ADS-B Radar (RTL-SDR)

Knowle Consultants

Contains adsIn-app purchases

About this app

*** Disclaimer ***

This application is intended for use by hobbyists interested in tracking aircraft in their local area. It has not undergone formal testing or verification and as such the application and/or the data it presents must not be used in any safety critical situations. If you do so it will be entirely at your own risk. We make no guarantees or warranties of any kind, expressed or implied.

*** Announcement ***
We're proud to announce the release of our new SDR application called Spectrum SDR - you might want to give it a try some time.

Introduction

This application is about having a bit of fun with those amazing little RTL-SDR dongles, whilst tracking aircraft in your local area. It's nice and easy to use so why not give it a try?

Before using the application, please read the Disclaimer above, and always remember that the application must not be used in any situations where the accuracy of the data is critical to the safety of either individuals or property.

There are two ways to use the application. The first is to use an RTL-SDR dongle and an SDR driver, available from Google Play. Selecting the Driver option in the application menu will open the driver page on Google Play. The second way is to connect to an instance of rtl_tcp running on a remote computer, possibly over WiFi. You will need a good network connection for this to work reliably so use of the driver is probably the preferred way to use the application in most cases.

The application can receive ADS-B messages on either 1090 MHz or 978 MHz.

We hope you enjoy using this application.

Ratings and reviews

The app works great for me. Take it, I'm just 3 NM away from PDX Airport. I can see all the arrivals and departures on the app and physically see every arrival flying over my neighborhood. Departures most the time take off in the opposite direction of course. I don't see the airport from home but do see arriving aircraft, then, I hear the rumble of reverse thrusters to slow the aircraft down. Maybe I'll sit at the airport with the app and watch.

Useful for antenna qualifying literally out in the field. I have just used this app to verify a home-made antenna from the top of Cheesefoot Head in Hampshire (+175m) and reliably received data from as far away as Liverpool (approx. 175 miles). Not bad for an antenna made from left over T&E and a chassis mount connector. Just paid to go ad-free and support the developer. Going forward, can we save the JSON data as files for reviewing later, maybe in a third party plotting application ?

Works well if you have LNA but for some reason it's forcing biasT on everytime it starts, even though no setting for it can be found in the app, so can't test effectiveness on reception without LNA as it would short SDR LDO out. Now if its the driver doing it, then will never be able to use this app without an LNA attached.

What’s new

Maintenance release.