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

Love it. I had a NESDR Nano 2 with a proper ADS-B antenna on our roof. This has taken my max coverage in some directions from ~60 miles to 150 miles. I had previously configured my setup with the NESDR Nono2, RTL1090 software, Virtual Radar Server software and Plane Finder feeder client on my PC. I swapped out the NESDR Nano 2 with the green FlightStick, stopped RTL1090 and restarted it, and I was up and running in less than 20 seconds.

Bought this to free up my existing RTL-SDR dongle for a new project, and bought the radarbox stick as a replacement to install in my dedicated ADSB setup. I have a fairly good antenna, although I live in a valley and can only have the antenna mounted a few feet off the ground due to apartment restrictions. I did not expect such a dramatic improvement, but changing the SDR with nothing else in the setup brought my regular hits from average 500-800 aircraft seen to average of 900-1300 aircraft seen depending on the day. I have included screenshots comparing a saturday before and after to show the increase in volume. Range went from ~45 to ~65, although you cant expect much out of my current setup range wise. Installation was easy, just unplugged the RTL-SDR from my RPi running the FR24 image and plugged in the Radarbox dongle and restarted. Picked up immediately, no driver changes or anything required. Overall very impressed.

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

No instructions included. Site for installation software doesnt exist. Tech support gave links but not how to install. Computer doesnt seem to recognize the USB device. 100% NOT plug and play.

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.

If you have a windows PC, you can be watching REAL TIME flight data with this little dongle, a small antenna, and a few minutes of your time. Ever wondered what airplane that is that’s flying over your house? Well, now you can find out - AND track it’s flight as long as it’s within range of the antenna.

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

Used or ADS-B , not easy to get running

Works great and lower priced than other ADS-B sticks of this size.

Compared to a Flightaware pro blue stick with LNA and filter this cheaper alternative works the same. I get the same amount of aircraft with both, which is a drastic improvement over using a non purpose built RTL receiver.