How to interface Planeplotter to the Mode-S Beast via USB:

Mode-S Beast installation:

There is nothing special when connecting a Mode-S Beast to your PC.
  1. Download and install the FTDI driver
  2. Plug the Mode-S Beast to the USB port. You may be asked for the driver's folder, simply do.
  3. Open device manager: Start -> Ausführen (Start -> Run command) and enter  %windir%\System32\RunDLL32.EXE devmgr.dll DeviceManager_Execut
  4. Open the [+] tab for COM and LPT you you will see a "USB serial port" appearing and disappearing each time that you disconnect and reconnect the Mode-S Beast. This information is important
Here are two screenshots of my device manager with and without the Mode-S Beast (mine is connecting to COM80 currently)
Remember that if the unit shows up here as COM80 on my PC, it might be different on yours, and it might be even different for each single PC that you own.
I strongly recommend not to change the port using the enhance configuration of the driver!!! This you do on you own risk!
Device Manager before the Mode-S Beast became connected
  • COM80 does not show up
Device Manager without Mode-S Beast		 Device Manager after the Mode-S Beast became connected
  • COM80 shows up and is the port to be used for the GUI soft
Device Manager with Mode-S Beast

In the device manager, in case that you live in a high traffic area, you might want to adapt the enhanced parameters of the USB serial device a little bit.
Remember that this makes only sense if you have a fast computer, on lower speed ones (below 1GHz) the polling interval should be set to a higher value, up to 100ms or so. Just test it. 

IMPORTANT: You have to unplug and re-plug the Mode-S Beast after applying these changes in order to get them actually set.

Planeplotter Configuration:

Step 1: Options -> IO-Settings -> Input data -> "Mode-S/ADS-B" 
                          -> Mode-S source -> "Beast receiver"
-> OK

Step 2: Options -> Mode-S receiver -> Beast receiver -> Setup Comm port -> Comm port (your COM port) and Comms port data rate 1000000 (after V1.21 3000000)
-> OK

 NOTE: With Firmware equal or later than V1.21, the 1MBit has been changed to 3MBit, so you have to enter 3000000 in Comms port data rate

Then press the green button in the top left and surely you will see planes on your screen

It happens quite often that beginners set up their map incorrectly. Remember that you do not need to calibrate maps, just zooming into the default world map and then pressing the button "OSM" for a new download of Open Street Map is totally sufficient. The only thing that I have to ask COAA is how to reset to this world map in case of misconfiguration, because the only way I know currently is to remove and re-install Planeplotter completely.

Important Note: Whenever you get a "No RAW data" error message, especially when testing MLAT, you simply need to turn MLAT time stamp on. Planeplotter's error message is a little bit misleading here.

Making Screenshots and comparison of the performance:

Quite often users of the Mode-S beast make screenshots of Planeplotter's results. Please, when doing so, be aware that there is a long term integration done in Planeplotter, which is by default 5 minutes. This is a little bit unfair, the Mode-S beast does not need such. Instead, lower down the integration to 1 min. Go into the menu "Chart Settings", and enter 1.00 into "Omit aircraft after..." and "Delete Aircraft after...". Maybe you even switch of the prediction completly by unchecking the box at "Predict positions over...".

My own chart settings are like this:

Planeplotter Performance:

Recently there was a summary about Planeplotter performance tweaks.

FAQ:

Q: I do not see the aircraft type in Planeplotter
A: The aircraft type is not part of the Mode-S transmissions, but Planeplotter is able to read the type from a database, which you can find here on the manTMA pages. Decompress the database and load it into Planeplotter with Options->Directories->SQB Database