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Aircraft via ADS-B & UAT

Turn AryaOS into a standalone airspace picture: attach an SDR and antenna, select the air role, and crewed aircraft appear on ATAK/WinTAK/iTAK as native Cursor on Target (CoT) tracks.

Aircraft broadcast their position on two frequencies:

  • 1090 MHz — ADS-B (Mode S Extended Squitter). The global standard; airliners and most turbine aircraft.
  • 978 MHz — UAT (Universal Access Transceiver). A US-only band used by many general-aviation aircraft below 18,000 ft.

AryaOS decodes both and feeds them to your COP through adsbcot.

Hardware

Part Notes
RTL-SDR (RTL2832U) dongle One per band. readsb, dump1090-fa, and dump978-fa all use RTL-SDR.
1090 MHz antenna A tuned 1090 MHz ADS-B antenna beats a stock whip by a wide margin.
978 MHz antenna Only if you decode UAT; use a separate SDR + antenna for the second band.
Low-loss coax + optional LNA/filter A 1090 MHz SAW filter/LNA reduces out-of-band overload near cities.

Range in the field

Range is line-of-sight and antenna-limited. In a backpack CONOP with a modest antenna, 55 miles was achieved on a clear day in San Diego (see Introduction). Height and a clear horizon matter more than gain.

Turn on the air role

  1. Open Cockpit → AryaOS Site (browse to https://<host>/admin/ or https://aryaos.local).
  2. In the Device role card, choose Air — ADS-B 1090/978 aircraft.
  3. Click Apply role.

AryaOS enables the ADS-B decoder, dump978-fa, adsbcot, and gdltak, and stops the maritime and drone pipelines.

sudo aryaos-role set air

aryaos-role list   # JSON: current role + each role's units

Choose the ADS-B decoder

AryaOS ships two 1090 MHz decoders; exactly one runs at a time, selected by ARYAOS_ADSB_DECODER in the site config:

Value Decoder Notes
readsb readsb Default. Broad SDR support (RTL-SDR / SoapySDR / HackRF). apt-mark hold so updates don't change it under you.
dump1090_fa dump1090-fa FlightAware's decoder.

Set it from the TAK destination card's ADS-B decoder dropdown, or edit ARYAOS_ADSB_DECODER directly.

A decoder switch needs a role re-apply

Changing ARYAOS_ADSB_DECODER alone does not reconfigure systemd. Re-apply the role (aryaos-role set air, or Apply role in the console) so the unused decoder is disabled and the chosen one is enabled. Both decoders write aircraft JSON to ARYAOS_ADSB_JSON_DIR (default /run/adsb), which adsbcot reads.

SDR serials (dual-SDR setups)

AryaOS selects dongles by their EEPROM serial so the right SDR handles the right band, even when several are plugged in:

Band Serial Used by
ADS-B 1090 MHz stx:1090:0 readsb / dump1090-fa
UAT 978 MHz stx:978:0 dump978-fa (via ARYAOS_UAT_RTL_SERIAL)

The 978 MHz serial is configurable from the UAT (978 MHz) RTL-SDR serial field on the TAK destination card, or via ARYAOS_UAT_RTL_SERIAL in the site config (default stx:978:0, which matches the Nooelec NESDR Nano 3 "978" EEPROM preset).

Never share a serial between bands

The 978 MHz SDR must not use the same serial as the 1090 MHz path, or the decoders will fight over the same dongle. If your dongles ship blank or duplicated, re-serial them from the Radios card or with aryaos-sdr set-serial IDX SERIAL. Writing a serial briefly stops SDR services — replug the dongle (or reboot) before the new serial is visible.

For SDR discovery, EEPROM re-serialing, and antenna wiring, see the Radios page.

Single vs. dual SDR

flowchart LR
    subgraph 1090["1090 MHz path"]
      A1[Antenna 1090] --> S1[SDR stx:1090:0] --> R[readsb / dump1090-fa]
    end
    subgraph 978["978 MHz path (optional)"]
      A2[Antenna 978] --> S2[SDR stx:978:0] --> U[dump978-fa]
    end
    R -->|aircraft.json| ADSB[adsbcot]
    U --> ADSB
    ADSB -->|CoT| H[Charontak hub]
  • One SDR (1090 only): the most common setup. Decode ADS-B; leave dump978-fa idle (no UAT antenna).
  • Two SDRs (1090 + 978): add a second dongle serialed stx:978:0 and a 978 MHz antenna to also see UAT traffic.

Verify tracks

  1. Connect your EUD to the AryaOS Wi-Fi hotspot (AryaOS-xxxx) or the same network.
  2. Open ATAK/WinTAK/iTAK — with Mesh SA enabled, aircraft appear automatically.

  3. On the box, confirm the pipeline:

    systemctl status readsb adsbcot        # or dump1090-fa
ls -l /run/adsb/aircraft.json          # ARYAOS_ADSB_JSON_DIR

    A growing, recently-modified aircraft.json means the decoder is receiving. adsbcot then converts those tracks to CoT and sends them to the Charontak hub at udp+wo://127.0.0.1:28087.

No aircraft yet?

Check the antenna connection first, then confirm the SDR serial matches the band. If nothing decodes even with good signal, verify the correct decoder is enabled for ARYAOS_ADSB_DECODER and re-apply the role.