Airplane Tracking

Airplane Tracking
Participants	Melan
Skills	Raspberry pi, Linux, airplanes, radio, rtl-sdr
Status	Active as fuck
Niche
Purpose	Use for infra
Tool	No
Location
Cost
Tool category

Airplane Tracking

adsb_pi.jpg {{#if:No | [[Tool Owner::{{{ProjectParticipants}}} | }} {{#if:No | [[Tool Cost::{{{Cost}}} | }}

What

• 

A VM running on Coherence (sdr.dhcp.nurd.space / 10.208.42.113) tracking airplanes, in total there are 3 RTL-SDR dongles connected while only one is being used for ADS-B. The other two remain available for any other SDR purposes. The ADSB decoder used is ReadSB some of the services are running under Docker. The setup is heavily based upon this [1].

For the time being, until we restart Coherence (to enable nesting) the following services are still not running:

• RBfeeder
• https://github.com/mikenye/docker-adsbhub
• https://github.com/mikenye/docker-rawflight

The following services still need to be setup:

• https://github.com/mikenye/adsbexchange-stats
• https://www.flightairmap.com/

Unclaimed feeders are (have to be done from inside the space):

• Piaware feeder
• Planefinder (?)

The antenna is located above the bar under the skylight.

How

Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) is a surveillance technology in which an aircraft determines its position via satellite navigation and periodically broadcasts it, enabling it to be tracked. The information can be received by air traffic control ground stations as a replacement for secondary surveillance radar, as no interrogation signal is needed from the ground. It can also be received by other aircraft to provide situational awareness and allow self-separation. ADS–B is "automatic" in that it requires no pilot or external input. It is "dependent" in that it depends on data from the aircraft's navigation system. This signal is transmitted at 1090Mhz and 978Mhz.

The decoder software (Dump1090) takes in the raw data from the SDR and parses it, we are running the forked version made by Flightradar24, which means the feeder also sends data to Flightradar24. We are also feeding this data to Flightaware and Planefinder.

Hardware

Flightaware Pro Stick Plus

• Chip: R820T2
• Amplifier: 19dB with 0.4dB noise figure and OIP3 +39dB
• TCXO: 0.5 ppm
• Filter: 1,075 MHz to 1,105 MHz pass band with insertion loss of 2.3 dB; 30 dB attenuation on other frequencies
• Power Draw: 300 mA
• Weight: 17 g / 0.6 oz
• Dimensions: 95 mm x 32 mm x 13 mm
• Antenna Port: SMA female (requires SMA antenna cable and optionally N-male adapter for large antenna)
• Range: Over 300 nm/550 km depending on installation quality
• Performance: 10-20% more Mode S messages in installations where filtering is beneficial

Installed SDR dongles

Found 3 device(s):
  0:  Generic RTL2832U OEM
  1:  Generic RTL2832U
  2:  Generic RTL2832U OEM < IN USE

0:
__________________________________________
Vendor ID:              0x0bda
Product ID:             0x2838
Manufacturer:           Realtek
Product:                RTL2838UHIDIR
Serial number:          143.831 ppm
Serial number enabled:  yes
IR endpoint enabled:    yes
Remote wakeup enabled:  no
__________________________________________

1:
__________________________________________
Vendor ID:              0x0bda
Product ID:             0x2832
Manufacturer:           Realtek
Product:                RTL2832U
Serial number:          flaw-ppm-0.939
Serial number enabled:  yes
IR endpoint enabled:    no
Remote wakeup enabled:  no
__________________________________________

2: < IN USE
__________________________________________
Vendor ID:              0x0bda
Product ID:             0x2838
Manufacturer:           Realtek
Product:                RTL2838UHIDIR
Serial number:          1354980354
Serial number enabled:  yes
IR endpoint enabled:    yes
Remote wakeup enabled:  no
__________________________________________

Feeds

We are currently feeding to the following services

Name	Link
Adsbexchange	https://adsbx.org/sync/feeder.html?4A&Nurdspace
Flightaware	https://uk.flightaware.com/adsb/stats/site/165985
Fr24feed
Planefinder
Opensky
Piaware

Ports

List of all then ports, whom they belong to, and their function.

Port	Service	Description
8080	Readsb	Webinterface
30003	Readsb	Mode-S?
30005	Readsb	Beast
8081	Piaware	Piaware interface
9000	Portainer	Allow some control over Docker

Todo

• Make a different antenna/remake the current antenna
• Claim feeds
• Write down some more info