Prime Edition MkIV

• Compatibility
• ADS-B Out remark
• Disclaimer
• Bill of materials
  • Required
  • Recommended

Prime Edition Mark IV is a direct successor of SoftRF Prime Edition Mark II and Prime Edition Mark III.

It is supposed to require minimal skills from a builder to begin with and gives an opportunity to evaluate if the SoftRF technology is appropriate for your needs.

Prime Edition Mark III is based upon a partner's hardware - LilyGO® T-Beam 1W board, which is available for direct purchase from manufacturer at more or less reasonable price.

Compatibility ¹

Type	Protocol	FLARM	OGN tracker	PilotAware	Skytraxx	SoftRF
Radio	FLARM AIR V7
	OGNTP
	P3I
	FANET+
	1090 ES ADS-B			2		2
	SRD 860 ADS-L
Data	FLARM NMEA
	Garmin GDL90
	Dump1090

¹ - it is necessary for a reader to distinguish the difference between statement "compatible" and statement "fully compatible".
     SoftRF implements only a reasonable minimum of the protocols specs. No "bells and whistles" so far.
² - Reception of traffic 'downlink' frames only.

ADS-B Out remark

No doubts that an amateur-built non-certified low-cost ADS-B transponder is possible.
It was shown to public by our own "proof-of-concept" study for :

• 1090 ES ("ADSB-Out" GitHub project) in 2017, and
• 978 UAT ("UAT-test-signal" GitHub project) in 2018 .

However, as a certified and instrument rated pilot with 20+ years of experience, in no way I will give a tool for every looser in the world, all he/she can afford is to spend 50 USD for the LilyGO® T-Beam 1W, to abuse the ADS-B technology and compromise my own flight safety and flight safety of every other air law abiding pilot.

SoftRF firmware does intentionally exclude every possibilities to transmit anything on 1090 MHz radio frequency.
Any attempt to contribute the transmit feature into SoftRF from aside will be blocked at very early stage.

Disclaimer

SoftRF firmware for Prime Edition Mark IV is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Author of SoftRF firmware:

• will reject any hardware related claims associated with LilyGO® T-Beam 1W board. Ask for support from seller or manufacturer ;
• reserves the right to suspend or terminate support of LilyGO® T-Beam 1W in the firmware at any time.

For the time being ( May '26 ) there were no critical hardware issues reported for current version of the LilyGO® T-Beam 1W board. However things my change over the time...
If you have issues with bringing up your new LilyGO® T-Beam 1W or just not happy with the board - be prepared to execute your Purchase Protection plan.

Bill of materials

Required

Number	Part	Qty	Picture	Source
1	LLilyGO® T-Beam 1W 3	1		LilyGO Store

³ - 868 MHz variant is applicable for these world regions: EU, RU, NZ, SA, IN ;
     915 MHz - US, CA, AU, KR, IL.

Recommended

Number	Part	Qty	Picture	Source
2	Antenna 1090 MHz	1		AliExpress