Setting up fr24feed: the Flightradar24 feeder on a Raspberry Pi

The SDR stick is in the Raspberry Pi, the antenna hangs at the window or is already on the roof, and in the console you see the first aircraft from your area. Now only one step is missing, the one that turns your tinkering project into a station in the worldwide receiver network. For Flightradar24, fr24feed does that. This guide shows you how to set up fr24feed: installation, signup wizard, sharing key, choosing the right receiver type, MLAT settings, running alongside other feeders and how to secure the free account as an active feeder.

Setting up fr24feed: the short answer

You connect to your Pi over SSH, start Flightradar24’s official install script and answer a few questions in the signup wizard that follows: email address, existing sharing key (if you were a feeder before), antenna position, MLAT yes or no and the type of your receiver. Then you enable and start the service. As soon as the station delivers data, it appears in your account under “My data sharing” and the free feeder account is unlocked.

Which hardware you need for this is covered in the guide Building an ADS-B receiver yourself. If you would rather not tinker, Buying a ready-made ADS-B receiver has complete solutions. How ADS-B itself works is explained in Flight tracking with ADS-B for spotters. This guide is only about the software.

What fr24feed actually does

fr24feed is decoder and data supplier in one. If a DVB-T stick is attached directly to the Pi, the software starts its own bundled dump1090 decoder, evaluates the signals on 1090 MHz and sends the results to Flightradar24. If another decoder is already running, fr24feed reads its data stream over the network and passes it on. According to the official manual, the software works with the common receivers:

• DVB-T sticks (the widespread RTL-SDR sticks) via USB or network
• Mode-S Beast via USB or network
• Kinetic SBS-1, SBS-1er and SBS-3 via USB or network
• AVR-compatible receivers and microADSB

As the operating system, Flightradar24 names Linux on ARM and x86 hardware – in practice usually Raspberry Pi OS. Ready-made packages exist for the Pi (32 and 64 bit) and for Debian systems on PCs. The manual explicitly mentions one exception: AirNav RadarBox receivers do not work with fr24feed because their data stream is encrypted. Which stick is especially suitable for ADS-B is compared in SDR sticks for ADS-B compared.

One quirk of the decoder is interesting for spotters: it only shows an aircraft once it is reasonably sure of its position. Other decoders are more generous and therefore sometimes show more aircraft locally – but occasionally with wrong positions. fr24feed also determines ground traffic from stored landings near you. A freshly installed station therefore needs some landing traffic before taxiing aircraft show up reliably.

Step by step: installing on the Raspberry Pi

Alternatively, you can download the matching .deb package (armhf for 32 bit, arm64 for 64 bit) from Flightradar24’s repository, install it with sudo dpkg -i and then start the wizard by hand with sudo fr24feed --signup. This is handy if you want to script the installation or pin a specific version. For a Pi that serves exclusively as a feeder, Flightradar24 has also provided a ready-made Pi24 image that already includes everything – whether it is still offered today is best clarified in Flightradar24’s support area.

The signup wizard: question by question

The wizard looks plain at first glance, but most mistakes happen right here. According to the manual, it runs like this:

Email address. The address of your Flightradar24 account. This is how the station later ends up in your account.

Sharing key. If you were a feeder before, you enter your existing key, which is in your account under “My data sharing.” If you are new, you just press Enter – the wizard then generates a new key and emails it to you for safekeeping. The key is 16 characters long and, according to Flightradar24, is valid for only one machine at a time. If you run several receivers, you need a separate key for each, otherwise the stations knock each other off the connection.

Antenna position. For new sign-ups, the wizard first asks for the nearest airport code (IATA or ICAO). That is enough as a rough position for filtering out faulty data. If your antenna is more than about 20 miles from the airport, Flightradar24 recommends the exact position: latitude and longitude in decimal degrees as well as the antenna height above sea level in feet. Watch the unit – if you enter meters, you understate the figure by a good factor of three.

MLAT. If you want to take part in multilateration, you answer “yes.” Then the exact position is mandatory, because MLAT calculates with time differences between several stations. How exactly that works is explained in MLAT and multilateration explained.

Receiver type. The wizard offers seven options. For most DIY stations it is either 1 – DVBT Stick (USB), when fr24feed controls the stick itself, or connecting to a decoder that is already running (see below).

RAW and BaseStation feed. Finally, the wizard asks whether fr24feed should additionally provide raw data (port 30002 for DVB-T sticks) and a BaseStation-compatible data stream (port 30003). If you do not need them for other programs, say “no” – that avoids port conflicts.

At the end, the wizard reports your Radar ID in the format “T-” plus an abbreviation. Write it down; Flightradar24 asks you to state it in every support request. And very important: according to the wizard, you must start sending data within three days, otherwise the ID and key are deleted again.

Question in the wizard	Typical answer for beginners	What to watch for
Email address	Address of your Flightradar24 account	Typos prevent linking to your account
Sharing key	leave empty, Enter	When returning, use the old key from “My data sharing”
MLAT	yes, if you only feed Flightradar24	With several networks, set to no in fr24feed
Position	exact coordinates and height in feet	Antenna height above sea level, not above ground
Receiver type	1 – DVBT Stick (USB)	With an existing decoder, dock onto it instead
RAW/BaseStation feed	no	Only enable if another program needs the ports

fr24feed alongside PiAware or other decoders

Many spotters feed more than one network. The decoder then reads the signals only once, and the services’ feeder programs all access the same data stream. For the most common case – fr24feed on a Pi where PiAware is already running – Flightradar24 describes the procedure itself:

1. Connect to the PiAware Pi over SSH.
2. Run the install script as above.
3. In the wizard, choose Mode-S Beast with a network connection as the receiver and specify the existing decoder as the source: host 127.0.0.1, port 30005 (in the configuration this appears as receiver="beast-tcp").
4. Set MLAT, RAW and BaseStation feed to no.
5. In the web interface at http://IP-of-the-Pi:8754/settings.html or in /etc/fr24feed.ini, check that receiver type, host and sharing key are correct.

If the wizard detects a running dump1090, it also offers an automatic configuration that adopts the existing settings. According to Flightradar24, the PiAware feed is unaffected by all of this. How to set up PiAware itself is covered in Setting up PiAware. If you want to run several networks at once in containers, Feeding multiple networks at once with Ultrafeeder shows the right way, and Installing readsb and tar1090 shows a lean decoder alternative with its own map.

Configuration file, web interface and log

Everything you enter in the wizard ends up in the file /etc/fr24feed.ini. According to Flightradar24, a Pi with the Pi24 image and a directly connected stick has roughly these entries: receiver="dvbt", your fr24key, bs and raw set to “no,” the path to the bundled dump1090 and extra arguments for the decoder in procargs. If you change the file by hand with sudo nano /etc/fr24feed.ini, you have to restart the service afterward with sudo systemctl restart fr24feed. Important: in the file, the parameters appear without the two hyphens they carry on the command line.

You reach most settings more conveniently through the web interface on port 8754. There you see the connection status and the number of aircraft currently being received, and you can change the receiver type and feeds. You follow the log with journalctl -u fr24feed -f; press Ctrl+C to end the display.

Because the web interface listens on all network interfaces by default, the manual recommends a firewall – or you bind fr24feed to the Pi itself only with bind-interface="127.0.0.1". This makes the most sense if the Pi is connected to more than just your home network.

The feeder account: what you get in return

Flightradar24 builds its receiver network largely with volunteers, most of them aviation fans. As a thank-you, active stations get an upgraded account with no subscription fee. For many years this was a Business plan – the top tier with the longest flight history. In the current support texts, Flightradar24 speaks of the Contributor Plan, which you use for free as long as your receiver is online and actively sharing data. Flightradar24 lists the exact scope on its Contributor Plan page; the provider has adjusted the name and contents in the past and may change them again.

For you, that means: before buying hardware, check what the plan currently includes and compare it with what you would otherwise pay. Which subscription tiers exist and which features spotters actually use is covered in Flightradar24 subscription: Silver, Gold or Business. What other networks offer their feeders is compared in What feeders get in return.

Common problems and quick fixes

“Online – no data” on the statistics page. According to Flightradar24, this status refers only to the last few minutes. If the page still shows values such as aircraft seen and range, the station is running – there was just little going on. If the data is missing entirely, the cause is usually a configuration error, such as a wrong receiver type.

Suddenly much less range. Check the antenna and coax cable for moisture and loose connectors. Flightradar24 also names new cell towers nearby as a possible cause – in that case a filter for 1090 MHz helps. More on this in Increasing ADS-B range and Finding the best antenna location.

Port conflicts with dump1090. If you start dump1090 yourself with the --net option, it occupies ports 30002 and 30003 – exactly the ones fr24feed uses for the RAW and BaseStation feed. The solution according to the manual: turn off both feeds in fr24feed.

Station keeps getting kicked out. If the same sharing key runs on two devices, the connections push each other out. Each station needs its own key.

Outdated version. Update with sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade fr24feed. If that does not work, Flightradar24 offers an update script and, as a last resort, reinstalling via the install script.

What to keep in mind

• Enter the position precisely. For MLAT, a few meters count. Use the antenna’s coordinates, not your street address, and give the height above sea level in feet.
• One key per station. Second receivers in the garden or at friends’ places get their own sharing key.
• Keep the three-day deadline in mind. Only register the station once the hardware is really running.
• Know the legal side. A receiver transmits nothing, it only listens. How sharing the data is classified legally is summarized in Is receiving and sharing ADS-B data allowed?
• Build it weatherproof outdoors. If you move the antenna or receiver outside, you will find the tips you need in Running an ADS-B receiver outdoors.

And what does the spotter at the fence get out of it?

Having your own station changes how you plan spotting days. You see the traffic around you from your own data, recognize approaches early and learn along the way why some aircraft are missing from flight tracker maps – the topic is explored further in Why an aircraft does not show up on Flightradar. With the upgraded account, you can also scroll back further in flight history and complete sightings after the fact, for example as described in Matching sightings with ADS-B logs.

If you live near an airport, for example around Munich Airport or Hamburg Airport, the station pays off twice: there you also pick up aircraft on final approach and on the ground. At the spot – for example at the Munich Airport visitors’ hill (Besucherhügel) or at Hamburg’s Affenfelsen – you then use your account’s live map to time the next interesting approach.

Conclusion

With working hardware, setting up fr24feed usually takes only a few minutes: start the install script, fill in the wizard carefully, enable the service. Most pitfalls are in the details – antenna height in feet, a separate sharing key per station, MLAT set to “no” with several networks and the three-day deadline after registration. Anyone who watches for these gets a station that delivers reliably and, in return, an upgraded Flightradar24 account with no subscription fee. Which other feeder programs you can run in parallel is shown in ADS-B feeder programs compared.