Happy May! I’ve been working on pumping out some new hardware designs this month–let’s take a look at what’s cooking! Some of these are just about ready for release as a Real Product That You Can Buy, so keep your eyes peeled for preorder announcements in the coming weeks!
In this update:
- Hardware
- ADSBee 1090U
- ADSBee m1090
- ADSBee PoE Pant
- PCB antennas for 1090MHz and 978Mhz
- Event announcement: Commercial UAV Expo
🔧 Hardware Updates
👀 ADSBee 1090U is (almost) here!
The vast majority (something like >90%) of aircraft which transmit their location in-flight do so on 1090MHz via ADS-B. However, some aircraft like gliders transmit more specialized protocols on different frequencies (FLARM, 868 MHz/ 915MHz). In the United States, some general aviation aircraft transmit their location on 978MHz via a protocol called UAT. In many scenarios, the locations of these non-1090MHz aircraft are re-broadcast onto the standard 1090MHz frequency via repeaters (ADS-R, aka. ADS-B Rebroadcast), but these re-broadcasting stations are usually only present in regions with relatively high traffic density. For a fully self-contained receiver to provide complete situational awareness, it is obvious that a single-band solution may not be sufficient in all scenarios.
For the past few months, I’ve been working on a new generation of the ADSBee receiver design, which incorporates a sub-GHz radio for dual-band reception, with an initial performance target of receiving both 1090MHz ADS-B as well as 978MHz UAT. I’ve named it the ADSBee 1090U, where U originally stood for “UAT”, but has since evolved to stand for “Universal”, since the hardware may eventually target additional sub-GHz protocols like FLARM.
The second radio on the ADSBee 1090U can be tuned to a variety of frequencies, and has a built-in microcontroller that will allow message demodulation and decode to be fully self-contained. This compartmentalization of decode workload will reduce processor overhead for the RP2040 main processor, which may be busy with decoding the relatively high volume of messages on the 1090MHz standard frequency.


Getting a new (rather large) microcontroller to fit onto the same PCB footprint as the original ADSBee 1090 was quite difficult, but I’m happy to say that it looks like I pulled it off! Some of the debug connector footprints and test points needed to be consolidated to a 40-pin high density connector, but the overall developer experience is actually a bit nicer than on the original ADSBee 1090, since the high density debug connector gets connected to a dedicated rigid-flex breakout PCBA that provides a USB JTAG connector for the ESP32, dedicated SWD connectors for both the RP2040 and the sub-GHz radio, and 2.54mm pin headers that expose a number of important nets for easy poking with a logic analyzer.

The firmware for the sub-GHz radio is heavily work in progress, since there’s a number of moving parts involved in getting the sub-GHz radio firmware image compiled using the existing ADSBee toolchain + development workflow, baked into the RP2040 firmware image, and then flashed onto the sub-GHz radio over SPI using a custom bootloader software. I expect the ADSBee 1090U to ship with self-firmware flashing capability for the sub-GHz radio and basic validation of sub-GHz radio RF performance, but full-featured decoding of UAT messages will most likely be released as a series of firmware updates that can be applied to devices after they ship.
I’m happy to say that bringup of the latest revision of the ADSBee 1090U is proceeding well, and I expect to be able to open preorders within the next week or two. Stay tuned for an announcement via Discord and the email list!
🐁 Like ADSBee 1090, but small

I’ve received interest from a number of designers regarding building ADSBee into custom systems. I’m happy to say–I’m working on it! Things are still in the early stages, but here’s a sneak preview of a solder-down module that small-ifies the guts of the ADSBee 1090 (original single-band version) and turns it into a solder down module that requires zero external components to function, beyond an RF connector.
This module, called the ADSBee m1090, can be built directly into PCBAs like drone flight controllers, radio motherboards, and more! If you have an application where you think the ADSBee m1090 would be a good fit, please drop me an email or a Discord message. I have a few samples that will be available to send out to beta testers once I get my production test fixturing adapted to this new form factor.
🔌 PoE? PoE!
Bringing Ethernet + PoE support to the ADSBee 1090 (and ADSBee 1090U) has been a long-standing ask from members of the ADSBee community. There is currently some partially-baked support for Ethernet connectivity built-into the ESP32 firmware of the ADSBee, but wiring up an external W5500 module can be a bit of a pain. I’m excited to say that progress is being made on the hardware side of things! I have a design for a PoE pant (like a hat, but on the other side) for the ADSBee 1090 and 1090U that will be getting prototyped and tested pretty soon. The PoE pant will be capable of providing both power and Ethernet connectivity to the ADSBee in a conveniently small form factor, which should allow miniature ADS-B receivers to be easily deployed just about anywhere you can run an Ethernet cable from a PoE equipped switch!

📶 PCB Antennas
I’ve been working with a manufacturer to create custom-designed PCB antennas tuned specifically for mounting on foam or plastic surfaces. These antennas are much smaller and lighter than the existing 1090MHz collinear sleeve dipole antennas in the store, allowing them to be installed in a variety of locations. Using a PCB substrate for the antenna instead of a flexible printed circuit (FPC) substrate adds a little bit of weight, but makes the antenna much more robust against de-tuning from the dielectric constant of the surface that it’s mounted to, and helps the antenna keep its shape (and corresponding gain pattern) in situations where other antennas might be deformed.
Some potential good homes for these antennas would be on the inside of a plastic weatherproof enclosure for a fully self-contained receiver base station, or on an RC aircraft or quadcopter with an ADSBee installed or sense and avoid applications.
I have antennas on order in both 1090MHz and 978MHz form factors, and will add them to the store as soon as I receive them!

🎮 New Event: Commercial UAV Expo!
I’m excited to announce that I’ll be attending Commercial UAV Expo this year as an exhibitor! The event runs from September 2-4 in Las Vegas, and includes a wide variety of vendors specializing in just about every drone-related technology. I’m looking forward to sharing about ADS-B receivers, and maybe making a blog post about the event if I can find enough cool things to take pictures of (that part should be pretty easy).
If you’re planning on attending the expo, please drop me a line via Discord or email! I’d love to meet up and chat.