Software Defined Radio (SDR), what are you doing with it?

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#2434601 8-Mar-2020 17:03

Technofreak:
Exactly what does the world do with this info? Does it even need it? Other than knowing the potential arrival time of an aircraft which can be easily determined by other sources I don't see much value.

When PLC-1 was circling the house for over an hour at around 2am I found a live ADS-B feed quite useful, particularly since it doesn't show up on public feeds.

Technofreak

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#2434603 8-Mar-2020 17:06

msukiwi:

Technofreak:I wonder how everyone would feel if prying eyes were able to watch an equivalent signal generated by all cars, trucks and busses, thus being able to see where Joe Bloggs (you) was driving and at what speed etc?

Aren't they called Traffic Cameras? Not tracked, but you can watch the cameras!

You can access lots of them from:

https://www.journeys.nzta.govt.nz/traffic/cameras/

Not even close. They don't provide individual tracking.

I'm just waiting for the day where the ADSB feed is used by someone that is an a manner deemed totally unacceptable (I have no idea what that might be) and see what happens.

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Countryman98

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#2434604 8-Mar-2020 17:11

Technofreak:

I find the level of fascination with ADSB astonishing and surprising.

I can understand planespotters sitting at the closest spot they can get to snap good photos of various aircraft, but the ADSB fascination takes this to whole new level altogether. You never see the aircraft, (generally) it's some hunk of aluminium up there zipping from A to B along the same pathway as the aircraft ahead of and behind it.

Hmmm... Personal preference i guess. When you're sitting there taking photos of "Hunks of aluminium" zipping by can you find out where the aluminium has been, where it's going, what speed and altitude its doing, type of engines, flight paths etc. The list goes on.

Beside's most of the "planespotters" out there taking photo's of the aircraft post them to site's which end up displayed on many ADS-B websites all around the world.

Some of us follow ADS-B just for the joy of it really and the chance to be able to "Share the joy" with others who are interested.

Hit up Uncle Google and you will see that we are not alone with our hobbies!.

Technofreak

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#2434605 8-Mar-2020 17:14

neb:
Technofreak:

Exactly what does the world do with this info? Does it even need it? Other than knowing the potential arrival time of an aircraft which can be easily determined by other sources I don't see much value.

When PLC-1 was circling the house for over an hour at around 2am I found a live ADS-B feed quite useful, particularly since it doesn't show up on public feeds.

Surely you could be 99% sure of what/who the aircraft was without ADSB. There's pretty well only two types of helicopters operating that time of night, Rescue or Police. Rescue would be in and out and gone whereas Police??????

I bet the ADSB feed didn't really give you anything useful, you probably guessed it was the Police and it most certainly didn't tell you what they were actually up to. You'd get better info listening on the relevant aviation VHF frequency. We often hear them call up asking for clearance into various bit's of airspace near Auckland airport with a brief outline of what they're upto.

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joemate

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#2434607 8-Mar-2020 17:27

Technofreak if you have a good database, like the the one provided by planebase, you can get most of the info of the aircraft. From there you can set up the alerting, tracking, etc.

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#2434608 8-Mar-2020 17:28

Countryman98:

Some of us follow ADS-B just for the joy of it really and the chance to be able to "Share the joy" with others who are interested.

Hit up Uncle Google and you will see that we are not alone with our hobbies!.

I don't doubt you in the slightest. I'm just astounded at the interest.

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Technofreak

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#2434609 8-Mar-2020 17:29

joemate:

Technofreak if you have a good database, like the the one provided by planebase, you can get most of the info of the aircraft. From there you can set up the alerting, tracking, etc.

But to what purpose?

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joemate

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#2434612 8-Mar-2020 17:32

Fun, hobby. Just like the $7000+ I've invested in my spotting equipment.

Others smoke, drink, drive tractors, etc, as a hobby. We're tracking airplanes and, some of us, taking photos.

Technofreak

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#2434614 8-Mar-2020 17:37

joemate:

Fun, hobby. Just like the $7000+ I've invested in my spotting equipment.

Others smoke, drink, drive tractors, etc, as a hobby. We're tracking airplanes and, some of us, taking photos.

Fair enough I guess. I see enough at work everyday to be bothered spending time "spotting aircraft".

One 737-800 is pretty well the same as the next 737-800 same for A320, A321, 787-8, ATR 72, Dash 8, insert model of choice.

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Countryman98

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#2434616 8-Mar-2020 17:38

joemate:

Fun, hobby. Just like the $7000+ I've invested in my spotting equipment.

Others smoke, drink, drive tractors, etc, as a hobby. We're tracking airplanes and, some of us, taking photos.

Radar5 is back online now and have been noticing the odd Invercargill plane on my maps.. maybe yours?

https://adsb.feildingweather.com

Oblivian

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#2434638 8-Mar-2020 19:10

He put the announcement on FB, Power outtage today.

As for the fascination. I like shooting the 'out of the ordinary' visitors. So makes identifying them when they are totally stealth or hidden on a commercial tracker easy to get out to catch the landing

And keeping an eye on the Antarctic missions

When you get real crazy you end up with a 22Gb SQL database you can query for historic stuff leading back to 2012. Just.. 'cause'

We just have to remember the commercial sites are creaming it off our data :) Sure you get an advanced acct in return, but chances are their commercial agreements blow that cost out the water