Community

Become a feeder

Contributing to the network is simple and inexpensive. A Raspberry Pi and an RTL-SDR antenna are all you need to add coverage in your area and contribute data for meteorological research.

Hardware

Raspberry Pi

~€15–45

Pi 3, 4 or 5 — any model with USB and network. A Pi Zero 2W is sufficient.

RTL-SDR dongle

~€25–35

1090 MHz Software Defined Radio receiver. RTL-SDR Blog v4 is the recommended choice.

1090 MHz antenna

~€15–30

Omnidirectional vertical antenna. FlightAware 66 cm or home-built. Higher is better.

Estimated total: €55–110 The RTL-SDR Blog v4 includes a built-in 1090 MHz LNA filter

Setup with docker-adsb-ultrafeeder

The easiest way to contribute is docker-adsb-ultrafeeder, a Docker container that handles ADS-B reception, Mode-S EHS decoding, MLAT participation and feeding to multiple networks automatically.

1. Install Docker on Raspberry Pi OS

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

2. docker-compose.yml

version: '3'
services:
  ultrafeeder:
    image: ghcr.io/sdr-enthusiasts/docker-adsb-ultrafeeder
    container_name: ultrafeeder
    restart: unless-stopped
    device_cgroup_rules:
      - 'c 189:* rwm'
    devices:
      - /dev/bus/usb:/dev/bus/usb
    environment:
      # Your receiver location (lat/lon/altitude in meters)
      - READSB_LAT=45.46
      - READSB_LON=9.19
      - READSB_ALT=120m

      # Send data to FlyItalyADSB
      - READSB_NET_CONNECTOR=dati.flyitalyadsb.com,4905,beast_reduce_out

      # MLAT (replace with your coordinates and a unique name)
      - MLAT_USER=your-name
      - MLAT_CONFIG=dati.flyitalyadsb.com,30100,39000

    volumes:
      - /opt/adsb/ultrafeeder/globe_history:/var/globe_history
      - /opt/adsb/ultrafeeder/graphs1090:/var/lib/collectd

3. Start

docker compose up -d
docker logs -f ultrafeeder

MLAT note: accurate lat/lon/altitude is critical (error < 10 m). Use Google Maps or a GPS for exact position. Altitude is the antenna height, not ground level.

Connection endpoints

Host	Port	Protocol	Use
dati.flyitalyadsb.com	4905	BEAST TCP	Send ADS-B data (in)
dati.flyitalyadsb.com	30100	TCP	MLAT client

Data archive

Network data is publicly available at dati.flyitalyadsb.com: globe history, per-aircraft traces and coverage statistics.

Browse data →