Nooelec Flycatcher - High Performance Dual-Channel RTL-SDR Raspberry Pi HAT for Flight Tracking & Aviation Monitoring. ADS-B 1090MHz and UAT 978MHz Software Defined Radio w/Local & Remote LNA Bypass

With a good antenna (my discone) I can track aircraft for hundreds of miles from my home.

I replaced dedicated dongles with this and I'm getting 150% more messages per second. Also, much less clutter.

It works great but with dedicated adsb and UAT antennas I'm only getting a few hundred miles range which isn't bad but I would prefer hardcore observable distances. Worth the money get it.

I recently assembled a typical flight aware usb dongle, a flycatcher, and a stratux device using the Nooelec nano devices. I was dissapointed that hte flight aware dongle outperformed both Nooelec devices. I really hoped that the flycatcher would be a solid investment but it really has been a bust. I have tried three different antennas and am running it on a raspberry pi 4b. I would pass on this and just buy the flightaware or similar usb device.

Flycatcher works great, using with a RPi 5 and a roof antenna running headless RPi OS, tutorial on YouTube to setup quick and easy.

TL/DR: This is a legitimately odd design in that it is USB powered but hat format. Once you get past that, it seems to work quite well for its intended purpose. You can install it on the bottom of the PI or use GPIO pass-through if having it over the GPIO pins is interfering with something for you so I don't see it as the end of the world. Longer: I've had various pi-based ADS-B solutions since Stratux and the like first started coming on the scene circa 2017. This hardware seems to be more oriented towards FlightAware or similar, but would work for a Stratux type build as well. This module solves the problem of physically mounting individual SDR modules without using hot glue. That's really about it. It results in a more professional seeming and solid seeming total device, except for the presence of two USB jumpers which probably reverse any reliability gains you might see. A standard SDR module has the USB A port built in so there is only one connector vs. the two connectors on these. Antennas are not included. If you don't have them that will run you another $20 or more depending on what you want. I somewhat agree with their decision not to include antennas in this configuration because it is more likely people will want to use it for FlightAware and maybe have a mounted antenna. Part of me wants to knock a star off for those two points, especially since for $75 Nooelec will sell you two USB RTL-SDR modules with antennas. But I am not sure that's really fair. It works, it does what it was designed to do, and this will solve problems for some people. Apart from antennas, this seems to have everything you need on the hardware side to turn your existing Pi into a FlightAware base station. Except the software and documentation. There are plenty of guides to setting up FlightAware or Stratux type systems so that isn't a huge problem. Performance seems top notch. I have a bag of RTL-SDR setups including some that are tuned for 1090 and 978 and this performed as well as the best of them. At the end of the day, the combination of performance and purpose makes this a 5 star product for me. If it doesn't match your purpose you can knock it down a star or two but the unit I received works well.

The Nooelec Flycatcher RTL-SDR Raspberry Pi HAT is a fantastic tool for aviation enthusiasts. The dual-channel design allows for simultaneous reception of ADS-B signals on 1090MHz and UAT signals on 978MHz, making it ideal for flight tracking and aviation monitoring. The high-performance RTL-SDR chip and included antennas provide excellent reception, and the software-defined radio (SDR) capabilities open up a world of possibilities for experimenting with radio signals. I've been impressed with its performance and ease of use.

This is designed to receive ADS-B and UAT transmissions using an RTL-SDR chip. It has two of these chips, two USB connections, and two antenna connections. While it's physically designed to attach to a Raspberry PI A or B style computer, it doesn't use the GPIO to operate, it operates solely on the two micro-USB connections. The preamp is switchable with a physical switch on the board, and the nooelec ADS-B antennas work well with it. This doesn't come with any instructions for use, and the website has a data sheet which suggests some direction forward with a raspberry pi computer, but not much else. Their generic SDR instructions show you how to connect it to and use it with a few SDR programs, but none of them include instructions on the processing and decoding of ADS-B or UAT signals. There are a lot of resources on the internet for that, and if you choose the raspberry pi route you'll even find sd card images all ready to run for plane tracking. Overall it's a nice board, well integrated and well built. It comes with standoffs and a header extension for raspberry pi boards, and two show usb micro cables. No antennas, so you'll need to source those yourself.

Super quick delivery, good packaging and item as described. Highly recommended.

Der FlyCatcher hat bei mir von Anfang an einen sehr guten Eindruck hinterlassen. Er kam ordentlich und sicher verpackt an. Schon beim Auspacken merkt man, dass hier auf eine saubere Verarbeitung geachtet wurde – das HAT wirkt hochwertig, stabil und passt problemlos auf einen Rasperry Pi. Die Einrichtung verlief insgesamt unkompliziert, (Grundkenntnisse in ADS-B bzw SDR können hilfreich sein). In Kombination mit einer guten Antenne und einem ziemlich guten Standort, habe ich sehr gute Ergebnisse erzielen können. Bei mir sind je nach Wetterlage und Flugverkehr Reichweiten von etwa 300 bis teilweise sogar 400 km möglich, was ich für ein Setup dieser Größe wirklich beeindruckend finde. Im laufenden Betrieb arbeitet das System zuverlässig und stabil. Gerade für Flugverfolgung und Luftfahrtüberwachung auf 1090 MHz ist die Zweikanal-Lösung sehr praktisch, da mehrere Signale gleichzeitig sauber verarbeitet werden können. Für Hobby-Aviation-Tracking oder als dauerhaft laufende Empfangsstation eignet sich das Gerät daher sehr gut. Insgesamt bin ich sehr zufrieden mit dem FlyCatcher. Verarbeitung, Leistung und Empfangsergebnisse passen für mich absolut zusammen. Der Preis ist schon etwas hoch, finde ich aber gerechtfertigt.