Raspberry PI ADSB Airplane Tracker.

My Raspberry Pi ADS-B airplane tracker project has consumed quite a bit of my time over the last few months. I've had quite a few set backs with getting it configured but have managed to over come most of it so far. I am going to chronicle over many posts my current setup and configuration of the ADS-B Tracker and everything associated with it. A lot of my knowledge I've put together from reading online, and trial and error. My ultimate goal is to configure a self sufficient ADS-B tracker that can be placed onto a friend's radio tower that sits at about 2000' elevation.

This is my list of requirements/goals.

-Run local ADS-B Tracker screen
-Feed data to a number of websites. (ADSBExchange, FlightAware, FlightRadar24, and PlaneFinder.net)
-In a compact size possible
-Mount onto a Tower
-Solar Powered

These are just some of the requirements that I've set for myself. Now that I'm further in to the project I don't know if some of these are actually practical and I may be doing something different but that will come in a further update.

The equipment that I need seems reasonably straight forward.

-Raspberry Pi
-SDR Reciever
-Antenna
-Solar Panel
-Battery
-Mobile Hotspot
-Container

All of this seems pretty reasonable. I've never worked with some of these components but that is the point of this. To learn what I need to get this project up off the ground.

Fun and Adventure...

The last post I had written was a really struggling time with my genetic condition (PKU). I had a lot of doctors visits to go through. So in this post I want to give a bit of an update, kind of start posting about some of the projects I'm not working on and things of that nature.

Health wise:

Work stress was a big cause of that but now I'm no longer a one man operation again and that's subsided greatly. It's a wonder what work stress can do to your mood and motivations. So the last post I mentioned PEG-PAL it's now Palynziq and has been on the market for a few months. I had my first injection last week and this week I will have my second. It will take me  some months before this becomes effective. The hope is that I will be able to eat normal food once it is in my system fully. It is a daily injection at that point and I'm hoping that I can keep with the regimen since I suck at taking medications. I'm on another medication for PKU as well that has helped with mood and other factors that relate to pre-Parkinson's. 

Now for the fun and adventure part:

I've been doing some stuff with my ham radio projects off and on. Right now my station consists of a Yeasu FT-897d, a Toughbook running kubuntu on it, and a 40m home brew dipole that is currently packed away. I've not done anything on HF in a while but I did have some fun with JT65 and FT8 about a year or more ago now. I'm hoping for a nice windless day so I can use my cheapy drone I purchased to put up my antenna.  I've also got Skyloop Antenna parts to homebrew another antenna which will hopefully cut down on the noise but I've had to work towards configuring the antenna tuner. I still have not done that so that's on my to-do list.

I got an Yeasu FT-2DR as well recently after having 3 Baofeng's I decided I wanted to upgrade. The radio is great, I just need to read more of the manual and practice with it. The Baofeng's are now for other projects.

I've also been playing a lot with Raspberry Pi's

Pi-Hole (Network wide Ad Blocker):

I have a few Pi's running right now, one is a Pi-Hole (https://www.pi-hole.net) This allows me to send advertisers DNS requests to a black hole. So I surf without any advertisements, and it also blocks my SmartTV from ads and tracking. It actually sped up the response of the TV when I did that and it's great. I probably should setup one for my family.

Pi-Aware (ADS-B airplane tracker):

I'm also running a Raspberry Pi with an ADS-B flight tracker. This allows me to track Aircraft over my house at any given time. I then feed that in to a few websites online. FlightAware, FlightRadar24, Planefinder.net and ADSBExchange. I plan on doing a series of posts on this project as it is right now my most favourite with a bunch of challenges that are easy to over come and learn something in the process.

Pi-Wolf (Raspberry Pi running Direwolf):

This is a bit of a tricky one for me. Direwolf is a software terminal node controller or TNC. This is needed for transmitting packets if you're interested in doing packet radio. I currently have one configured in my testing that will allow me to do APRS packets using a Baofeng without a problem. I've been trying to configure it to be useful for Winlink and a Baofeng but having hit a wall with that I've tabled it for a little while.



Besides this my biggest time sink has been gaming which gets in the way most of the time, however I'm slowly getting bored of anyway. Anyway that's pretty much it for this update if anyone has any questions about my projects please feel free to reach out to me.

One day at a time...

This was written as a draft back in July 2016. I'm going to publish it now and follow up with an update on what I've got going on at the moment. 



.. seems as thought that is all I can manage at this point. I've been struggling with sleep and not getting enough during work nights to the point I have no energy during the day. Concentration has gone out the window and trying to eat enough food and take my medication has been an issue. It always is. I just hope that at some point that I won't feel the way I do on a day to day basis.

When the weekend rolls around I end up doing absolutely nothing and it kind of bothers me because of the lack of energy I have. I worry about people getting upset with me because I can't get up and find any sort of motivation to do normal household tasks or chores. I don't feel anything emotionally. I just kind of feel numb to most everything, no real joy or excitement, or sense of accomplishment when I take part in things. So I just end up doing nothing most of the time.

Obviously it's depression and failing to take my kuvan regularly. Why taking medication is such a struggle for me I don't know it has always been that way. All I am hoping for at this point in my life is for PEG-PAL to help me get over this. I don't even care about eating normal food I just don't want to have to feel this lack of emotions. I have a lot of things that I would like to accomplish or do with my various hobbies but that drive and sense of motivation is completely lacking.