Aerial

A short while ago my proper aerial turned up for the ADS-B system I have running in the loft. See this communication and this one also. This new aerial means I should have a better receiver based in the loft. It is currently picking up 47 aircraft flying within range and the Virtual Radar Server gives the following as a webpage output:

VRS3

There is a sidebar which connects to the web and gives me information about the selected aircraft and the others flying within range. This does not show all aircraft, only those with an ADS-B transponder. I also supply my data to a MLAT service for 360Radar.

The above photo shows the system in the loft. The white stick is a surround for the aerial. This connects to a dongle which connects to a Raspberry Pi3 and this, in turn, connects wirelessly to my home network.

I know you really want to know about the splat so here they are. Firstly one from before the new aerial.

Constriction
Constriction

Here’s the latest, all altitudes are in one colour.

splat4

The range is a bit better with two very odd pips into central France. The following is a colour one for you mammals out there.

splat5

The next thing is to try installing a purpose made ADS-B USB stick. After that I think I will stop. It appears to be one of those “who can get the best splat” things online and I’m not interested in taking part.

Sonos

I have installed some Sonos components in my house. I have been really impressed with the simplicity of them. They work really well. My only complaint would be that I have to physically turn the speakers on and off as I walk around the house. I don’t want them screaming out all the time to no-one.

I want an RFID chip installed in my arm and detectors placed in my house and then that connected to my Sonos system controller so it knows which speakers to turn on and off. THAT would make me extremely happy and also BIONIC. Yippee.

I lied, I have another complaint. As the Sonos controller unit reads my iTunes library I think it should be able to write to it so I get a “played” count whenever I play tunes. There are some tunes on my NAS drive that aren’t in my iTunes library but then I couldn’t care about those. It is highly unlikely I will ever play those through the Sonos system.