Feeder badge is live, and the feeder page now shows real network numbers
Yesterday we opened the Skydex Feeder Network. Today, before the first wave of receiver owners lands on the page, we fixed the things that would have made a skeptical ADS-B person close the tab — and shipped the first feeder perk for real.
The 📡 Feeder badge ships today
The perks table used to say "rolling out" next to the feeder badge. That phrasing is exactly what the section title — "perks, not promises" — tells you to distrust, so we removed the promise by shipping the perk.
It works end to end now: the ingest tracks every connected receiver by its uuid, the moment your first packets arrive your receiver's "last packet" time starts updating on /feed, a bell notification tells you your feeder went live, and the 📡 Feeder badge appears on your public Skydex profile automatically. No form, no waiting for a human to flip a switch. The uptime-based premium perks (extra radar scans, extra hangar refreshes) are the one thing still pending — and instead of a vague tag they now carry a date: September 2026.
Live numbers instead of vibes
feed.skydex.online now shows a live stats strip: receivers online right now, distinct aircraft the network heard in the last 24 hours, raw messages per second, and how many of the 20 founding-feeder slots are taken. The numbers come straight from the ingest — the same readsb instance that answers in-game scans — and they are small, because the network is days old. We think honest small numbers beat hidden ones: the first 20 stations that actually feed become Founding Feeders, with permanent credit on the page. An empty coverage map over your city isn't a weakness of the network; it's your chance to be the first station there.
A human within one click
The worst possible feeder experience: you paste the config line, restart your feeder, open the live map — and see nothing. Previously the page left you alone at that moment. Now there's a support link right after the join steps, in the FAQ, and in the footer, all leading to the #feeders channel on the Skydex Discord, plus a short self-check list (is the format beast_reduce_plus_out, is outbound port 30004 open, did you restart, did you give it a minute). If the self-checks don't solve it, a human looks at our side of the connection.
Small print that got clearer
The perks table now explains what "hangar refreshes" means (live "where is my caught aircraft now" position checks), the starter-kit FAQ links a neutral, affiliate-free community hardware guide alongside adsb.im, and the page is ready to show a short clip of the radar-scan catch moment once we record one from our own station.
If you run a receiver: register it, paste one line, and watch your antenna become somebody's first caught A380.