YouTube video showing Inmarsat C-Band AERO Reception

Last week we posted how programmer Jonti had successfully implemented a C-Band AERO decoder into his JAERO software. C-band AERO signals are the earth downlink portion of AERO. Planes transmit data upwards towards the satellites and then the Inmarsat C-band transmitter re-transmits the information back to a basestation on earth. This is different to the L-band AERO signals which are signals transmitted from the satellites to the aircraft. C-band signals are interesting because they contain plane position info, and so can be used to track aircraft much like what is done with ADS-B reception, but over a much larger area. However, C-Band signals are much more difficult to receive as they are at 3.616 GHz and require a 1.8m or larger satellite dish.

Over on YouTube user AceBlaggard has uploaded a video showing an example of C-Band signals being received with an Airspy SDR and being decoded with the new version of JAERO. About the hardware used AceBlaggard writes:

Hardware is a 1.8M PF dish and Titanium Satellite C1 PLL LNB feeding a Prof-Tuner 7301 sat card which loops out to an Airspy SDR.