laptop radar

[kjfswkr]

Hi all,
I bought this book about the CIA's Rendidtion Flights and in they mentioned this radar system than cane be hooked up to a laptop. I am at work and can't remember the name of the British Company that makes them but I got a reply stating that they are no longer available in the USA.
Have any of you heard of this program and equipment and why it is no longer available in the US and has anyone used it?

Thanks,

Kevin aka KB2CYK

 

[kjfswkr]

Found it. Here is the link if anyone is inetrested.

Kevin

http://www.kinetic-avionics.co.uk/index.php

I just received an email stating the only reason it is not available in the US is because of costs, customs tariffs, etc

 

[NAVCAN]

Found it. Here is the link if anyone is inetrested.

Kevin

http://www.kinetic-avionics.co.uk/index.php

I just received an email stating the only reason it is not available in the US is because of costs, customs tariffs, etc

And ADS/B is not completely implemented in the US or Canada either.

 

[morfis]

And ADS/B is not completely implemented in the US or Canada either.

Nor the rest of the world but it will be mandatory soon.

 

[kjfswkr]

Thanks for the replies guys. What would a person use that would be comparable to the above mentioned system and that would do basically the same thing?

Kevin aka KB2CYK

 

[NAVCAN]

lol. A PSR/SSR radar system. Or Track Via internet.

Im on an SSR course at the moment, What are the odds.

32 days of training on how to fix it

 

[SkipSanders]

The easy (and cheap) way to look at your local air traffic is to go here:

Flight Aware

Register, it's free. The only limit is that the Homeland Insecurity folks require that the positions are delayed by about 5-10 minutes. You can specify a display centered on any airport.

 

[DaveNF2G]

The delay makes FlightAware and its ilk practically useless for scanner listeners. An aircraft can transit an entire sector or more in 5 minutes.

 

[kjfswkr]

Tracking via the Internet means that you have to have an Internet connection. What is you are on the road and want to track at a local airport in your car? I believe the Kinetics system would be the right solution if it is used more in the USA.

Kevin

 

[SkipSanders]

Well, judging by the european prices, you're talking about around $1000 USD plus shipping to buy this puppy (presumably, you could import one if you wished). Right now, you'd mostly only see commercial airliners, but eventually everyone is supposed to add this function to their transponders. It's certainly a neat system, just rather expensive for what you get.

Were I rich, I'd snap one up for the gadget value, but I'm not.

A related program, available cheaply, is here which will take output from the Kinetics unit, and also will let you receive and plot ACARS transmissions from VHF, rather easier to aquire.

Found another site, here with 'threats caused by ADS-B', which happens to give a source for a supposedly usable $200 receiver for 1090 MHz transponders.

 

[kjfswkr]

Hi Skip,
I am a gadget guy also but far from rich. I would love to have one myself but have other priorities. I just mainly brought it up for discussion.

Kevin aka KB2CYK

 

[morfis]

A related program, available cheaply, is here which will take output from the Kinetics unit, and also will let you receive and plot ACARS transmissions from VHF, rather easier to aquire.

Even easier to carry on away from the original subject is to use acarsd (see the numerous previous threads) as that is free. ACARS and HFDL are both more common atm.

To go back towards the subject, most USAF transports use Mode-S.

There are a lot of aircraft with Mode-S transponders which will NOT plot using the Kinetics software as it doesn't use all of the transmitted data.

 

[jetcos]

"Poor mans" SBS

Just a thought for those folks that want to track aircraft using ACARS

http://www.coaa.co.uk/planeplotter.htm


Thinking about checking it out with the Demo first. Anyone else tried it?


Steve

 

[SkipSanders]

I've been playing with ACARS for the last few days (San Diego area), and so far, I've found the best software I could find, both for reliable decode and versatility, was this one:

ACARSD freeware for Windows and Linux.

It provides direct decoding (of up to 4 sound cards at once, for multifrequency monitoring!), the ability to receive streamed ACARS data or act as a stream server itself, and also auto-downloads pictures (when available, and many are) of the specific aircraft (by tail registration) when you hear from them. It does allow map plotting of ACARS postion reports, as well, but see below.

However, at least in this area, location reporting by ACARS is very rare. I wouldn't expect to use it to 'track' local traffic the way the transponder tracker does. The better area for ACARS tracking would be HF radio ACARS from overseas flights. Even when position reports are 'on' from an aircraft, they're only every 5-10 minutes, looks like. The only aircraft seen doing position reports were international flights.

 

[radio10-8]

I really want to try this out. I have even started a thread about it. I know what you are saying about internet connection and delay in flight aware. I travel to remote areas for owrk where I DO NOT have cellular connection so this laptop radar really interests me. maybe once it becomes more popular in usage in USA i'll fork over the $1,000 for it and either love it or send it back. If anyone does try it. please lets us all know how it worked for you.

 

[sailor]

Hi,
the system is now available in the US for $899, take a look here
http://www.red1radar.com/

 

[OZ_Redneck]

Hi,
the system is now available in the US for $899, take a look here
http://www.red1radar.com/

Wow, the live demo was cool.

 

[N8CBG]

Hi,
the system is now available in the US for $899, take a look here
http://www.red1radar.com/

Thanks! What a great way to watch your fleet of rental aircraft. I came from a TV news background in helicopters and this thing would be great for the news assignment desk to check up on the chopper's location without calling them over the radio, not to mention watching the other helicopters in the area. All I would need them to do is to include a street map of an area for the overlay.

 

[sailor]

Here are some more live pictures

from Stockholm, Sweden
http://www.flygbilligt.com/radar/svealand.asp

 

[SkipSanders]

While they're delayed 10 minutes (Our friends the Homeland Stupidity folks), here's a group of RSS Radar feeds from various airports with good ground maps, adjustable range, etc.

Passur Radar Sites