DIY Flight Tracker on Feather RP2350 Tracks Planes and Lunar Transits

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A desktop flight tracker built on Adafruit's Feather RP2350 microcontroller can decode live ADS-B signals broadcast by aircraft on 1090 MHz, displaying each plane's callsign, altitude, and position on a color touchscreen. The project was demonstrated by Pedro on Adafruit's 3D Hangouts stream, pairing the RP2350 with a 3.5-inch TFT FeatherWing V2 touchscreen that connects directly to the board without breadboard wiring. A standout feature is a lunar transit alert, which cross-references aircraft positions with the Moon's azimuth to notify users before a plane passes across the lunar face. The build requires a software-defined radio dongle tuned to 1090 MHz, the Feather and TFT FeatherWing hardware, and runs on CircuitPython. Total component costs are estimated at a few thousand pesos for the core hardware, with the antenna and dongle potentially already on hand.

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