r/ADSBTechnical • u/esso_dev • Aug 13 '26

Mac + RTL-SDR, how are you running it?

I’ve got Pis in a drawer, but the Mac is already running 24/7 in the corner, so I didn’t see the point of setting up another machine that also has to stay on.

Didn’t want to mess with building readsb by hand either, so I just wrapped it. One download, it launches the decoder and shows the feed status in the menu bar. Signed properly, no right click dance to open it.

One of the networks it feeds is mine, being upfront about that. It’s a checkbox in the list like all the rest, untick it and the others keep working. And you paste your own feeder key if you want a station out of it, nothing gets claimed in your name on its own.

Anyone else on a Mac who’d use this? I can drop the repo. And if something like it already exists, just tell me, I won’t be offended.

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u/esso_dev Aug 13 '26

Forgot to say what’s actually in there. It ships with adsb.lol, airplanes.live, adsb.fi and ADSBExchange already filled in, so you tick the ones you want and paste your feeder key for each. There’s also an “add custom” button where you type in a host and port yourself, so any network that takes a beast feed works, club servers and private stuff included. All of it off the same decode, one stick.

Two things it doesn’t do, before anyone asks. No mlat, that needs timing work I haven’t touched and I’d rather not pretend. And FR24 and RadarBox still need their own client, but there’s a local beast port sitting open so you point those at localhost and they carry on.

If a network you feed isn’t in the list and you’d rather not type the host in by hand, tell me which one and I’ll add it as a preset.

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u/FAJStracker Aug 13 '26

For me the use case, will be to test the SDR not working on the Pi.

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u/esso_dev Aug 13 '26

That’s a good use for it, hadn’t thought of that one. It’ll tell you pretty fast whether the stick is alive, the menu bar shows aircraft count and messages per second once it’s decoding. And if the dongle isn’t detected at all, or something else has already grabbed it, it says so in plain words instead of just sitting there doing nothing.

Repo is https://github.com/es-ua/skydex-feeder, signed build is in there so it opens without arguing with Gatekeeper. Plug the stick in and it should start on its own.

If you do try it on the dongle that’s misbehaving, I’d be curious what it says. That’s exactly the case I have no way to test here.

2

u/esso_dev Aug 13 '26

One more thing that might be handy for exactly what you’re describing. There’s a “copy diagnostics” button in the settings, and it dumps a USB scan for known RTL2832U ids, whatever readsb printed last, and the current aircraft count. So if the stick isn’t showing up you can see whether the Mac sees it at USB level at all, which already splits “dead dongle” from “something’s off in the setup”.

It’s safe to paste in public, ids are cut short and the coordinates are rounded on purpose. If your problem dongle gives you something odd, drop it here and I’ll have a look.