket. Stack the six pieces as shown and add to the seventh (longer) piece, which only has one end stripped, and the other retaining the original F connector. Has anyone else tried this yet?
Sounds about right.
quick suggestion, can you pls level out your audio. the intro is extremely loud compared to your voice. cheers
You got it!
You don't show how to connect to the antenna or how to connect the feed line to the receiver. It looks like you have several antennas of these short antennas connected together by tape. What exactly is the situation? And does it help to feed the antenna outside somehow and put it up at great height? Many thanks.
All you need for the antenna part is a length of coax cable that has the two F-connectors. This type of cable is the same type used for cable TV. All you are doing is cutting up the long piece of coax cable into six pieces and then sliding them all into each other keeping the one connector at the end.
You would make the segments out of this cable and one end should be left with the connector, which you would hook up to the adapter.
This is the adapter I used to connect the "F-Connector" of the coax cable to the USB adapter
amzn.to/2C95HaL
This antenna is called a Coaxial Collinear Antenna and is VERY VERY sensitive to ads-b signals, so it has a great gain. Here is some additional info that I found:
www.balarad.net/
Let me know if you have any further questions :)
Many thanks.
Why not say that this is a coax colinear in the name of the piece? Would keep it all real!
That's exactly right! Now it has been said so I think we have everything covered :)
you say 11 cm yet you are cutting them at 15 cm can you clarify please
15cm is one complete segment, end to end. That includes a 2cm bare copper stripped end, an 11cm insulated segment then another 2cm bare copper stripped end.
@@liebowa cheers
Sorry for the confusion, it would be 15cm total length (sheathed and unsheathed parts) and after you take away 2cm of sheathing, you would have a cable with 11cm of sheathing remaining. Best thing to do is take a look at the measurements on the ruler :)
If you build one, let us know how it went :)
10000x better? I think you have about 5 zeros too many
You would love my Runways - How to choose the right one video :)
Yeah, maybe not 10,000x better, but you have to admit its a lot better than a stock antenna!
@@TheThriftyPilot can you define "stock antenna?" I am currently running a flight aware 1090 which is about 5dbi gain, so what are you comparing this home brew antenna to? You are showing no "before and after" adsbexchange, fr24, or FA aware data to back this up. I am all for a home made antenna, but at least show some stats to back up your claim. This is a very vague video with nothing whatsoever to back up your information. I am currently in the top 600 feeders of all 3 of the aforementioned flight trackers and I am also an RF engineer, so we like to see data that backs up a claim. My single pi3b+ alone is feeding all 3 feeders with a custom image.
Its a pity that you failed to put in the measurements, or the final 1/4 wave element at the top. I'll have to do a video and show you how its done so that anyone can actually follow the video and make a good one.
Thanks for catching that! Hopefully it will help others :)
@@TheThriftyPilotwhats the problem
This is satire right lol?!
Nope. This is a real thing! The antenna design has been know and built for a loooong time but has become popular again for ADS reception
Can you link to an external source validating your build then?
@@SynSauce this site goes into a little more detail regarding the antenna being made in this video:
www.radioforeveryone.com/p/testing-diy-homebrew-ads-b-antennas-feb.html?m=1
@@TheThriftyPilot I didn't see it there.
@@SynSauce it’s called a COLLINEAR ANTENNA and the RTL-SDR site has a video similar to mine and additional information related to this exact antenna type. Link below.
www.rtl-sdr.com/homemade-ads-b-collinear-antenna/