You should already have a Raspberry Pi with Raspberry Pi OS installed and some basic familiarity with using it.

If you are new to using a Raspberry Pi or need to build a receiver from scratch, please see these instructions instead!

Requirements:

• Raspberry Pi
• Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm, Bullseye, or Buster installed
• Internet Connection
• Access to a command line shell on the Pi, either over the network or using an attached keyboard and display
  • SSH access must be enabled on the Raspberry Pi for remote access. See Raspberry Pi SSH Documentation for information on enabling SSH.

This will ensure that you have the latest OS updates before you install FlightAware packages.

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade
sudo reboot

Download and install the FlightAware APT repository package, which tells your Pi's package manager (apt) how to find FlightAware's software packages in addition to the packages provided by Raspbian.

wget https://ar.flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/files/packages/pool/piaware/f/flightaware-apt-repository/flightaware-apt-repository_1.2_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i flightaware-apt-repository_1.2_all.deb

sudo apt update
sudo apt install piaware

sudo piaware-config allow-auto-updates yes
sudo piaware-config allow-manual-updates yes

If you don't already have ADS-B decoder software such as dump1090-fa installed, then you can install FlightAware's version of dump1090 by executing the following command.

sudo apt install dump1090-fa

Note: 978 MHz UAT is only present in the U.S. If you live outside the U.S, you can skip this step.

sudo apt install dump978-fa

Once you have finished installing and configuring the packages, reboot your Raspberry Pi to ensure that everything starts correctly.

sudo reboot