Enough about non-wireless stuff for the time being. Today, after a few weeks of inaction, I set up my Raspberry Pi B+, the FlightAware PiAware ADS-B code image, and deployed my first ADS-B receive site! It was easier than cake. It was stupid simple. In fact, the most challenging thing was discovering I didn’t have a microSD card and so I had to drive over to Fry’s and grab one.

What’s ADS-B? Why, it’s “Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast”. many (and more every month) aircraft, private and commercial, have GPS and a 1080 MHz transmitter on board to send a position message every second. For air traffic controllers, this means much improved position/speed/heading/altitude resolution. For the rest of us, it’s like having our own window at the air traffic control center and watching blips on the radar moving at 400 – 500 mph.

More soon as I get things going.