Two software-defined radios and a Raspberry Pi turn the sky over Boston into live data — aircraft on a 3D radar, winds aloft derived from the airplanes themselves, and the radio spectrum, measured.
Served by the shack Pi over a private tunnel — no port-forwarding, no domain. If the station is up, these numbers are moving right now.
First live session: 18 aircraft tracked simultaneously — three Boeing 777s and a Virgin Atlantic A330 riding the North Atlantic tracks, one Mooney at 4,600 ft — with a real rain cell painting on the radar overlay.
Two SDRs with separate antennas, so changing bands is software, never re-cabling.
RTL2832U + R820T2 — the workhorse. Currently dedicated to 1090 MHz ADS-B on the shack Pi.
| Coverage | 25 MHz – 1.75 GHz |
| Verified rate | 2.4 MS/s, zero dropped samples |
| Mean signal / noise | −23.8 / −41.6 dBFS |
| Overload (strong msgs) | 0 of 3,801 |
| Best range so far | 102 km / 55 NM |
High-dynamic-range HF specialist — shortwave, ham bands, ACARS. Hardware en route; the software chain is already built and verified to the hardware boundary.
| Coverage | 0.5 kHz – 31 MHz + 60 – 260 MHz |
| Server | SDR++ on :5260, enabled at boot |
| ACARS path | acarsdec-soapy + SoapyAirspyHF |
| Waterfall presets | 10 channels staged in SDR++ |
The FM broadcast band as this station actually hears it — a 25-second survey through the VHF antenna, median-integrated with sweep-hop edges cropped.
88–108 MHz · 50 kHz bins · strongest carriers 90.89 MHz (+33.9 dB SNR), 102.49 MHz (+33.5 dB), 98.51 MHz (+25.9 dB) · hover for values
readsb decoding 1090 MHz around the clock, feeding the map, the 3D radar, and the stats above.
Comm-B replies carry airspeed, heading, Mach. Vector arithmetic yields wind and temperature at each aircraft's altitude — every received plane is a weather probe.
NEXRAD on the 2D map, RainViewer composite draped over the 3D terrain.
Five VHF channels decoded at once, JSON-logged, on either receiver.
Automated sweeps that refuse to log unless the receiver passes a live-RF self-test.
SAME decoder on 162.475 MHz weather radio, logging any watch or warning.