@rockerest @Fallenstedt
You got it! The antenna picks up the RF from the aircraft and feeds it to the #SDR (30 dollar software defined radio ie, USB dongle) and then the #raspberrypi etc runs #dumpvdl and you get #JSON out.
The dumpvdl config contains the USB device number, the 4-6 or so frequencies to listen on etc.
Here is a nice short sample of the JSON direct from the decoder (ie, it has both name:value).
https://github.com/thebaldgeek/thebaldgeek.github.io/blob/main/json/dumpvdlJSON.json
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!


