I upgraded the antenna and almost sorry I did!!! lol

Speaking of radio related apps for your smartphone, where are a few of my favs:

Echolink
APRSdroid
Pocket RxTx
HamGPS
Broadcastify
Scanner Radio
LiveATC
RFAnalyser
SDR++
Dump1090
AIS-catcher

Mine have always been bad. 🤓

The feed lines are 10' for ADS-B/UAT and ACARS/VDLM2. Those are S-MR240. The AIS antenna has a built-in 30' run of what I believe to be RG-58 or similar. I could definitely use better cables! Lol

Thankfully, mine is on the 3rd floor in that regards!

Nice!! I used to love building kits. The electronic components are so small now and my fat ol' fingers shake too much so I've been an "appliance operator" for decades now! 🫤

Yes, that is correct! I don't currently have my 2m loop, but will change that over the summer. I haven't operated that mode in years and looking forward to doing it again. Sometimes I catch some 2m FT8 though!

Thank you! 🙂

For AIS, I am only trying to receive the traffic on the rivers in the Philly area and it's got good enough line of sight and elevation for that. I do have a VHF LNA, but have not used it due to the proximity to the broadcast towers. I may try it though and see what happens!

I live directly under the Northeast Corridor Atlantic Route so I have tons of traffic for all modes. I don't use an LNA for ACARS/VDLM2 because I live less that 1.5 miles from a major FM/TV broadcasting tower farm. It's also why I have the cavity filter on the VHF antenna.

Great observations! Although I don't have a long coax run, the external preamp helps make up for those losses. I needed it more in it's prior location with a longer run, but it still helps at the new location, although I had to also add external SAW filtering to help with the amplified noise! lol