FlightAware Pro Stick Plus (USB SDR ADS-B Receiver for Raspberry Pi)

Purchased this along with a Raspberry Pi just as a fun project to see what I could track flying above my home. I live in an apartment so, unable to mount an antenna outdoors, I had quite low expectations. However I was amazed! Just with the small mobile antenna magnetised to a biscuit tin, I was tracking aircraft up to 100 miles away. Now hooked, I have just bought the FlightAware 1090mhz fixed antenna to replace the mobile one, and managed to mount it in the loft space of my building. This has extended my range by another 50 miles and also significantly increased the number of complete messages and positions received. Located just South East of London, I can see aircraft almost as far away as Brussels! I'm thoroughly impressed. Its definitely worth going for this device rather than the orange one, as it includes the extra filter which probably helps a lot, and the price difference is very small.

Purchased this, along with a 5DBi 1090MHz Antenna SMA Male Plug Indoor ADS-B Aerial with Magnetic Base RG174, Raspberry Pi 4 and the ElectroCookie Raspberry Pi 4 Case to create a FlightAware feeder site - the whole system went together easily and worked first time; I now watch flights from my local airports, the Global Airlines A380 and air ambulance from my own system - excellent!

I was using prior to this a standard sdr dongle for my decoding getting around 20 to 30 aircraft that I thought was pretty good...I will add that I also make my own various different types of antenna for best reception and results,I decided to take the plunge and invest in this dongle not really knowing what the result would be, wow what a difference this has made to my station.. Instantly aircraft up to more than 50 and distance in excess of 200 miles constantly and an increase in MLAT.. If you are a serious decoder then this is a must have 5*****

Having been a long time AirNav Micro Radarbox ADSB user I decided to purchase this FlightAware Pro Stick Plus to use with my PC and with Virtual Radar Server software to display the maps and Dump1090 software as the driver. I wanted to see if the advertised performance matched the price. In short yes it has matched expectations, I am able now to view far more aircraft and at further range than with my previous ADSB dongle and that is using them side by side with identical external aerials. The reason why I haven't given 5 stars is the time I spent trying every permutation of receiver gain that this device offers in an attempt to find the sweet spot where signal was amplified but not noise and to ensure the device was not being over driven. The FlightAware forums go into many pages of user configurations and results! In the end after two weeks of daily experimentation I have come to the conclusion it is easiest to let this receiver use its own automatic gain level --gain -10 when using Dump1090 batch file. My other ADSB receiver never varies in what it can receive, however it finds fewer aircraft and at less range than this device. This FlightAware Pro Stick using its auto gain does vary somewhat, but when at its most sensitive it has received aircraft at a range of 367 km away, which is almost the maximum theoretical range possible and always displays many more aircraft on screen. It isn't plug and play, but the forums greatly assist. All of my experimentation has been done without using a Raspberry Pi. Would definitely recommend and buy again. My environment is semi rural being in a town, within a National Park, surrounded by higher mountains. My antennas are not 1090 MHz ones, but DAB mkagnetic based radio aerials designed for 200 MHz, with 3m of coaxial cable mounted externally on my roof at 500' ASL, 25' AGL.

Purchased this to build a Raspberry flight tracker for my Air Cadet sqn, using FlightRadar24. The item is a standard usb stick, very slightly bigger than a memory stick- purchased along with an indoor aerial. Installation was easy, with the stick natively supported in the FR24 installer. Once configured, we now have a flight tracker which allows my cadets to see miltary aircraft and track flights. Great price and easy to setup/configure

I purposely purchased this SDR for ADS-B and I'm not dissapointed. it has improved my coverage by more than 100km. Standard SDR with LNA was giving me a coverage of 160km, this stick now gives me 270km+. Using dump1090 and Virtual radar on Win10

Tried one of these in a feeder that is connected to an external antenna, range has significantly increased, the range map on all metrics is visibly improved, statistics from FR24 and FlightAware show an extra 20-30% activity throughout the day. Bought a second for a smaller remote unit and that has seen a significant increase in range. I was surprised to also note that this is across all altitude bands, I was expecting improved high altitude coverage but the sub 10,000 foot coverage is also significant, especially with the CAP1391 ADSB in the UK.

I'm no expert. I wanted this for Flightradar 24 and the reviews convinced me this was worth the investment. Works with my Raspberry Pi 4b with absolutely no problems. I just followed the YouTube videos and guidance out there and now I have a Business Subscription. Just need an outside aerial to improve the directional range.