VDL2 Ground Stations

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

Yesterday I had a long drive to Eastern Maryland due to traffic and accidents. Along the way I had dumpvdl2 running and was able to get quite a few ground stations. The trip back will not be as hectic, and use a different route, so I should get more. I want to sort out the NYC area airports.
10204A KBWI 39.2N 76.7W Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport
10288A KADW 38.8N 76.9W Joint Base Andrews
102C1A KTEB 40.9N 74.1W Teterboro Airport
102C3A KMMU 40.8N 74.4W Morristown Municipal Airport
10347A KPHL 39.9N 75.2W Philadelphia International Airport
10405A KEWR 40.7N 74.2W Newark Liberty International Airport
10456A KHPN 41.1N 73.7W Westchester County Airport
104C3A KTTN 40.3N 74.8W Trenton Mercer Airport
104CCA KHVN 41.3N 72.9W Tweed-New Haven Regional Airport
104CDA KILG 39.7N 75.6W New Castle Airport
10502A KPHL 39.9N 75.2W Philadelphia International Airport
1054BA KBWI 39.2N 76.7W Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport
10552A KEWR 40.7N 74.2W Newark Liberty International Airport
215D37 KBWI 39.2N 76.7W Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport
215D38 KBWI 39.2N 76.7W Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport
22DE57 KEWR 40.7N 74.2W Newark Liberty International Airport
2441D7 KHPN 41.1N 73.7W Westchester County Airport
282197 KPHL 39.9N 75.2W Philadelphia International Airport
282198 KPHL 39.9N 75.2W Philadelphia International Airport
2A1457 KTEB 40.8N 74.1W Teterboro Airport

73 Eric

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

Most of these DC area airport addresses are known, but I found a couple of unknowns.
10142A KIAD 38.9N 77.5W Washington Dulles International Airport
10509A KIAD 39.0N 77.5W Washington Dulles International Airport
10516A KDCA 38.9N 77.0W Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
10545A KDCA 38.9N 77.0W Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
220C37 KDCA 38.9N 77.0W Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
220C38 KDCA 38.9N 77.0W Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
248497 KIAD 38.9N 7.5W [lon is miscoded] Washington Dulles International Airport
248498 KIAD 38.9N 77.5W Washington Dulles International Airport

73 Eric

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

My trip is over and I made a few short diversions to grab more ground stations. I wanted to sort out the ground stations in the New York City area since there are a number of them close together.
10147A KJFK 40.6N 73.8W John F. Kennedy International Airport
10201A KLGA 40.8N 73.9W LaGuardia Airport
10259A KSWF 41.5N 74.1W New York Stewart International Airport
102C0A KFRG 40.7N 73.4W Republic Airport (East Farmingdale, New York)
10309A KBDL 41.9N 72.7W Bradley International Airport
10348A KISP 40.8N 73.1W Long Island Mac Arthur Airport
10349A KALB 42.7N 73.8W Albany International Airport
1038BA KACY 39.5N 74.6W Atlantic City International Airport
10508A KJFK 40.6N 73.8W John F. Kennedy International Airport
10547A KLGA 40.8N 73.9W LaGuardia Airport
208F37 KACY 39.5N 74.6W Atlantic City International Airport
22DE58 KEWR 40.7N 74.2W Newark Liberty International Airport
251977 KJFK 40.6N 73.8W John F. Kennedy International Airport
251978 KJFK 40.6N 73.8W John F. Kennedy International Airport
251979 KJFK 40.6N 73.8W John F. Kennedy International Airport
261C37 KLGA 39.1N 84.7W [pos is miscoded] LaGuardia Airport
261C38 KLGA 36.1N 115.1W [pos is miscoded] LaGuardia Airport

73 Eric

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

I added my confirmed ground station information to the VDL2 ground station list in the Wiki.
https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/ACARS

73 Eric

 

[kma371]

Hello,

I added my confirmed ground station information to the VDL2 ground station list in the Wiki.
https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/ACARS

73 Eric

Wish we could confirm a lot of more the southern California ones. Many unidentified. I think I found all I could in the SF Bay area.

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

I did more looking at my log files and I found a ground station that I received directly, but did not copy the FFFFFF broadcast. I was near KBDL at the time and the only other station I was receiving was from KBDL. So I am confident that it is KBDL. I updated the Wiki.

211197 KBDL 41.9N 72.7W Bradley International Airport

73 Eric

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

I found an interesting pattern when I looked at the SITA addresses I found during my latest trip. If the SITA ground stations were sorted in numerical order, the identifiers were in alphabetical order. It did not make sense when I added known SITA ground stations in other parts of the world. Since the ICAO identifiers for the Contiguous United States are the IATA identifiers with a K prefix added, I tried the IATA identifiers for the stations outside North America and got excellent results. 15 bits of the hex code are formed from the IATA identifier. The 16th bit seems to indicate if the station is on the main VDL2 frequency or an alternate frequency.

The least-significant-digit of the hex address indicates a radio "node" at a location using the digits of 7, 8, and 9 and the digit to the left of the least-significant-digit being odd (1,3,5,7,9,B,D,F). I suspect when we start to see usage of 136.800 MHz, the least-significant-digit will use 1, 2, and 3 with the digit to the left of the least-significant-digit being even (0,2,4,6,8,A,C,E).

So the first four bits (most-significant-digit) is 0010 (2) for a SITA ground station. The following five bits is the first letter of the IATA identifier, the following five bits is the second letter of the IATA identifier and the following five bits is the third letter of the IATA identifier, and the following bit is the indicator that the node is on the main VDL2 channel.

213E77 = 0010 00010 01111 10011 1 0111 = SITA BOS 136.975 Radio Node 1
213E78 = 0010 00010 01111 10011 1 1000 = SITA BOS 136.975 Radio Node 2
213E61 = 0010 00010 01111 10011 0 0001 = SITA BOS 136.800 Radio Node 1 (Likely address based on Europe.)

Letter Table
A 00001
B 00010
C 00011
D 00100
E 00101
F 00110
G 00111
H 01000
I 01001
J 01010
K 01011
L 01100
M 01101
N 01110
O 01111
P 10000
Q 10001
R 10010
S 10011
T 10100
U 10101
V 10110
W 10111
X 11000
Y 11001
Z 11010

I do not know if the codes above Z are used. 00000 is likely a space character.

I was able to write a simple formula for Libreoffice that converts the SITA addresses. It takes a hex address at I2.
=CONCATENATE(CHAR(MOD(HEX2DEC(I2)/32768, 32)+64),CHAR(MOD(HEX2DEC(I2)/1024, 32)+64),CHAR(MOD(HEX2DEC(I2)/32, 32)+64))
I had problems if I used a A2 cell reference.

73 Eric

 

[AirScan]

Eric,

(I'm on the other mailing list as well, but I'll post here too).

acars-vdl2 groups.io Group

Thanks again for posting that information !

Using your formula and logs from Ottawa, New York and Toronto, I was able to confirm these active SITA ground stations. Are you getting any more in Boston that are not on this list ?

208F37 - ACY
209C77 - AGC
20C1D7 - APN
20C1D8 - APN
211197 - BDL
211DB7 - BGM
213E77 - BOS
213E78 - BOS
2154D7 - BUF
2154D8 - BUF
215D37 - BWI
215D38 - BWI
21B0B7 - CLE
21B517 - CMH
21CAF7 - CRW
220C37 - DCA
220C38 - DCA
2252F7 - DTW
2252F8 - DTW
22DE57 - EWR
233A97 - FNT
23CA57 - GRR
23CDF7 - GSO
2441D7 - HPN
245277 - HTS
248497 - IAD
248498 - IAD
251977 - JFK
251978 - JFK
251979 - JFK
260D77 - LCK
261C37 - LGA
261C38 - LGA
2692F7 - MDW
26ACB7 - MKE
26C697 - MQT
26C698 - MQT
27C898 - ORD
27C8D7 - ORD
282197 - PHL
282198 - PHL
282697 - PIT
285897 - PVD
2912B7 - RDU
2A1457 - TEB
2CB717 - YMX
2CD597 - YUL
2CE757 - YYZ

Great Circle Mapper

Cheers,

AS

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

Here are additional GS from my Bowie, MD trip that are not on your list.
208d77 ACK
208d78 ACK
211db8 BGM
211e57 BGR
211e58 BGR
21b297 CLT
21b298 CLT
22ddd7 EWN
22de58 EWR
27c8d7 ORF

73 Eric

 

[AirScan]

Thanks Eric.

 

[DaveNF2G]

I was going to post my most recent clean update, but it is now too long for a message.