Saturday, June 4, 2016

Situational awareness...

While playing around yesterday with the flight website, I found that you can apply to get a free "Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast" (ADS-B) receiver.  There are thousands of them all over the planet to help keep track of airline traffic.  The instructions stated that it usually take up to 30 days to make a decision on an application.  They sent me an email a couple of hours after my initial contact asking me to fill out step two in the process...giving a little more info about my location and photos of where the antenna would be placed as well as my views north-south-east-west.  This morning I was notified that my application was approved and they will be mailing the receiver to me in about a week.  That was fast'n'easy.  I imagine I am definitely in an area where they lack coverage.  86,92,68,0,B
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9 comments:

neil said...

Nice!

June 4, 2016 at 6:04 PM
Unknown said...

I'd say you coulda held out for a free T-shirt. :)

June 4, 2016 at 6:28 PM
John Wells said...

I get free premium access to all the extra features on their website for free...that beats a T-shirt.

June 4, 2016 at 6:42 PM
Margery Billd said...

Wonderful. I see low flights around here at various hours. I even saw the space shuttle over me on its way back to CA. That was a highlight of my life. But I've got my hands full with other things. What a good service you will be doing for us.

June 4, 2016 at 7:19 PM
Jimrm said...

That's pretty cool, John. We run one here in Michigan. It's a raspberry pi in a box on an 80' tower connected to the home network over wifi. It's currently at around number 230 out of over 6000 receivers. The free enterprise account is $90 per month normally. My user name on flightaware is jimrm in case you want to look it up.

June 4, 2016 at 8:02 PM
Larry G said...

of course there is a perk!

"Become a part of the world’s largest ADS-B network
Gain better coverage in your area

Get a FREE Flightradar24 Premium subscription" <-----

:-)

June 4, 2016 at 8:55 PM
Margery Billd said...

What will you actually be doing and what are the benefits and points of interest to you? How does this work? I never heard of this before.

June 4, 2016 at 11:48 PM
neil said...

With the premium account you can use the smartphone app with full features.
One cool feature is the augmented reality view that uses the camera on the phone to display a live picture. Point the camera at a plane in the sky and it overlays a tag with the flight info on the live picture.
In some areas you can watch flights come in while also listening to the tower on streaming radio.
https://www.flightradar24.com/41.99,-87.83/11
http://tunein.com/radio/KORD-Chicago-Approach-(EastNorth)-s134700/

June 5, 2016 at 7:24 AM
Margery Billd said...

Will you be reporting the planes that go through your area and any that might look suspicious or is this just your curiosity fun toy?

June 5, 2016 at 9:42 AM

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