Flight Aware

[Red Squirrel]

This just popped in my FB and looks kinda interesting. Anyone hear of this site, anyone have one of these boxes? Basically they provide real time flight tracking and rely on these boxes that people around the world install in their house.

https://flightaware.com/adsb/request

Sounds kinda interesting. Other than the "coolness" factor I don't think you get anything extra out of it, but I suppose it can't hurt? I have the power(battery backup etc) and network infrastructure for something like this so I'm kind of thinking about it just for fun.

 

[deadlyapp]

I use flight aware pretty often but mostly just for shits and giggles or to see what planes have recently gone over.

I didn't realize they relied on essentially a distributed computing/radio network to pick up signals, but it makes a lot of sense. Planes aren't always in tower contact so having another signal gathering device helps boost location data significantly.

 

[purbeast0]

I use that all the time when my wife flies or to see how long flights I am going to take typically are.

 

[BoomerD]

https://www.flightradar24.com/40.06,-113.72/4

 

[Rifter]

https://www.flightradar24.com/40.06,-113.72/4

I use this all the time, when playing with high power laser pointers. Dont want to accidentally hit a plane, that could end poorly, there are large fines.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I was checking this stuff out further it's actually neat to see all the flights even in my area. Lot of flights to places like Moosonee etc. Private cargo and light passenger airlines and what not I imagine. Some Cesnas and stuff. A lot of those places up north are fly in only so make sense they have some regular routes.

 

[Linflas]

I used it quite a bit on my phone when my wife was traveling back and forth to Montreal to deal with her mothers health and passing. It is a pretty cool app, I would leave my house for the airport when the plane was close to the Pennsylvania-New York border and arrive at Dulles about the time the plane was on final approach.

 

[Thebobo]

The have one for Ships as well. https://www.vesselfinder.com/ Fun to play around with.

 

[John Connor]

I use this site more often as they don't filter. I like seeing the FBI fly around and I followed Trump's plane. I want to get a Raspberry pi to contribute. My area needs more receivers and the more receivers the better the multilateration. http://global.adsbexchange.com/VirtualRadar/desktop.html

 

[Red Squirrel]

Interesting, I like that they don't filter anything. Would be kinda fun to follow AF1 around and stuff. The Flightaware device does allow you to feed to other sources I believe too, so I could get it then feed to more than one place.

I ended up signing up, but then they send more details and it sounds like it's pretty much a requirement for the antenna to be outside, it's line of sight so it won't go through walls etc. So I may wait till summer so I can install the antenna properly outside. I kinda always wanted to have an actual tower just for fun, for stuff like this, but there's probably all sorts of red tape involved in that. My city loves bureaucracy. So probably just install it on the roof.

 

[Captante]

I dispatch part-time for a limo company & use the website extensively. Find is especially useful when tracking international flights outside of US/FAA airspace.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I finished the 2nd part of the application that required pics of site etc, so now to wait if they approve it. I did mention I plan to put it outside in summer so they might approve it, or tell me to wait.

Interestingly I saw an ad on FB for https://www.flightradar24.com too, with basically the same offer where they send you a box. I actually like that site's map interface better TBH, the Flight Aware one just locks up the browser. I can probably use the Flight Aware box to feed to the other sites too I imagine. Not sure what format the data is in and how easy it is to extract it though, but their FAQ says I can do what I want with the data.

This got me thinking I wonder if there is a similar system for space satellites, that would be cool! I don't imagine they all have a standard frequency for telemetry though.

 

[John Connor]

This got me thinking I wonder if there is a similar system for space satellites,

There's an App to see sats, but I have to look the name up. Also, try this: http://www.n2yo.com/?k=15

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah I've played with that site before, but was thinking it would be neat to actually get transmissions directly. Wonder how that site gets the info, or if the info is just hard coded at launch and then calculated from that point. Stuff like the ISS moves around a bit though, so I imagine they do get some data, perhaps from NORAD.

I know there are ham radio satellites too, can probably communicate with those with a SDR. Something I'd like to play around with some time. Maybe a good excuse to put up a good mast. My city has so much burocracy when it comes to building stuff though... But I do see people who have them.

 

[John Connor]

I don't think there are any SDRs that transmit. You can monitor sats with the right hardware and a discone antenna is what you would want to use since they can pick up transmissions low to the horizon. Some Hams use sat dishes.

 

[who?]

I looked at flightaware at 1031 pm during the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week (US) and the number of flights it showed was amazing even when I remembered that their plane icons are probably larger than scale.

 

[lupi]

Kinda funny watching everything fly through iran to skip iraq/syria.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Cool so they approved my request! I'll be getting the box some time in the future. Should be interesting to play with this.

There seems to already be coverage in my area though, so I'm not sure what extra coverage does, if it increases accuracy, or simply adds more redundancy.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Came in today, installed it in the attic for now, I actually get decent reception. About 300km out or so. Only thing that's odd is there was some local flights that were showing up on the app but not on my own map, so could be my setup is not as good for lower altitude flights, but it's getting jumbo jets fine. Their transponders might be more powerful too.

More pics here: http://www.uovalor.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=38956

 

[John Connor]

Nice man! I want to get one, but feed to adsbexchange.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah I want to figure out how to feed to different sites with it, then I'll feed to all of them. I like that adsbexchange does not filter so I'll want to feed there, and probably flightradar24 too. It has SSH but it seems to require a public key so I asked them if they can provide it, or if there is another way to get the raw data. I think the public key is used for remote management, aka I'd have to forward the port, but I rather not do that since port 22 is already used on my WAN interface for something else.

So far it seems I'm not picking up the local flights though, so I think the attic may not be working out for lower planes, that or maybe those smaller planes don't have ADS-B. There is apparently someone else in my city with a receiver as I was searching by country and managed to find one here.

I kinda want to build a big antenna mast now, just for fun. And this is how I get sucked into ham radio and buy expensive equipment... it's something that's always kinda intrigued me though. Even just to listen and see what I find.

 

[John Connor]

If I remember right, all planes are supposed to support ADS-B by a certain year or something. All part of NextGen. I guess it's only for the U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Air_Transportation_System

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah I think it's like 2020 or something like that.

The MLAT started to show as being enabled on mine now, I guess it takes a bit to properly synchronize.

 

[John Connor]

MLAT must mean you have more than one user around you. Could be at least 200 miles. I have an adapter for my smartphone that can plug into my SDR and I can track AC. I've logged AC up to 50 miles with a crap antenna mounted to the fridge. LOL

I'm now wondering if a lot of general aviation AC in your area use S-mode. Most should be using ADS-B.

 

[Red Squirrel]

According to the info on the site there is one other user within a mile, then the rest are 100+ miles out. But yeah close enough for it to work I imagine. I've actually picked up planes in the 200-250 mile range so far according to the stats which is quite remarkable considering my antenna is not line of sight.