Plane spotting websites

[sonm10]

Can someone list all of the plane spotting sites and the pros/cons of each?

Which sites have the ability to turn on/off civil helos?
Which sites have the ability to turn on/off military/civil?
Thanks

 

[PACNWDude]

I use ADSBExchange and it does allow you to turn on/off military/government aircraft. Can't speak for the other ones, but I do host a feed, to see what is flying overhead of my home location, and what is military or government aircraft.

Sometimes I see oddball stuff like "balloons" at 60,000 feet doing a couple of hundred miles per hour....so not always accurate. Military aircraft are also shown with a hexadecimal ID at times instead of a tail number.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

Flightradar24. Pro: Better animations than ADSBExchange. Cons: Can't color code based on flight level (TMK) & since it's technically a "pay to play" service it times out after 30 minutes for free users but you can perpetually refresh the page to get another 30

 

[sonm10]

So, I answered one of my questions - how to filter helos. Using airplanes.live, under the category section, the code for helicopters is A7.

 

[StoliRaz]

Flightradar24. Pro: Better animations than ADSBExchange. Cons: Can't color code based on flight level (TMK) & since it's technically a "pay to play" service it times out after 30 minutes for free users but you can perpetually refresh the page to get another 30

Another con, at least with their android app- Ads, ads, ads. The annoying pop-up ads that commandeer your entire screen have made FR24 nearly unusable for more than quickly looking up one plane

 

[andy51edge]

Another con, at least with their android app- Ads, ads, ads. The annoying pop-up ads that commandeer your entire screen have made FR24 nearly unusable for more than quickly looking up one plane

ADSB exchange also has the dreaded Fullscreen ads. Makes me never want to buy the products being shown.

 

[PACNWDude]

For those mentioning ads, if you host your own feed, you get an ad free subscription to many of the aircraft and ship monitoring sites. In my case, I wanted to know what was overhead, without censorship of: military, federal government, or rich people's aircraft......so I put up my own receiver, upload to ADSBExchange, and was given an ad free access for sending my feed into the network.

 

[andy51edge]

For those mentioning ads, if you host your own feed, you get an ad free subscription to many of the aircraft and ship monitoring sites. In my case, I wanted to know what was overhead, without censorship of: military, federal government, or rich people's aircraft......so I put up my own receiver, upload to ADSBExchange, and was given an ad free access for sending my feed into the network.

I do the same. Using a raspberry pi and the ADSBX custom image I get the premium stuff for free from ADSBX, FR24, and FlightAware. They are taking this data and selling it on a commercial scale

 

[gootch]

Same here also. didn't know anything about raspberry pi or Linux. Overall pretty east to set up, and runs rock solid. set it up once and your all set.

 

[PACNWDude]

I do the same. Using a raspberry pi and the ADSBX custom image I get the premium stuff for free from ADSBX, FR24, and FlightAware. They are taking this data and selling it on a commercial scale

Yes, use a Raspberry Pi 2W myself for ADSBX feed. Has only dropped once in the past year or so, but that was power related......system lives in my attic and is very reliable.
Get a decent antenna, and in my case, live on the high ground in your area, and you can receive many aircraft.....I get roughly ~90-130 mile range in my area.

 

[BruceMichaels]

Ads? What Ads? Brave browser eliminates them.

 

[Scan125]

I feed Planefinder diectly from my PC with DUMP1090 and their PC Client. Most other sites no longer support a PC feed to get a free unrestricted account. I also use ADS-B Exchange and see no adds as I have blockers on Firefox.