I love planes. I also love staring at FlightRadar24. So, it should be no surprise that I have a gold subscription with them. However, I’ve been wanting to cut back on subscriptions, and FR24 was on the chopping block. Until I read something.

Take My Data

Turns out, if you contribute ADS-B data to FR24, they give you a business account, for free.

Looking into that, I had a few option. I could use their premade Raspberry Pi image. Or their package. Either way, I also need a supported SDR. Nothing an overnight Amazon order can’t fix.

After getting the SDR in, I got everything set up.

Installing their package was pretty easy. Just ran their setup script, and answered the questions. Stuff like, What’s your account email, where is your receiver, and other setting things.

Not long later, I got an email that my account had been upgraded to business, and I could look at my receiver’s stats.

This was definitely a fun little project. And not just because I got a free business account. I think down the line I might get a proper 1090Mhz antenna, and see how far away I pick up aircraft.