In a couple of lines: how to get FR24 (+ dump1090) to work on your Raspberry Pi.

Be sure to have the right hardware: flightradar24.com/dvbt-stick and … obviously … a RPi.

I got a NooElec from Amazon because I didn’t have the patience to wait for something (that might not work) from AliExpress.

As root:

apt-get update && apt-get install cmake gcc pkg-config libusb-1.0 make git-core libc-dev git clone git://git.osmocom.org/rtl-sdr.git cd rtl-sdr mkdir build cd build cmake ../ -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON make && make install ldconfig cd ../..

And be sure to Blacklist the normal driver:

echo “blacklist dvb_usb_rtl28xxu” > /etc/modprobe.d/dvb-t.conf

And at this point you should reboot.

As regular user (screen part is no longer needed as the new FR24 program will automatically launch and execute it for you):

git clone https://github.com/MalcolmRobb/dump1090.git cd dump1090 make ln -s dump1090 /bin/ screen -dmS dump ./dump1090 –interactive –net –net-beast –net-ro-port 31001 –net-http-port 8888 cd ..

Now get the FR24 software. In case you get a 404, get the latest version here new Raspberry Pi version is here, Linux (AMD64 & ARMv7) is here. You can get your long & lat here. Follow the updated howto on the page. The underlying code is no longer relevant.

wget https://web.archive.org/web/20141002002531/https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/66906/fr24feed_arm-rpi_242.tgz tar xvzf fr24feed* ./fr24feed_arm-rpi_242 –signup

I’ll ask a couple of questions (answer them correctly):

Step 1/5 - Enter Latitude (DD.DDDD) $:50.927358 Step 2/5 - Enter Longitude (DD.DDDD) $:4.399928 Step 3/5 - Enter your email address (username@domain.tld) $:yeri@tiete.be Step 4/5 - Enter your the hostname of the data feed (leave empty for localhost) $: Step 5/5 - Enter your the port number of the data feed (leave empty for 30003) $:

Validating form data…OK

The closest airport found is ‘Brussels Airport (ICAO:EBBR IATA:BRU)’ near Brussels.

Latitude: 50.901379 Longitude: 4.484444 Country: Belgium

Flightradar24 may, if needed, use your email address to contact you regarding your data feed.

Would you like to continue using these settings?

(yes/no)$:yes

[…].

It will give you a key (and e-mail it to you) after a couple of minutes. Keep this key, as it’s important.

That’s it. As dump1090 is already running, all you have to do is start flightradar and you’re good to go.

This is the script I use to start it all (in screen, allowing me to check it). As normal user:

nano -w flightradar.sh

And copy paste the following (+ edit the variables):

#!/bin/bash KEY=YOUR-KEY-EDIT-THIS DIR=/home/PATH-TO-YOU-SCRIPT

pro script

cd $DIR

Start dump1090

cd dump1090

I run on port 8888 because 8080 is taken on my rasp

THIS IS NO LONGER NEEDED

#screen -dmS dump ./dump1090 –interactive –net –net-beast –net-ro-port 31001 –net-http-port 8888 cd ..

Start Flightradar24

screen -dmS flightradar24 ./fr24feed_arm-rpi_242 –fr24key=$KEY

And run: chmod +x flightradar.sh

To start the script, simply run ./flightradar.sh, and check what’s happening with screen -r dump or screen -r flightradar.

To auto start this script at boot time, I edit rc.local as root:

nano -w /etc/rc.local

And add the following at the end but BEFORE exit 0:

su yeri -c /home/yeri/flightradar.sh

Obviously, modify the path and the user it should run under (in this case as “yeri”).

PS: Be sure to signup again every time you move your Raspberry around (the coords seem to be hardcoded in the key). PPS: You can get Premium access here now: flightradar24.com/premium (and check fancy graphs about your “radar”).