4 ms·

I think I'm willing to take one of my RTL-SDR dongles, hook it up to the Raspberry Pi, and start giving them a regular feed. If only just to identify a few pesk

I think I'm willing to take one of my RTL-SDR dongles, hook it up to the Raspberry Pi, and start giving them a regular feed. If only just to identify a few pesky helicopters that fly over the house that aren't showing up on flightradar24 like everything else. I can appreciate this service.

650REDHAIR 7y ago
Yeah I paid for FR24 and notice a lot of aircraft “flying under the radar” and aren’t marked. This is neat.
AWildC182 7y ago
This was actually how I stumbled upon it. There was a helicopter with a camera gimbal and what appeared to be a radar pod of some sort circling my city. I wanted to see if it was related to our local dystopian-augmented-reality-aerial-imaging-startup and lo and behold, their similarly unlisted cessna caravan covered in camera and weapon pylons was flying nearby...
- 650REDHAIR 7y ago
  Tail number? That sounds like something interesting to watch!
  - AWildC182 7y ago
    N208CN
    - exikyut 7y ago
      I wonder if that will change. (If it can change? Probably yes...)
    - dsalzman 7y ago
      https://churchillnavigation.com/ https://churchillnavigation.com/
  - adsbx-james 7y ago
    https://tar1090.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a1affa&showTrace=2020-02-11 https://tar1090.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a1affa&showTrace=2020...
mysterydip 7y ago
I did this a few months back and was pleased with the amount of traffic I could see, even with my amateur setup.
- amatecha 7y ago
  Yeah I tried it on my Windows PC a while back and could see dozens of planes within quite a large distance! Very cool to "watch" the planes - via direct radio reception - as they follow their route to the airport, etc. !!
  - selectodude 7y ago
    I'm in the ORD flightpath. So cool to see thousands of airplanes every day.
WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
Damn, this is probably the best idea I've seen all week (I have my pi zero with pi sugar and a eink display just sitting around doing nothing.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  )
jcims 7y ago
Does anyone know if it's possible to tee the data into multiple feeds? I'd like to feed to fr24 just for purposes of getting the better account, but also to this because the info is better. I could run two dongles i guess.
- ggrs 7y ago
  Yes, you can feed several places. My raspbian is feeding adsbexchange as well as flightaware, fr24, radarbox, planefinder and open sky network.
  - jcims 7y ago
    Sweet. I just googled everything at the end there and found this, look reasonable?: http://gordon.celesta.me/2018/04/13/raspberry-pi-real-time-flight-tracker-updated.html http://gordon.celesta.me/2018/04/13/raspberry-pi-real-time-f...
    - ggrs 7y ago
      Skimming those instructions, they don't look bad. The github repo linked above is James' from adsbexchange, so between the two you should be set.
- mrpippy 7y ago
  There's a nice script that will set up a bunch of feeders and run a web interface: https://github.com/jprochazka/adsb-receiver https://github.com/jprochazka/adsb-receiver
  - adsbx-james 7y ago
    No. Do not use this buggy mess. Please!
    - dang 7y ago
      It sounds like you know a lot about this topic, but can you please share what you know in a more informative way? Shallow dismissals and name-calling are against the site guidelines. We're trying for a different sort of discussion in which people can really learn from each other, instead of putting others or their work down. If you wouldn't mind taking a look at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and posting in that spirit, we'd appreciate it. I'm sure HN readers have a lot to learn from you.
wglb 7y ago
In my previous house, there were a large number of helicopters flying. Partly due to a tour company nearby. But the ADSB picked up very few of them. I think in certain areas they have a different frequency for an ADSB equivalent.
- dingaling 7y ago
  Not a different frequency, just a different protocol. Mode-S doesn't transmit position information so location can't be easily determined unless several receivers collaborate.
  - sandos 7y ago
    My receiver was mainly setup for MLAT where no mode-s is usable. Its works fairly well, but at times adsbx has had very bad receivers sending faulty MLAT data corrupting all the nearby tracks. But it seems to work well for now.

650REDHAIR 7y ago

Yeah I paid for FR24 and notice a lot of aircraft “flying under the radar” and aren’t marked. This is neat.

AWildC182 7y ago

This was actually how I stumbled upon it. There was a helicopter with a camera gimbal and what appeared to be a radar pod of some sort circling my city. I wanted to see if it was related to our local dystopian-augmented-reality-aerial-imaging-startup and lo and behold, their similarly unlisted cessna caravan covered in camera and weapon pylons was flying nearby...

650REDHAIR 7y ago
Tail number? That sounds like something interesting to watch!
- AWildC182 7y ago
  N208CN
  - exikyut 7y ago
    I wonder if that will change. (If it can change? Probably yes...)
  - dsalzman 7y ago
    https://churchillnavigation.com/ https://churchillnavigation.com/
- adsbx-james 7y ago
  https://tar1090.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a1affa&showTrace=2020-02-11 https://tar1090.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a1affa&showTrace=2020...

mysterydip 7y ago

I did this a few months back and was pleased with the amount of traffic I could see, even with my amateur setup.

amatecha 7y ago
Yeah I tried it on my Windows PC a while back and could see dozens of planes within quite a large distance! Very cool to "watch" the planes - via direct radio reception - as they follow their route to the airport, etc. !!
- selectodude 7y ago
  I'm in the ORD flightpath. So cool to see thousands of airplanes every day.

WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago

Damn, this is probably the best idea I've seen all week (I have my pi zero with pi sugar and a eink display just sitting around doing nothing.

HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
)

jcims 7y ago

Does anyone know if it's possible to tee the data into multiple feeds? I'd like to feed to fr24 just for purposes of getting the better account, but also to this because the info is better. I could run two dongles i guess.

ggrs 7y ago
Yes, you can feed several places. My raspbian is feeding adsbexchange as well as flightaware, fr24, radarbox, planefinder and open sky network.
- jcims 7y ago
  Sweet. I just googled everything at the end there and found this, look reasonable?: http://gordon.celesta.me/2018/04/13/raspberry-pi-real-time-flight-tracker-updated.html http://gordon.celesta.me/2018/04/13/raspberry-pi-real-time-f...
  - ggrs 7y ago
    Skimming those instructions, they don't look bad. The github repo linked above is James' from adsbexchange, so between the two you should be set.
mrpippy 7y ago
There's a nice script that will set up a bunch of feeders and run a web interface: https://github.com/jprochazka/adsb-receiver https://github.com/jprochazka/adsb-receiver
- adsbx-james 7y ago
  No. Do not use this buggy mess. Please!
  - dang 7y ago
    It sounds like you know a lot about this topic, but can you please share what you know in a more informative way? Shallow dismissals and name-calling are against the site guidelines. We're trying for a different sort of discussion in which people can really learn from each other, instead of putting others or their work down. If you wouldn't mind taking a look at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and posting in that spirit, we'd appreciate it. I'm sure HN readers have a lot to learn from you.

wglb 7y ago

In my previous house, there were a large number of helicopters flying. Partly due to a tour company nearby. But the ADSB picked up very few of them. I think in certain areas they have a different frequency for an ADSB equivalent.

dingaling 7y ago
Not a different frequency, just a different protocol. Mode-S doesn't transmit position information so location can't be easily determined unless several receivers collaborate.
- sandos 7y ago
  My receiver was mainly setup for MLAT where no mode-s is usable. Its works fairly well, but at times adsbx has had very bad receivers sending faulty MLAT data corrupting all the nearby tracks. But it seems to work well for now.