The RPi runs the Debian (Jessie) based Raspbian OS. As we are setting up a single-purpose machine, not a general purpose PC, it is just as well to uninstall unnecessary and bloaty default applications like Wolfram and LibreOffice, for a start.
The actual software used for presenting the ADS-B data stream is dump1090-mutability. In addition to the ”radar” map web server that shows all the aircraft positions and flight data to the local network only, there are some data feed clients installed. These send the collected raw data to two of the several online real-time flight tracking websites, namely FR24 and PlaneFinder. We also tried to support PiAware (the client for FligthAware) but that proved too much for our humble Pi version.
You can find a selection of our config files in this Github repository, if your interested.
This was quite a fun project to do. The range of reception and general performance and stability of this cheap faux radar with its dinky little aerial made from a piece of scrap wire is really surprising, me thinks. Here are some typical screenshots of what’s to see:
First up is a range-map generated by the PlaneFinder website based on data fed from my station (situated just north of Stockholm) one summer week 2017. It is clear that we can "see" much further towards the North and eastwards towards Finland, than in the opposite directions. This comes as no surprise as there is no high ground or other obstructions towards N and E were I live, wheras the ground rises towards S and W, thereby effectively raising the radio horizon there.