AirNav RadarBox FlightStick - ADS-B USB Receiver with Integrated Filter, Amplifier and ESD Protection

I plugged this into a machine I hadnt been using for this purpose before. Within 5 minutes I had installed and was running dump1090 and with the web interface was able to see planes in real time. i didnt have an antenna (yet) so I just shoved a paperclip into the antenna port (i do not recommend this!) and was seeing weak-ish signals. Later on with a proper antenna, coverage expanded nicely. What a fun, and cheap way to get introduced to ADS-B tracking. It was cheaper than my last order of K-cups!

It does work. It’s better than the cheap Chinese ones with no amp. This is no where near the performance of the flightaware pro plus for the same money

Dont expect any instructions on how to use this thing. The AirNav platform is no good, and costly. The free data uploader account is not free. I use with the Avare app.

This receiver significantly improved performance over the generic RTL-SDR.

quality meets expectations

This dongle greatly increased my range over the regular rtl-sdr. Highly recommended.

Having also used the FlightAware USB stick with a Raspberry Pi, I was looking forward to trying out the new USB dongle from RadarBox. I was surprised to see that it was the exact same one as the FlightAware stick, but thats a good thing. I was more afraid of the setup process. Im a fairly technical person (My day job is playing IT Director for a Hospitality company), but I had some issues with the FA stick and an RPi. With the free software that RadarBox provides from their website, it was a 3 minute process to get everything up and running! Im curious to see if this will work with the FA software on my RPi as well, because if it does, then this would be a great, cheaper alternative to that for the same data.

I wish I had known this before purchase. This receiver isnt compatible with Flight Radar 24. Bummer.

Im pretty shocked. I get about the same performance as the FlightAware sticks and this thing is half the price. My range went from about 90 NM to 130 NM. A nice boost! If youre setting up an ADSB receiver or want to pep yours up I think this is a worthy purchase. I updated my review to add a picture of graphs from the last three months to show how much better the stick is compared to an SDR dongle.

I have been using the FlightAware Pro Stick on my two RPi ADS-B feeders for nearly two years with excellent results, but when I saw this for $10, I had to give it a try. First of all, it was a simple swap-out, nothing more needed on my existing setup. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the performance was as good as or even a bit better with the number of positions tracked. Ill be watching the data closely for the next few days, but the initial results were very promising, so much so that I ordered another for my second feeder. For $10 you cant go wrong!