Acars

[morfis]

Acars has always been popular in Europe but seems to be growing in the States now as well. It's fun and pretty cheap and combines well with radio monitoring and tracking. Adkad

Of the first three people I know monitoring ACARS for hobby interest one was in the USA and two were in the UK. All three were more interested in the technology/system than in tracking aircraft or using it as a surrogate spotting tool.
ACARS was used in the USA a long time before it started to spread around the world (with ARINC doing their best, Motorola style, to prevent competitors from getting involved and seriously limiting access to the data terminals).

 

[Newark777]

Some scanners are pretty quick on the squelch, while others like the Pro-97 just absolutely suck, even when the squelch is as far left without actually being "off" as possible. For me I have 2 frequencies I want to monitor (169.800 (CO, AA, NW) and 169.850 (DL, JB, General Aviation, Shuttle America, etc.) ) but don't have 2 scanners so I tried the squelch method with my Pro-97, didn't work out too good lol.

Funny you mention that. When I upgraded to my Pro-97, I noticed my ACARS hits just plummet. So now one of my old mothballed scanners is my dedicated ACARS scanners, and I couldn't be happier.

 

[adkad]

Of the first three people I know monitoring ACARS for hobby interest one was in the USA and two were in the UK. All three were more interested in the technology/system than in tracking aircraft or using it as a surrogate spotting tool.
ACARS was used in the USA a long time before it started to spread around the world (with ARINC doing their best, Motorola style, to prevent competitors from getting involved and seriously limiting access to the data terminals).

That may be true, but as a hobby I think you would find it more popular in Europe. If you join any of the on-line groups the majority of contributors are from Europe and most use Acars as a tracking hobby. I'm not sure what your point is. Adkad

 

[morfis]

That may be true, but as a hobby I think you would find it more popular in Europe. If you join any of the on-line groups the majority of contributors are from Europe and most use Acars as a tracking hobby. I'm not sure what your point is. Adkad

No "point" as such though I suppose I find it strange that the first person to write at any length about the subject was in the USA (Ed Flynn, real gentleman and a pleasure to meet him before the rest of the world had woken up to ACARS!).

Definitely a mode for spotter anoraks

 

[adkad]

yes that would be cool. I have tried many times to find his book but have never been able to get it. Adkad

 

[Yokoshibu]

I was gonna mention going back to the squelch on or off... sq off with my discone on 136.85 I would get 2900-3700ish hits per 24 hours with 2 scanning radios I could manage to get about 6,000-7000 hits per 24 hours.... I got some really good tracks on my maps at times

oh and I was using an ft-60R for that at the time and crappy scanner ... ft-60R 108-137mhz has a .8 uV (typ for 10 db) many of the unidens radio shacks and others are about 1.2-1.5 uV and that sensitivity with AM makes a pretty large difference ... If I could run agc on my ft-60r I probably would be picking stuff up over michigan and indiana (I live in omaha ne)

 

[Newark777]

I was gonna mention going back to the squelch on or off... sq off with my discone on 136.85 I would get 2900-3700ish hits per 24 hours with 2 scanning radios I could manage to get about 6,000-7000 hits per 24 hours.... I got some really good tracks on my maps at times

Whereabouts are you tracking from, just out of curiosity?

 

[Yokoshibu]

omaha

 

[Newark777]

omaha

It must be great to get that many. Here in the NYC area, with a so-so setup for ACARS, I get up to 500 a day, which I thought was pretty good until I saw your results.

 

[kicktd]

I average around 800 unique hits if I leave my scanner on the ACARS freq. all morning/day/night. Not bad for where I'm at.

 

[Yokoshibu]

136.85 out here is considerably more dense than 131.55 and around 10-11 am when all the east coast flights get here it's just non stop... till about 10-11 pm when the late night flights and a few fedex and ups flights are3 on their way to Louisville and Memphis