HFDL Basic Question

[w3wor]

May sound stupid to ask. But have been in the SWL/Ham arena for 30 yrs. Been monitoring ACARS/VHF for at least 10 years. But the HFDL is all new to me. I have been monitoring several HFDL channels for the past week or so and plotting the planes received via their Registration number and double checking against the flight number, if transmitted. I live in Northeast U.S. and I am getting signals from South America, the mid Atlantic, etc. Now I know all about propagation and USB signals, etc. but I just want to confirm - the signals I receive with HFDL reports, with the flight number, planes, registration number, etc. --are they coming direct from the aircraft in flight or via some relay, either through one of the ground stations like Riverhead,,,or..../? Before I get too excited over these reception reports, if you will on my HFDL software, I want to make sure I have something to get excited about -

Thanks,

 

[majoco]

There is a very good explanation of how HFDL works on the PC-HFDL website - and yes, you are receiving the signal direct from the aircraft. I haven't looked in quite a while, but I used to get the plots on Google Earth right up into mainland China, the US west coast and way out into the Indian Ocean from NZ.

 

[w3wor]

Thanks, I'll look at that on the PCHFDL site....take care

 

[ka3jjz]

Where is this 'PC-HFDL' website? The only one I know of is the Yahoo group....Mike

 

[majoco]

Well, it was at...

I am sorry but my last website got deleted

....but I see that Charles has had some problems.....

 

[SCPD]

Where is this 'PC-HFDL' website? The only one I know of is the Yahoo group....Mike

You can post the d/l link on RR I would presume...

http://www.chbrain.dircon.co.uk/download/PC-HFDL 2.042 Setup.zip

 

[SCPD]

There is a very good explanation of how HFDL works on the PC-HFDL website - and yes, you are receiving the signal direct from the aircraft.

Well, not all of the signals. You need to use PC-HFDL to see which signals are the aircraft and which signals are the HFDL ground stations.

If you use PC-HFDL and tie in with Google Earth or DX Atlas then once you see the aircraft on the map then you know you're receiving data from the a/c.

The HFDL messages that are received can be entertaining. These are saved in the HFDL folder by timestamp. After several hours of monitoring go back and look through these. You'll find everything from Football scores, maintenance information, security warnings, etc.

Here's a detailed explanation of the HFDL system straight from the horse's mouth:

http://www.icao.int/safety/acp/inactive working groups library/amcp 5/item-1e.pdf