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

I have been a radarbox customer before- I am on my 2nd Commstation- something happened to the first one and wouldnt work anymore, and since last year, I am having issues with the second, and I have gotten no where with support. I figured I would get this, to see how it worked. I first tried it on an old computer, and on the radarbox site it would show that it was working, but it wasnt picking anything up. The software would not pick up anything at all, and even wouldnt show that it was connected. On a brand new computer, the same issue has happened. Support has been nonexistent, both on the commstation and also on this flightstick.

Purchased and installed a dedicated antenna, ran cable and the dongle died. Check the online version, if there is local coverage, save your money.

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.

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.

this thing is totally deaf compared to an regular rtl-sdr

Im pretty shocked. I get about the same performance as the FlightAware sticks and this thing is half the price. My range went from about 90 NM to 130 NM. A nice boost! If youre setting up an ADSB receiver or want to pep yours up I think this is a worthy purchase. I updated my review to add a picture of graphs from the last three months to show how much better the stick is compared to an SDR dongle.

Works very well picking up ADS-B 200 miles aware

quality meets expectations

Good stick, but not really much different than any others. Ive not done testing, but as its been said, an external filter I think does more than the internal filter builtin to this one. Ive a decent antenna, but an antenna makes all the difference also with this. For overall comparison, Ive a nooelec v1 stick, and it does a little better with its included antenna than this.

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.