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Readsb

[Portmanteau of Read ADSB]

Readsb is a Mode-S/ADSB/TIS decoder for RTLSDR, BladeRF, Modes-Beast and GNS5894 devices. As a former fork of dump1090-fa it is using that code base but development will continue as a standalone project with new name. Readsb can co-exist on the same host system with dump1090-fa, it doesn't use or modify its resources. However both programs will not share a receiver device at the same time and in parallel.

No longer under development!

Future development on readsb continuous on the Protocol Buffer version starting with version v4.0.0.

You may also check the wiedehopf readsb fork for an alternative version of readsb.

Disclaimer

This is a personal, hobbyist project with no commercial background.

Push server support

readsb tries to connect to a listening server, like a VRS push server.

For example feeding VRS at adsbexchange.com use the new parameters:

--net-connector feed.adsbexchange.com,30005,beast_out

BeastReduce output

Selectively forwards beast messages if the received data hasn't been forwarded in the last 125 ms (or --net-beast-reduce-interval). Data not related to the physical aircraft state are only forwarded every 500 ms (4 * --net-beast-reduce-interval).The messages of this output are normal beast messages and compatible with every program able to receive beast messages.

readsb Debian/Raspbian packages

It is designed to build as a Debian package.

Building under jessie, stretch or buster

Dependencies - PlutoSDR (ADALM-PLUTO)

You will need the latest build and install of libad9361-dev and libiio-dev. The Debian packages libad9361-dev that is available up to Debian 9 (stretch) is outdated and missing a required function. So you have to build packages from source in this order:

$ git clone https://github.com/analogdevicesinc/libiio.git
$ cd libiio
$ cmake ./
$ make
$ sudo make install

$ git clone https://github.com/analogdevicesinc/libad9361-iio.git
$ cd libad9361-iio
$ cmake ./
$ make
$ sudo make install

Dependencies - bladeRF

You will need a build of libbladeRF. You can build packages from source:

$ git clone https://github.com/Nuand/bladeRF.git
$ cd bladeRF
$ dpkg-buildpackage -b

Or Nuand has some build/install instructions including an Ubuntu PPA at https://github.com/Nuand/bladeRF/wiki/Getting-Started:-Linux

Dependencies - rtlsdr

This is packaged with jessie. "sudo apt-get install librtlsdr-dev"

Actually building it

Build package with no additional receiver library dependencies: dpkg-buildpackage -b.

Build with RTLSDR support: dpkg-buildpackage -b --build-profiles=rtlsdr

Build with BladeRF(uBladeRF) support: dpkg-buildpackage -b --build-profiles=bladerf

Build with PlutoSDR support: dpkg-buildpackage -b --build-profiles=plutosdr

Build full package with all libraries: dpkg-buildpackage -b --build-profiles=rtlsdr,bladerf,plutosdr

Building manually

You can probably just run "make". By default "make" builds with no specific library support. See below. Binaries are built in the source directory; you will need to arrange to install them (and a method for starting them) yourself.

"make BLADERF=yes" will enable bladeRF support and add the dependency on libbladeRF.

"make RTLSDR=yes" will enable rtl-sdr support and add the dependency on librtlsdr.

"make PLUTOSDR=yes" will enable plutosdr support and add the dependency on libad9361 and libiio.

Configuration

After installation, either by manual building or from package, you need to configure readsb service and web application.

Edit /etc/default/readsb to set the service options, device type, network ports etc.

The web application is configured by editing /usr/share/readsb/html/script/readsb/defaults.js or src/script/readsb/default.ts prior to compilation. Several settings can be modified through web browser. These settings are stored inside browser indexedDB and are individual to users or browser profiles.

Note about bias tee support

Bias tee support is available for RTL-SDR.com V3 dongles. If you wish to enable bias tee support, you must ensure that you are building this package with a version of librtlsdr installed that supports this capability. You can find suitable source packages here. To enable the necessary support code when building, be sure to include preprocessor define macro HAVE_BIASTEE, e.g.:

"make HAVE_BIASTEE=yes" will enable biastee support for RTLSDR interfaces.

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