Arun Venkataswamy has recently completed a write up about his system which automatically captures images of passing aircraft. It works by using a Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR to listen to ADS-B broadcasts from aircraft. These broadcasts contain the live current location and altitude of all aircraft in his area. When a landing aircraft is detected to be passing near his house, the Raspberry Pi sends a signal to another Raspberry Pi connected to a camera on his balcony, and that snaps a photo of the passing aircraft.
In terms of software, Arun uses dump1090 as the ADS-B decoder. For communications between the two Raspberry Pi's he uses Node-RED and Mosquitto in order to communicate with MQTT. On the second Raspberry Pi, gPhoto2 captures images from the camera, and then ImageMagick is used to write some text about the aircraft and photo on the image. Arun's post goes in further detail about the code and conditions he uses to determine when a photo should be snapped.
In the past we've posted about a similar project where an RTL-SDR and Raspberry Pi based ADS-B tracker was used with a servo mounted video camera to track and record video of passing aircraft.
Automatically Taking Photos of Passing Aircraft with a Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR
ADSB Flight Tracker is an Android App that allows you to display ADS-B flight data in either 2D or 3D. It works either with data shared from others over the internet via aggregation sites like adsbexchange.com, or via your own home ADS-B receiver data coming from an RTL-SDR and dump1090 server on your home network. You can also directly connect to an RTL-SDR that is running on your phone and this will allow you to get data faster with less lag. Using data shared by others from the internet could have a delay of a few seconds.
In order to keep using the 3D and RTL-SDR features you'll need to unlock them for a small in-app purchase of $2 for each feature. Initially you get about 30 minutes trial time however.
2D and 3D Screenshots from ADS-B Flight Tracker
Some interesting 3D videos were also recently posted to the apps Twitter page @ADSBFlightTrkr.
In April, a stock research firm told clients that a Gulfstream V owned by Houston-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. had been spotted at an Omaha airport. The immediate speculation was that Occidental executives were negotiating with Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to get financial help in their $38 billion offer for rival Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Two days later, Buffett announced a $10 billion investment in Occidental.
There’s some evidence that aircraft-tracking can be used to get an early read on corporate news. A 2018 paper from security researchers at the University of Oxford and Switzerland’s federal Science and Technology department, tracked aircraft from three dozen public companies and identified seven instances of mergers-and-acquisitions activity. “It probably shouldn’t be your prime source of investing information, but as a feeder, as an alert of something else what might be going on, that’s where this work might be useful,” says Matthew Smith, a researcher at Oxford’s computer science department and one of the authors.
"Alternative data" collection firms like Quandl Inc. have services like "corporate aviation intelligence", where they use ADS-B data to keep tabs on private aircraft, then sell their data on to hedge funds and other investors who are hoping to gain an edge in the stock market.
Popular flight tracking sites that aggregate ADS-B data like FlightAware and FlightRadar24 censor data from private jets on their public maps upon the request of the owner, but it's not known if they continue to sell private jet data on to other parties. ADS-B Exchange is one ADS-B aggregator that promises to never censor flights, however the data is only free for non-commercial use. The value from using companies like Quandl is that they probably have a much more accurate database of who each private jet belongs to.
A while back we posted about flight tracking company RadarBox.com who had launched their 1090 MHz ADS-B optimized RTL-SDR. Like other ADS-B optimized RTL-SDR's, the dongle contains a 1090 MHz filter and a low noise amplifier that reduces the noise figure, resulting in better SNR, and thus more planes spotted at further distances.
We spoke with RadarBox and asked if they could provide a low cost RTL-SDR + Antenna bundle for us. That bundle is now available in our store for $49.95 + shipping. Shipping takes about 2-3 weeks and costs between $10 - $25 depending on your country. Shipping costs will automatically added to the cart on checkout (please ignore other shipping options and choose free shipping unless you have other items in the cart). Please note that due to the larger size this will be shipped in a cylindrical package from a separate Chinese warehouse, and tracking info will come a few days later in a separate email.
The bundle includes:
1x RadarBox ADS-B 1090 MHz SMA Outdoor Antenna with mounting brackets
1x RadarBox ADS-B Optimized 1090 MHz RTL-SDR
The antenna has 7 dBi gain, 50 (+-5) Ohm impedance, and is made from fiberglass and aluminum. It is fully waterproof and outdoor rated. This is a great set at a great price to get started tracking planes with ADS-B.
To purchase, please click the Add to Cart button below or visit our store at www.rtl-sdr.com/store. Please note we only have limited stock of this product! NOTE: The first shipment of this product will be on July 2nd.
Add to cartRadarBox Bundle: Includes 1x Outdoor ADS-B Antenna, 1x ADS-B Optimized RTL-SDR
Recently the company Stratux released a new ADS-B/UAT diplexer PCB. This is useful if you have a single antenna and want to feed two RTL-SDR dongles, with one receiving 1090 MHZ ADS-B and the second receiving 978 MHz UAT. The filter consists of a splitter and two SAW filters.
ADS-B is short for Automatic Dependant Surveillance Broadcast and is used to help track aircraft in the sky. It is transmit at 1090 MHz and the signal contains aircraft data such as the location, speed, altitude and aircraft call sign. ADS-B is utilized worldwide.
UAT is short for Universal Access Tranceiver and is transmit at 978 MHz. Like ADS-B it is used to keep track of aircraft, however UAT is only available in the USA and only for aircraft that fly below 18,000ft. It is a little cheaper and unlike ADS-B, UAT transmissions can also contain weather and traffic data.
US aircraft owners/operators that fly below 18,000ft can choose to install either UAT or ADS-B transmitters in their aircraft, so in the US a complete monitoring solution needs to monitor both 1090 MHz and 978 MHz.
Over on Reddit freelance investigative journalist Emmanuel Freudenhal has put up a very interesting post about how he is using ADS-B tracking to keep an eye on the travel habits of dictators around the world. If you were unaware, ADS-B is a signal transmitted by aircraft which contains aircraft ID info, and data such as speed, altitude and GPS location. Websites like ADS-B Exchange aggregate ADS-B data from volunteer ground stations that are running (mostly) RTL-SDR dongles. Emmanuel notes that by watching the movements of aircraft registered to dictators, it is possible to keep an eye on their travel habits.
One story that Emmanuel has written using this data is a piece on Paul Biya, Cameroon's president. His article discusses how Paul Biya is often seen in Geneva Switzerland, away on private visits. In a comment, Emmanuel notes that since his story ran, Paul Biya has almost stopped travelling to Switzerland.
Emmanuel has also been running a Twitter bot that uses ADS-B data to automatically tweet when a dictator aircraft is detected at Geneva airport. A list of known dictator aircraft is kept on a publicly accessible Excel file.
Now he is hoping to expand his tracking operation, and is asking for more people to feed the ADS-B Exchange aggregation website. ADS-B Exchange is the site recommend to feed because it is the only ADS-B aggregation website that does not censor any aircraft. Other aggregation sites such as Flightradar24 and FlightAware have come under scrutiny in the past for their willingness to upon request censor and block the tracking of military/political aircraft and private jets owned by several companies. In particular several aircraft owned by dictators are reportedly censored. However, the counter argument is that not censoring aircraft may result in ADS-B tracking eventually being made illegal, or that costly legal suites may be brought against ADS-B aggregation companies.
I'm a freelance investigative journalist (www.emmanuel-freudenthal.com / @emmanuelfreuden). I'm getting into SDR/ADSB and very glad I found this group because I need your help to track aircrafts!
With a colleague, we started a project to look into the travels of dictators around the world. It's an evolution of a Twitter bot (https://twitter.com/GVA_Watcher) started a few years ago. This bot tweets every time an aircraft owned by a dictatorship lands or takes off at the Geneva airport, Switzerland. And dictators visit Geneva, a lot. There's secretive banks and good healthcare, enjoyed by Algeria's departing president or Cameroon's president Paul Biya.
We want to expand this project to all of the world's airports. See our place-holding website: https://dictatoralert.org(which will get expanded soonish). To do so, we've partnered with ADSB-Exchange, which as you probably know, is the only website that doesn't censor flights. Usually the planes owned/chartered by dictatorships don't show up on flightaware or flightradar24 (anyone can asked to be removed). Some planes also don't share their GPS coordinates (e.g. Mode S) and so they don't show up.
In addition to the Dictator Alerts, we'll also use the data to do investigations into dictatorships, human rights violation and corruption.
The idea is to allow everyone to keep tabs, so the data will be available publicly, via Twitter bots and on a dedicated website (with e.g. a page per dictatorship and per airport).
To succeed, we need a lot more antennas! So, it'd be great if you could feed ADSB-Exchange. You can do that in addition to feeding other services. See how to do it here: https://www.adsbexchange.com/how-to-feed/ If you want to feed, please contact me on [email protected], my twitter DM are open. It's quite important that you contact me before feeding, so that we also capture aircrafts that don't share their GPS coordinates.
That also means, you'll be able to see ALL of the data that you're collecting online.
What do you think? Would you be keen to participate? Any questions?
Your feedback is very welcome, i'm still learning!
Best,
Emmanuel
Dictator Alert. A Twitter bot reporting on dictator movements via ADS-B data. dictatoralert.org
Over on his YouTube channel Corrosive from the SignalsEverywhere YouTube channel has uploaded a tutorial that shows how to set up ADS-B aircraft tracking with an RTL-SDR, dump1090 and Virtual Radar Server. The decoder software is dump1090 which is a multiplatform command line tool, and Virtual Radar Server is a Windows and Linux compatible program that is used to display the data on Google maps.
ADS-B is used as a more accurate and modern replacement for traditional aircraft radar. Instead of relying on radar reflections, ADS-B simply transmits a radio signal containing plane data such as GPS location, speed, and identification codes. Other aircraft can use this data for collision avoidance, and ground control use it for traffic management. Setting up your own RTL-SDR based ADS-B receiver allows you to see and track on a map almost all the aircraft currently flying in your area.
ADS-B Receiver With RTL SDR | Tracking Aircraft In Real-time!
RadarBox24.com is a flight data aggregation service similar to sites like FlightAware.com and FlightRadar24.com. They aggregate ADS-B aircraft data obtained from (mostly) volunteer RTL-SDR based feeders based all over the world and use this to power their flight tracking map and flight information database.
Last year RadarBox24 came out with a specialty ADS-B RTL-SDR dongle. This is a custom RTL-SDR which contains a built in 1090 MHz tuned amplifier and filter. We have not tested this dongle yet, but we expect that the design and performance would be very similar to the FlightAware ADS-B dongles. A network analyzer report from RB24 is provided here.
These dongles can only receive 1090 MHz and do so better than a standard RTL-SDR due to the built in LNA and filter. The LNA reduces the noise figure of the dongle leading to greater sensitivity, and the filter removes any strong out of band signals that could overload and desensitize the dongle. This results in greater reception range, and more flights tracked. Please note that these dongles cannot be used as wideband general purpose RTL-SDRs due to the filtering.
ADS-B data can easily be shared to RadarBox24 with their Raspberry Pi image and RadarBox24 write that if you share data to their site, you will receive the following kickbacks:
Free Business Account while sharing (worth $39.95 /mo). This allows you to access RAW and historic flight data as well as enabling other features such as more advanced data filtering, and a weather layer.
Strong and enthusiastic Community on Whatsapp
Track your own station's flights in real-time not only on website but also on RadarBox apps
