ADSB. ACARS. VDL2. Data Decoding website for Southern California

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thebaldgeek

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I cleaned up both tables, but I think we need the aircraft to ground station put back to what it was so we know which aircraft was talking to which ground station?
 

AirScan

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The ground station part looks good. Although there is a minor glitch with 10314A, it always comes up with a [ displayed before it.

For the aircraft to ground station part, could you display it without the labels so it looks like this "A5320B -> 10500A" ?
 

AirScan

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Aircraft ID table looks good now.

I notice that the ground station "10314A" is coming up by itself in the Aircraft ID Table as well as the Station ID Table with the same count as the "] 10314A" station (with the bracket in front). There is also a different "10314A" with a different count in the Station ID Table. At first I thought this was a glitch but now I'm thinking maybe the one with the bracket "] 10314A" is indicating uplink messages from the ground station (ONT - Ontario) ?

However while these uplinks are being counted the actual uplink messages themselves are not being displayed in either the scrolling Raw Messages window or when "10314A" is entered in the Ground Station filter.

Is there something in the setup that is blocking the uplinks from being displayed ? If this is what is happening, any chance this can be fixed so that the uplinks can be displayed too ?

AS
 

thebaldgeek

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Whoa. Nice catch.
Your right, it is a ground station! Our first.
I wrote some code to just catch messages to and from 10314A.
Here is a message from it.
[2019-03-07 14:36:12 UTC] [136.975] [-32.3/-49.4 dBFS] [17.1 dB] [0.2 ppm]10314A (Ground station, On ground) -> AAA4B3 (Aircraft): CommandAVLC type: I sseq: 0 rseq: 0 poll: 0ACARS: Reg: .N785SK Flight: Mode: 2 Label: 35 Blk id: Q Ack: ! Msg no.: Message: ?????

A few comments.... I just got a new ground station (Raspberry Pi) near ONT. So that explains why we have only just now started to see a ground station. Both PHX and Temecula are not close enough to any airport to hear ground station traffic.
The second comment is that the data formatting is different when it is from a ground station vs to a ground station.
I will need to write some 'tricky' code to see which direction it is going before I filter it.
I have never done anything like that before, checking the direction before filtering it, I'm a little bit excited to have a go at it.

Wondering if we should pull these ground originating messages out and display them in a separate section?
 

AirScan

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Wondering if we should pull these ground originating messages out and display them in a separate section?

That would be helpful, given how fast they would scroll off the screen with all the airborne traffic. What would be good though is when selecting 10314A in the filter that it would display both uplinks and downlinks so you could follow the "conversation".

Any chance you could put a clear button on the "Ground Station or Aircraft Filter" data like with what you have on the Tables ?

It looks like you are going to surpass 80 ground stations on that Table. Can you fit in one more row to take it to 90 ? Can the first 10 box be re-sized so that all the columns are constant width ?

Looking forward to seeing those uplinks.
 

thebaldgeek

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Small update.
I am now using a VFO plugin on SDR# for my Inmarsat receiver and thus am getting 4 times the amount of ACARS traffic from the satellite.
Sadly, I am still having a lot of trouble decoding position information, so cant plot the aircraft position on my multi-function/heat map.
We will keep working on it, but its good to know that we pretty have all ACARS data from this bird coming into the system now.
 

airwolfbell222

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Small update.
I am now using a VFO plugin on SDR# for my Inmarsat receiver and thus am getting 4 times the amount of ACARS traffic from the satellite.
Sadly, I am still having a lot of trouble decoding position information, so cant plot the aircraft position on my multi-function/heat map.
We will keep working on it, but its good to know that we pretty have all ACARS data from this bird coming into the system now.

If you try SDR Console, it comes with 24 VFOs and is really stable
 

thebaldgeek

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Another update.
We are now decoding C-Band ADSB data (and soon ACARS).
It requires about a 6 foot dish so its taken me a little while to get it going, but its worth it.
inmarsat planes on a map at last.PNG
 

AirScan

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We are now starting to decode and display CPDLC and weather report ACARS messages from Inmarsat 4-F3

Thanks for the update ! I've been trying to figure out a way to download the data from your site as its generated directly into a file at my end. I've tried using a web data scraper but I can't get it to work so far ? The data is great but only being able to see 10 lines at a time is very limiting and not very practical if there is a lot of data flowing.
 

thebaldgeek

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We are working on a central ACARS server where the plan is that myself and others will feed their data into and then you can get what you need from there. In the short term, PM me and we can just feed you the data, I am already doing that with a few people that want the raw data.
 

Smithy1

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What a fantastic project - awesome!

On your I4-F3 page, the reports identified as weather reports are ADS-C position reports. These are sent by aircraft in response to a 'contract' uplinked by ATC which typically requests a position report every 12.8 minutes. There are also a number of lateral or vertical conformance parameters that can be requested. You can see examples of the contract request uplinks that the aircraft respond to automatically under the INMARSAT tab. A searchable CPDLC database would be great, but the quantity of data may be daunting!

S1
 

thebaldgeek

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Thanks! Its been a lot of work putting all the data sources together and getting the web pages built.

You are not the first to ask for a CPDLC database.... @AirScan also has mentioned it. Looks like we will have to start thinking about doing something other than just live data.
The issue is two fold. Yes, there is a LOT of data and secondly, what format and how to make it available is tricky.

Thanks for your comment and the extra info on the ADS-C reports.
 

thebaldgeek

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The GUI is Node-RED. I use it both for the front end (the web interface) and for the back end word filtering and so on.
I use dumpvdl2 for the 4 location receivers and they feed their data into Node-RED via UDP.

Are you saying that you would like to work with my database? If so, sorry, I don't really have one. It is a live system and only keeps the past hour or so.
But I'm not sure what you are looking to do...?
 

thebaldgeek

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Yes, thats exactly what I do.
You can see and use the database on that website you listed.
The data goes back about 1 hour.
 

thebaldgeek

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Great work, I'm enjoying your sites! I notice some of the ACARS messages have a text to speech function?

Thanks!

Scott/WB2UZR

Yes, thats correct. I like having the site up, but not having to read every new message that comes in while I am busy on other tasks.
You can mute the browser tab if you don't like it, but most users have commented they find it really helpful.

Glad you are finding the sites of use. A lot of work by a lot of people has gone into them.
 

thebaldgeek

thebaldgeek
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SoCal
Another update.
Any maritime interest? I am now receiving Inmarsat SafetyNET messages and have added a page (at the bottom of the list) for them.
I have built a rough word filter into the stream with a text-to-speech engine that announces each message type as they come in.
This helps keep you informed without having to have your eyes glued to the monitor since the messages only come in about 5-6 times an hour.
 
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