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I've built a coaxial collinear antenna (16 arrays), according to this guide but having some issues picking up traffic from the West (?). I'm not very experienced in the area, so I've no idea where to start or why this is happening.

The antenna is located in my living room and is aprox. 2 meters.

fooot
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Benny Mose
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  • Might it have something to do with this: http://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/2345/relation-between-aircraft-altitude-and-ads-b-coverage/2346#2346 or does that not matter much, if we're only talking about ~50km distances. – Benny Mose Jan 10 '15 at 17:51
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    Sounds like more of an antenna design question, therefore physics.SE or amateur radio. The diagrams on the site appear to be fairly directional, and it depends on how you have the antenna mounted. – fooot Jan 10 '15 at 17:58
  • @fooot You might be right in regards to the directional - I might just drive to the airport and look at the signal there.. see what happens. Thanks a lot for your reply :-) – Benny Mose Jan 10 '15 at 18:07
  • What receiver do you use? – DeltaLima Jan 10 '15 at 19:05
  • @MasterYoda Do you get better results when the antenna is outside? I am interested to see how well such a 16 element colinear performs. – DeltaLima Jan 11 '15 at 11:33
  • Hi @DeltaLima. I'm using a R820T dongle; I tested the antenna outside, and I get aprox. 130km range, whereas the antenna that shipped with the dongle, gets aprox. 30km - so it's a pretty big improvement. I use 75 ohm cables. It's a pretty simple build, takes about 30 min .. for the amount of gain vs. the low cost, you should definitely go for it. – Benny Mose Jan 11 '15 at 19:12
  • Not too bad considering the minor investment. I am used to a bit longer ranges but the equipment I use to is a bit more expensive as well. – DeltaLima Jan 12 '15 at 19:50

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If the antenna is located in your living room, then the incoming 1090 MHz signals will be blocked by your house. 1090MHz signals are more-or-less line of sight. They don't travel very far through concrete or wood and are severely attenuated by glass, especially is you have energy efficient windows.

I suspect you have a window towards the East or South East so that you have some signal reception from that direction. Try to put the antenna outside, preferably on top of your house to improve your signal reception.

DeltaLima
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