April 18, 2021

New Comms Tower

Since I moved I’ve had my WX satellite receiver antenna on the old tripod from the hexbeam and it was kind of in the way in the garden. A club member gave me a push up pole they weren’t using and I finally got the parts I needed to set it up.

From the top down, 2m antenna, FlightAware ADS-B 1090MHz Antenna and the QFH weather satellite antenna.


Previously I was using the QFH to receive the ADS-B signals. I like to look up the planes that fly over while I’m sitting in the garden. I would get a peak of 17 planes at a time typically, with a range of 20-50 miles. This new antenna is way better, I had 170 planes earlier. I can see planes out past Key West and way off the coast of Miami. I considered building one but this one wasn’t terribly expensive, I’m glad I got it. Here’s a map of the planes:

Huge improvement in positions reported:

Parts list:

Pole wall mount

FlightAware antenna

FlightAware dongle

Tower offset mount (this needed bigger u-bolts for this mast, had to get those at home depot and they were $5/ea which I feel is excessive since the mount with slightly smaller u-bolts was $14, but they’re stainless vs zine plated)


It all worked on the first try which is nice for a change. Well, I’ve only had one decode on WX antenna and it wasn’t great but it was a low pass. I have concerns about the pole interfering with the antenna since it goes right through the middle of it(not touching though). We’ll see how it does tonight on some better passes.

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