Category: Airband

Frugal Radio: Monitoring HF Aviation Voice Communications with your SDR Radio or a WebSDR

Rob from Frugal Radio has recently uploaded the next episode in his excellent YouTube series on Aviation monitoring. In this episode Rob covers HF aviation communications. Rob writes:

Whether you are using a Software Defined Radio (SDR), an old school HF receiver, or utilizing a WebSDR, there is plenty to monitor when you know where to look.

This video will give you the basics of where to find the Aviation Communications that take place from 3-30 MHz (HF / Shortwave).

This episode covers VOLMET broadcasts, the Major World Air Route Areas (MWARA), and Military Nets like the US Global Communications System (HFGCS).

Remember, these signals travel thousands of miles. It can be quite exciting to receive them over such great distances. When editing this video I was listening to a VOLMET station in Auckland, New Zealand - a distance of over 7500 miles (12,200km) away!

Monitoring HF Aviation Voice Communications with your SDR Radio or a WebSDR

Frugal Radio: Decoding ACARS on VHF with your SDR Radio

Rob from Frugal Radio has recently uploaded episode five in his YouTube series on Aviation monitoring. This episode covers VHF ACARS decoding with an RTL-SDR. ACARS is an acronym for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System and is a short text based wireless communications system used by aircraft when communicating with ground stations.

In the video Rob overviews the frequencies that ACARS is transmitted on in various regions of the world and what equipment you need to decode ACARS. He goes on to explain in depth what some typical data messages that you might receive are including D-ATIS/WX Reports, Pre Departure Clearance, Loadsheets, OOOI, Aircraft performance telemetry, ATC/Oceanic Clearances and arrival airport and parking gate information. Finally he shows various ACARS software decoders that can be used including ACARSDEC, Black Cat ACARS and ACARSDECO2.

Decoding ACARS on VHF with your SDR Radio - Monitoring Aviation Communications Ep 5

Frugal Radio: Monitoring General Aviation VHF Communications

Rob from Frugal Radio has recently uploaded the next part his airband monitoring series. This episode covers the topic of monitoring General Aviation communications, which consists of communications with non-military and non-airline aircraft.

In the video Rob discusses what you might hear on general aviation channels, including things like parachuters, news helicopters, air ambulances, police aircraft, aerial surveyors, ultralights, aerobatics, flight training, private and corporate, and sightseeing. He then discusses the various frequencies in use in Canada, North America and the UK.

Monitoring General Aviation Communications in VHF Air Band

Tech Minds: Using BaseStation Software with any ADSB Hardware + XRange2 Demonstration

BaseStation is an old ADS-B visualization program that was originally made to be used with BaseStation SBS receivers which were commonly used for ADS-B reception before the discovery of the RTL-SDR. Many old time ADS-B enthusiasts may already be set up with this software and would like to continue using it, however may have a dead SBS unit, or simply want to use a more modern receiver.

In his latest video Tech Minds demonstrates how you can use the ModeSMixer software to translate ADS-B data coming from an RTL-SDR compatible program like dump1090 into the BaseStation data format.

How To Use BaseStation With ANY ADSB Hardware - Software ModeSMixer

Tech Minds has also released an earlier video demonstrating the AirNav RadarBox XRange2. This appears to be essentially an ADS-B optimized RTL-SDR and Raspberry Pi in a plastic box, with custom SD Card set up and ready to go. At a price of US$299 it is quite an expensive premium to pay, but it may be of use to aviation enthusiasts who have poor technical computer skills that still want to set up a home aircraft tracking station.

Airnav Radarbox XRANGE 2 - Enhanced ADSB Standalone Receiver

Frugal Radio: Monitoring En Route Air Traffic Control, Oceanic Clearances, and Company Frequencies

Rob from Frugal Radio has recently uploaded part three in his airband monitoring series. The the last video Rob discussed what communications can be received from the airport. In this weeks video Rob explains how air traffic control is handled over large areas, and also shows examples of what you might hear when an aircraft communicates with it's parent company.

Air Traffic Control Centres provide ATC coverage across most of the globe. This video gives an overview of how you can listen to pilots and Air Traffic Controllers as along their routes.

This video talks about the en route Air Traffic Control systems in the USA (ARTCC managed by the FAA), UK (managed by NATS) and Canada (managed by Nav Canada).

Company frequencies are also covered in this video, along with examples of conversations received at my location in the last few days.

Monitoring En Route Air Traffic Control, Oceanic Clearances, and Company Frequencies

Frugal Radio: Monitoring VHF Airband Aviation Frequencies at the Airport

Rob from Frugal Radio has recently uploaded the next video in his airband monitoring series. In this video Rob explains various airband communications that can be received from the airport, and explains about needing to be in the line of sight of an airport in order to receive them.

He goes on to explain signals and airport radio communications channels such as ATIS, Clearance Delivery, Tower, Arrivals (Approach), Departures, Radar and Terminal communications. The video provides various examples of these communications being received with an SDRplay software defined radio.

Monitoring VHF Airband Aviation Frequencies at the Airport

Frugal Radio: Monitoring Aviation Communications Part One

Rob from Frugal Radio has recently started a new YouTube series all about monitoring aviation communications. In his first video Rob gives an overview on what can be aviation signals can monitored and recommends a few hardware scanners as well as software defined radios for monitoring.

This is an introductory video to my new series aimed about monitoring aviation communications. Throughout the series we will talk about:

  • Civil Airband (aka VHF airband)
  • Military Airband (aka UHF airband)
  • HF Aeronautical communications
  • Decoding aircraft data on HF and VHF
  • Decoding CPDLC transmissions and much more!
  • Good frequency scanners to use, like the Uniden BC125AT and BCT-15X
  • Recommended Software Defined Radios (SDR)
Monitoring Aviation Communications - Part 1

Analyzing Frozen Air Traffic in the Hudson Valley

Thank you to Steve Bossert (K2GOG) for submitting his article on analyzing traffic from his RTL-SDR based ADS-B receiver during the recent heavy snow storms at his location in the Hudson Valley. His graphs show a huge drop off in air traffic and ADS-B packets received during the storms.

Aside from these results, Steve's post goes on to explain how he gathers and stores these analytics and an example of using the Graphs1090 software for producing nice plots of the aircraft receive. One important tip that he mentions is to be careful when constantly logging ADS-B data to the SD card as the card can easily get corrupted over time since there are read/write cycle limits.

Air traffic graphs showing the effect of the latest snow storm on air traffic