Tagged: milaircomms

Monitoring Military Aircraft with an RTL-SDR Part 2

Last month we posted about monitoring and logging military ADS-B data on milaircomms.com. It turns out that there is another service at www.live-military-mode-s.eu that also does military ADS-B logging. One user of live-military-mode-s.eu has recently uploaded a tutorial showing how to use a RTL-SDR to contribute to their logs. By contributing to their service you get a username and password to access members only sections of their site.

Contribution involves running an ADS-B decoder like RTL1090, sending the decoded data to Virtual Radar Server (VRS) and then using VRS to rebroadcast the data to their Mode-S Logger software.

Some Military ADS-B Logs
Some Military ADS-B Logs

Monitoring Military Aircraft with an RTL-SDR

The military air communications monitoring enthusiasts over at milaircomms.com have been using a system involving RTL-SDRs to monitor military air traffic through ADS-B. While military aircraft generally do not transmit GPS position information like commercial aircraft do, they are still able to record live information such as the aircraft’s hex code, registration number, aircraft type, the base station location and a graph of recorded altitudes. They also log all this data showing where military aircraft have been spotted over time.

To receive this information they so far have a network of about 30 volunteers running RTL-SDR based ground stations that use their custom MilAirComms1090 software. If you want to contribute, the software is available for Windows and for Linux/Raspberry Pi.

Example of a US Coast Guard C-130 Aircraft doing Touch/Goes and Sighting History
Example Logs of a US Coast Guard C-130 Aircraft doing Touch/Goes and its Sighting History