Radarcape:Requirements

Radarcape Requirements

For normal operation a Radarcape requires

• a dry place with moderate temperatures
• AC power supply 110V or 230V, alternatively 5V/1A DC supply
• An ethernet connection with a DHCP server

Software Requirements

Aircraft Data Access

Since the Radarcape does not have it's own display, external software is required for displaying the aircraft data that it receives.

It depends on the users preferences how he wants to get access

• The internal aircraft list (database) can be viewed with any kind of web browsers. It can be sorted by various parameters (filtering in preparation) and will update automatically in a configurable time.
• KML files such as they are used by Google Earth will be provided and contain current positions and track information. Update rate (and later also contents) of these is also configurable.
• Support for 2nd level software is provided by access methodes to the raw received data or port 30003 protocol data. Such is beeing used by Planeplotter, Globe-S and more.

Maintenance and Debugging Software

As long as the user web interface does not support all configuration and maintenance tasks you may need to access to the internal Linux system. If necessary, we will describe all steps to be done here in detail, so you should not be afraid about that. We strongly recommend putty for this task, as it supports the back side serial port as well as networking SSH connections.

Antenna Requirements

The antenna should be placed as high as possible and as free as possible. Nearby metallic parts should be avoided or have a minimum distance of about 50cm. Big metallic surfaces around, for example metallic chimney casing, may cause reflections and degrade reception in some cases.

Due to the high sensitivity of the Radarcape a preamplifier normally is not recommended. Only if your cable attenuation exceeds 6dB, you may consider using one. The cables we supply with the Radarcape do even with 10m length hold the so called "3dB rule" and can be used without doubts.

The antenna connector of the Radarcape is a standard SMA female connector on the back side.

Running without DHCP

For direct connection to a PC we will provide methodes how to install the Radarcape with a fixed IP address and without need of a DHCP server soon.