Airports + ACARS

[Chris0516]

Is anyone monitoring these airports:

KRDU-Raleigh-Durham International Airport
KCLT-Charlotte/Douglas International Airport
KGSO-Piedmont Triad International Airport
KILM-Wilmington International Airport
KRIC-Richmond International Airport
KIAD-Dulles International Airport

I am also trying to get ACARS flight data communications going. But have been having a lot of trouble.

 

[VOXScanningYT]

Are you using an SDR or scanner? If you are using an SDR, try this:

RTL-SDR Tutorial: Receiving Airplane Data with ACARS

What is ACARS? ACARS is an acronym for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System which is a digital communications system that aircraft use to send and receive short messages to and from ground stations. Standard ACARS transmits at a frequency of 131.550 MHz, which is in the...

www.rtl-sdr.com

 

[Chris0516]

Are you using an SDR or scanner? If you are using an SDR, try this:

RTL-SDR Tutorial: Receiving Airplane Data with ACARS

What is ACARS? ACARS is an acronym for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System which is a digital communications system that aircraft use to send and receive short messages to and from ground stations. Standard ACARS transmits at a frequency of 131.550 MHz, which is in the...

www.rtl-sdr.com

I get those airports on my scanner. But for ACARS Data, I need to use something else. There is an update from last year. That ACARSD has become 'abandonware'. So, I won't use that.

 

[VOXScanningYT]

Sorry for the late response.

PlanePlotter from COAA

Would this work?

 

[eorange]

Listen on 131.55 to ensure you can actually receive the ACARS signal.

I use acarsdec with a rtl-sdr on a Raspberry Pi Zero to decode ACARS and it works like a champ.

 

[majoco]

I'm using ACARSD on an old laptop running WinXP and an Icom R7000 tuned to 131.55MHz running 24/7 and it works real well - but boring these days! Just a stereo audio cable from the R7000 record out socket to the 'line in' socket on the laptop.

 

[Chris0516]

Sorry for the late response.

PlanePlotter from COAA

Would this work?

The makers of Plane Plotter. Want to charge me $30+ST for a registered version. When I bought Proscan for my scanner. Sure I had to pay $50, but no ST.

 

[Chris0516]

Sorry for the late response.

PlanePlotter from COAA

Would this work?

The makers of Plane Plotter. Want to charge me $30+ST for a registered version. When I bought Proscan for my scanner. Sure I had to pay $50, but no ST.

Listen on 131.55 to ensure you can actually receive the ACARS signal.

I use acarsdec with a rtl-sdr on a Raspberry Pi Zero to decode ACARS and it works like a champ.

The Raspberry Pi doesn't make any sense to me.

I'm using ACARSD on an old laptop running WinXP and an Icom R7000 tuned to 131.55MHz running 24/7 and it works real well - but boring these days! Just a stereo audio cable from the R7000 record out socket to the 'line in' socket on the laptop.

The audio cable seems like the easiest. But after connecting it to the PC, what does the other end connect to ?

 

[majoco]

The other end goes to the "record out" socket on my Icom R7000 - a VHF/UHF receiver. You cannot use the scan facility or a scanner in squelched scan mode because a) you miss the start of the very short message and b) in order to lift the squelch you have to have a signal and once again you miss the start of the message, so you have to use the receiver 'unsquelched' . Therefore you have to plug the lead into the 'record' socket and turn the volume down, or just plug it into the headphone socket once you have set the volume to the right level.

 

[ind224]

I use a dedicated scanner with external speaker switching and KGACARS. The speaker terminals feed the audio into the computer (I "mono" the stereo plug) and once I have the input level adjusted correctly (display and sound) and a couple messages confirmed I can mute the speaker and watch messages while listing to tunes or other radios. Confirming you have a good chirp with the sync is a paramount. Stupid things like a plasma TV monitors a desktop PC or USB chargers can bugger what should be a usable signal. Over driving the audio will lead to no decode and frustration especially if you can't see the actual audio (not scanner signal) level like KGACARS provides.

 

[Chris0516]

I use a dedicated scanner with external speaker switching and KGACARS. The speaker terminals feed the audio into the computer (I "mono" the stereo plug) and once I have the input level adjusted correctly (display and sound) and a couple messages confirmed I can mute the speaker and watch messages while listing to tunes or other radios. Confirming you have a good chirp with the sync is a paramount. Stupid things like a plasma TV monitors a desktop PC or USB chargers can bugger what should be a usable signal. Over driving the audio will lead to no decode and frustration especially if you can't see the actual audio (not scanner signal) level like KGACARS provides.

I was reading this post again. While my main scanner is a BCD325p2. I also have a BC75XLT. The second one is not digital scanner. So, can I do ACARS with it?

 

[morfis]

I was reading this post again. While my main scanner is a BCD325p2. I also have a BC75XLT. The second one is not digital scanner. So, can I do ACARS with it?

Legacy VHF ACARS should be easy to decode from the audio of your scanner...131.550 AM and an audio cable from the speaker jack to the input of your computer. Use something like acarsdeco2 (that way if you do decide to change to a pi at some point you'll already be back in the swing of good old-fashioned command line execution.
acarsdeco can run a web server with a fairly nice output locally (though you can make it available to other parts of your home network or internet). Many other ways to collect the data and display it but as others have suggested...a raspberry pi is a better route to take (once set up you'd not need to touch it and could just view data via VNC or web browser on your usual PC) - a couple of cheap rtl devices and you can use the same pi to monitor VHF ACARS and ADSB at the same time. With a pi3b or avbove you could add in a couple more rtl devices and monitor VDL2 and HFDL too...

Planeplotter is FAR more than just an ACARS decoder (and the ACARS part is a trivial part of it). I guess ST means sales tax...fact of life here but for a UK business based in Portugal selling to NC I've no idea if Bev 'has to' charge it...e-mail him and check?

There are lots of other decoders for ACARS which use the audio out of a regular 'scanner' but you'll find few being actively developed as VHF legacy ACARS is on the way out

 

[Chris0516]

Legacy VHF ACARS should be easy to decode from the audio of your scanner...131.550 AM and an audio cable from the speaker jack to the input of your computer. Use something like acarsdeco2 (that way if you do decide to change to a pi at some point you'll already be back in the swing of good old-fashioned command line execution.
acarsdeco can run a web server with a fairly nice output locally (though you can make it available to other parts of your home network or internet). Many other ways to collect the data and display it but as others have suggested...a raspberry pi is a better route to take (once set up you'd not need to touch it and could just view data via VNC or web browser on your usual PC) - a couple of cheap rtl devices and you can use the same pi to monitor VHF ACARS and ADSB at the same time. With a pi3b or avbove you could add in a couple more rtl devices and monitor VDL2 and HFDL too...

Planeplotter is FAR more than just an ACARS decoder (and the ACARS part is a trivial part of it). I guess ST means sales tax...fact of life here but for a UK business based in Portugal selling to NC I've no idea if Bev 'has to' charge it...e-mail him and check?

There are lots of other decoders for ACARS which use the audio out of a regular 'scanner' but you'll find few being actively developed as VHF legacy ACARS is on the way out

Ok. I keep getting virus warning when I try to install Plane Plotter. Airspy works fine.

 

[morfis]

Ok. I keep getting virus warning when I try to install Plane Plotter. Airspy works fine.

If downloaded from COAA website then it's a false positive and not something I've ever seen on any version. Like most things these days there is a groups.io bulletin board thing for PlanePlotter. It's frequented by Bev and the other developers (I don't use that but will be easy to find). Doesn't cost anything to ask questions and the group is open to all not just for 'custmers' / 'network feeders'

Airspy? I haven't seen any ACARS decoding software called that (only cheaper hardware SDRs)

 

[Reconrider]

I've noticed that PDW ( POCSAG ) program says it decodes ACARS but I haven't tried it yet.
Has anyone tried this?

I'm not in range of an airport to test in vhf bands, but I can sort of get the 1.5GHz range and going to give a test later to see if it works.

I'm curious how it produces the info for us to read.

 

[morfis]

I'm not in range of an airport to test in vhf bands, but I can sort of get the 1.5GHz range and going to give a test later to see if it works.

Generally you'll see more downlinks than uplinks anyway so being close to an airport isn't esential.

 

[Chris0516]

If downloaded from COAA website then it's a false positive and not something I've ever seen on any version. Like most things these days there is a groups.io bulletin board thing for PlanePlotter. It's frequented by Bev and the other developers (I don't use that but will be easy to find). Doesn't cost anything to ask questions and the group is open to all not just for 'custmers' / 'network feeders'

Airspy? I haven't seen any ACARS decoding software called that (only cheaper hardware SDRs)

The COAA website is asking me to pay a registration fee. Is that right? Also, I don't have credit card. So, I can't pay the $30 they want in order to register the program.

 

[Reconrider]

Generally you'll see more downlinks than uplinks anyway so being close to an airport isn't esential.

Good info.
Would VHF acars have the same info as the 1.5GHz area?
I'm assuming the vhf would be more local stuff than the 1.5ghz at least - or at least I'm hoping lol

 

[frazpo]

I've noticed that PDW ( POCSAG ) program says it decodes ACARS but I haven't tried it yet.
Has anyone tried this?

I'm not in range of an airport to test in vhf bands, but I can sort of get the 1.5GHz range and going to give a test later to see if it works.

I'm curious how it produces the info for us to read.

I have tried PDW multiple times for ACARS and never any luck. I'm pretty seasoned with decoding acars and other modes using various sources and software but never could get it to work. If you happen to try it with success please let me know.

 

[Reconrider]

I have tried PDW multiple times for ACARS and never any luck. I'm pretty seasoned with decoding acars and other modes using various sources and software but never could get it to work. If you happen to try it with success please let me know.

Yeah I can't get it to work.
I was testing in the 1.5GHz range so maybe acars messages was less than what the VHF would be. But not sure if jaero will work on vhf or only 1.5GHz range