Questions about getting a Pi - best vendor, price, 2 or 4GB?

[kangaloosh]

I am in the US.

I want to set up an ADS-B feeder - receive signals from aircraft and send them to websites like flightaware, etc.

I have loads of old windows PCs but seems no one uses that. You need to get a raspberry pi. I know very little of linux / never used a Pi.

Any recommendations for where to get it for best price / quality (the pi is centrally made / all vendors get from the same source The Pi organization? but power supply and case are the vendor's choice?

Any first time customer / discount codes somewhere?

And I was going to get the pi 4? Websites say you can use a Pi 3, but for resale value when I get tired of this / potential use for other things,

Interestingly, the websites don't really say how much RAM is needed for ADS-B feeding. So it could be low?I'll that said, would 2GB? 4GB? be overkill for uses later?

Heat sink?

THANKS!

[drgeoff]

No recommendations because you have not revealed where in the world you are.

[jahboater]

I am in the US.

See https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/ra ... odel-b-8gb

Any recommendations for where to get it for best price / quality (the pi is centrally made / all vendors get from the same source The Pi organization? but power supply and case are the vendor's choice?

Do get the "official" Pi PSU, it is cheap and known to work well.
Case is up to you (or no case at all works fine!). If you want a case then one of the cooling ones work well
This one is popular: https://flirc.tv/more/raspberry-pi-4-case

And I was going to get the pi 4? Websites say you can use a Pi 3, but for resale value when I get tired of this / potential use for other things,

Get the Pi4. It is dramatically better in almost every respect, and is the same price.
In fact they recently started selling the 2GB model for the same price as the old 1GB.

Interestingly, the websites don't really say how much RAM is needed for ADS-B feeding. So it could be low?I'll that said, would 2GB? 4GB? be overkill for uses later?

Getting more memory does no harm at all, even if you don't use it all at first. The only downside is the extra purchase price.

Heat sink?

Likely not needed. Especially if the Pi is in free air.
If you fancy a heat sink, then a heat sink case like the FLIRC above will work well, or you can get a cheap "stick-on" heat sink
like this one that I use, which allows a large overclock:
https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/heatsinks/7500951/

[neilgl]

He is in the US?
I use an old pi2 for the ADS-B feeder - excellent. PiAware has a downloadable image to do it all for you. That pi2 has 1GB RAM, no heat sink and runs off an old phone charger.

[B.Goode]

I am in the US.

I want to set up an ADS-B feeder - receive signals from aircraft and send them to websites like flightaware, etc.

I have loads of old windows PCs but seems no one uses that. You need to get a raspberry pi. I know very little of linux / never used a Pi.

Any recommendations for where to get it for best price / quality (the pi is centrally made / all vendors get from the same source The Pi organization? but power supply and case are the vendor's choice?

Any first time customer / discount codes somewhere?

And I was going to get the pi 4? Websites say you can use a Pi 3, but for resale value when I get tired of this / potential use for other things,

Interestingly, the websites don't really say how much RAM is needed for ADS-B feeding. So it could be low?I'll that said, would 2GB? 4GB? be overkill for uses later?

Heat sink?

THANKS!

See the Raspberry Pi products page. https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/
Select Raspberry Pi 4 Model B. Click on [Buy Now]. Choose United States in the drop-down selector.

You certainly don't want to pay any more than the prices advertised by those dealers, unless you understand clearly how/why you are getting added value. And if you see prices much lower, the adage of "if it seems too good to be true... " applies.

[neilgl]

Also, get the free graphs1090 which is excellent and shows aircraft message rate etc and pi performance graphs.
My pi2 is using less than 100MB RAM.

[HvdW]

He is in the US?
I use an old pi2 for the ADS-B feeder - excellent. PiAware has a downloadable image to do it all for you. That pi2 has 1GB RAM, no heat sink and runs off an old phone charger.

Same setup, doing just fine.
I would go for RPI 3B+ or RPI4 2G
Reading the problems people encounter every now and then with RPI 4 I'd go for RPI 3B+
or you must be shure to get the most recent revision of RPI 4

[jahboater]

get the most recent revision of RPI 4

The 8GB model is guaranteed to be the latest version to date.
That is, version 1.4

Forget the Pi3, it is inferior to the Pi4 in every respect.