How Flight Tracking Works: a Global Network of Volunteers 52
An anonymous reader writes If a website can show the flight path and all those little yellow planes in real time, how can they not know where Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went down? Answering that involves understanding a little about how flight-tracking sites work, where they get their data, and the limitations of existing technologies. It also involves appreciating a relatively new approach that the two large flight-tracking companies, Texas-based FlightAware and Sweden-based Flightradar24 are rushing to expand, a global sensor system known as ADS-B, which broadcasts updates of aircraft GPS data in real time. ADS-B is slowly superseding the ground-based radar systems that have been used for decades, becoming central not only to flight tracking but also to the future of flight safety. And it's powered, in part, by thousands of dedicated aviation hobbyists around the globe.
I live in the middle of nowhere (Score:2, Informative)
I live in the middle of nowhere in the USA, and provide ADS-B data. Its fun.
If you lived in a populated area like California or New York, there are already hundreds of people in your area doing this, and so its probably not necessary.
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I didn't even know FlightAware had a program like their ADS-B FlightFeeders [flightaware.com] I checked their map, and I'm a bit farther North in my area than the nearest feed, and there's a large gap to the next.
I have some questions for you. Hopefully you read this. What services accept hobbyist input, besides the ones in the article? Is there hardware you recommend for cheap and reliable?
I only took a quick look through, so I have more reading to do. Is there a software that reports to multiple services? Like C
Misleading summary (Score:5, Informative)
The ADS-B system itself was designed for plane-to-plane communications to improve situational awareness. Ground-based ATC or hobbyists are not required to make the system work.
Source: I worked on an ADS-B product at Garmin.
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They are however required to keep the realtime databases that the websites mentioned in the article use. The reciever is basicaly a usb DVB-T terrestial digital tv receiver working as a software defined radio and a bunch of code to pickup the ADS transmissions. The results are streamed to the tracking sites databases.
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http://flightaware.com/adsb/pi... [flightaware.com]
Build your own for under $100, raspberry pi, dtv reciever, internet connection.
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Interesting. I have six Pi's that do exactly nothing. All of them have memory cards in place. My goal was to build a cluster for the enjoyment of it but it never got any further then that. Now I may have to take one, or go ahead with clustering first, and then give this a try. It is all automated, right? I won't have to run around with some exactly tuned directional antenna ever time I want to share? I am way too lazy to do that and would give that up in just a few days.
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I set one of these up a while ago with an old Atom server I had lying around. A couple of hours' work, about $15 for the USB receiver, and the antenna is just taped to my bedroom windowsill. Works OK out to around 100 miles, though reception gets patchy beyond 50.
I'd often wondered where all the vapour trails over our heads were going, and now I know. Of course, I could have saved time and just looked it up on the Internet :).
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Looking it up is the lazy way. Is it a specific meter length required antenna? Did you have to make it? Or is it just some stereo wire taped to a T and then strung up or similar? I do have the absolute perfect tree to tape a fishing sinker to and toss it over and I am on the side of a mountain so I may do well but there's not much traffic out this way. My hand-held scanner does airplane frequencies but I seldom hear (I had actually typed here, I'm glad I preview before the preview.) anything and that has an
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It's just the free antenna that came with the USB receiver. A proper, tuned antenna should do much better, if you want to spend the time making one.
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And it would make a good excuse to rescue the tower. He could make more selling it for scrap than he'd make selling it to me. I don't know where you live but it is just 100 USD.
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That does help. It gives me some ideas and some potential motivation. The only reason I bought them was to build a cluster and I have absolutely no need for a cluster so I figured I would make one and then make another basement NAS or a media server. I already have a couple of servers down there but no media server. I don't actually have any use for a media server - that is already covered but the goal was to build a cluster, I don't really have a need or a good reason to build one. I figured it would be am
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To be fair I've always fancied building a cluster, but similarly have had no tasks to solve. However I wouldn't care if it took longer than my current machine because it would be learning about how to do cluster computing. I suppose I could open an old CFD textbook and cone up with a simulation and optimise it for clustered computing.
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You might be able to outrun the cop but you can not outrun his radio.
Too bad they're not more open... (Score:1, Insightful)
It's a shame that services like FR24 are not more open. A lot of people are contributing to the service for free - though some may get a free subscription in exchange - but then what happens to that data?
First, it gets massaged. Sensitive flights, flights operated by people who don't want to appear on FR24, etc.get removed. Alright, I can see how that makes sense - if for no other reason than that if they didn't, they'd probably be shut down pretty quickly.
Second, you don't get access to the data. You o
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Let me guess, you're one of the cunts who made one of those advertising funded apps that only pulled data from FR24's servers, leaving them with the bill for all the server and bandwidth use, while you yourself earned a decent sum every month?
That's a very real problem FR24 had with all these entitled freeloaders(as did MarineTraffic's AIS data site)
Re: Too bad they're not more open... (Score:1)
Well they seem to have chosen the worst of all options: close the service to the point of no use. That kind of makes them cunts of their own right. Instead they could monetize on the obvious demand for the data by selling API access, priced by bandwith etc. Hell, they might even make enough money to pay out to those volunteers who make their site work in the first place. Takes one lot of tight assed dumbf****s not to do this. Talking of freeloading cunts, gee.
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FlightAware's PiAware software and FlightAware's FlightFeeder hardware both allow access to unfiltered access over TCP ports 10001, 30002, and 30003 as well as a live web interface on port 8080.
FlightAware, for years, has offered APIs and data feeds: https://flightaware.com/commer... [flightaware.com]
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You're a retard. Really.
Truly, certainly, actually indeed.
Besides this is already being done on our roadways, with license plate readers...
Using the fact that something has been done to justify doing it is genius.
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Dude, what is wrong with you?
No, seriously. There is really something very wrong with you. It sounds like a mental illness. You NEED to get it looked at by medical professionals.
What is wrong with the people who take information for purposes other than original intent without asking and proceeding to leverage it for commercial gain?
Did these companies ask the Pilots for permission first?
Works great when you want to be seen (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is why you'll see ADS-B augment, but never completely replace old fashioned search radar anytime soon.
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Primary radar (what you call search radar) is not very used for air traffic control.
Primary radar stations are very expensive to build and to operate; their range and accuracy is rather limited too. That is because primary radar stations need to transmit very powerful pulses and listen back for the very faint echoes generated by the aircraft, while discerning them from all the other sources of noise and clutter.
In general, only the military operate primary radar stations and coverage is rather limited. Eg,
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Eg, a large country like the USA will not have much coverage of primary radar deep inside it's borders.
Fortunately for the USA, you are wrong:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J... [wikipedia.org]
Consider it a lesson learned from 9/11.
That's really great, but... (Score:2)
Radars remain essential in Europe (Score:2)
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Cruising Sailors (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a blue water sailor. I, and many others like me, would be happy to carry an ADS-B reciever onboard. That is, provided that it draws very little power, and that it gathers data unattended without my active intervention. Statistically, I think cruising sailors would cover a large fraction of the ocean areas of the globe. I believe the probability of a sailing vessel being within 200 miles of MH370s final flight path would be almost 100%.
The caveat being that I can not transmit the data to the Internet until the next time I reach shore and I can find someone who will let me plug in a USB device. That could mean a delay of months up to a year.
Would non-real time information be valuable? Thinking of the MH370 case, the answer must be yes. Not matter what the delay, the information is still valuable to someone. We could also record AIS signals that many vessels already transmit. I receive AIS from up to 40 miles away.
The idea could be etended to (symbolic) notes-in-a-bottle. A million floating ADS-B recorders would eventually reach shore, and some of them may have their data extracted and transmitted, then thrown back into the sea. Would that be worthwhile? Hard to say.
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MH370 was perfectly capable of sending ADS messages by satellite... but didn't. That system was either disabled, or turned off.
The SKYWARN network is also largely volunteer driv (Score:1)
How to get my hands on live ADS-B data? (Score:2)
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FlightAware makes it available in data feeds and APIs: https://flightaware.com/commer... [flightaware.com]