AIS and ADS-B / Mode-S MonitoringIntroductionBelow is a description of my monitoring station for AIS (shipping) and ADS-B (aviation) signals. This is slightly off-topic for this website, as readily available dedicated equipment is used in stead of converted receivers. Recently (2014) I have replaced the two Siemens Futro thin clients I used before by a single more powerful machine. ![]() ![]() AntennasThe antennas are situated about 6 m above ground level. The utmost right antenna is a Wimo GP-1090 ADS-B antenna. Airborne beacons transmit at 1090 MHz. This antenna has a gain of about 5 dB for this frequency band. Left of the GP-1090 you can see a CX-4. This marine VHF antenna is suited for 145 - 165 MHz, which is fine for AIS, using frequencies around 162 MHz. The utmost left antenna is a Diamond D-777 for civil VHF and military UHF aviation bands. On its right, a dual band antenna for 144 and 430 MHz. If you look closely, an inverted V antenna for HF can be seen as well. The antennas
PCThe PC is a secondhand HP T510 thin client. These kinds of refurbished machines usually are sold for a fair price. The PCs contains a VIA Eden X2 U4200 dual core-processor. My device has a 16 GB SSD and 4 GB RAM. As this PC doesn't have moving parts, it's absolutely silent. The energy consumption is low: about 15 W, which is nice for a machine running 24/7. The T510 runs Windows Embedded Standard 7, which proves to be very stable. ![]() HP T510
NetworkA TP-Link WN823N USB adapter connects the PC to my WLAN.ADS-B / Mode-SFor ADS-B en Mode S airborne beacons, a Kinetic SBS-1 is used. Originally, this was the USB version; I have retrofitted it with an ethernet module. This receiver is connected to the GP1090 antenne with about 5 m Aircell-7 coax. Through a UTP cable, the SBS-1 is connected to the T510. This PC runs the following software:
![]() Dimension 4 is launched at PC startup. The shortcuts show the order in which the different applications are launched.
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PlanePlotter. Aircraft with green labels have been received locally; shared aircraft have grey labels
AISA dual channel SR-162 AIS receiver is used. This device is connected to the CX 4 antenna by about 5 m Aircell-7 coax. An RS-232 cable connects the SR-162 to the serial port of the T510. This PC runs the following software:
Here you find a recent image that I received on the east side of Rotterdam. Apart from ShipPlotter, I also share my received data with marinetraffic.com . My station's statistics can be found here
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