I’m not very familiar with the aviation jargon (see FAA’s ADS-B FAQ), but ADS-B is a next-gen system where aircraft are equipped with transponders that periodically broadcast their own positions and receive the reports from both other aircraft (direct air-to-air) as well as air-traffic control (ATC) ground transmitters.
There are two separate ADS-B radio bands: the commercial aviation (CA) is at 1090 MHz while the general aviation (GA) is at 978 MHz. If I can be permitted a gross generalization—the former corresponds to big commercial jets and the latter to small private aircraft.
Because ADS-B is designed to democratize airspace situational awareness (in contrast to the older setup, like from films, where a central air-traffic controller is coordinating all these aircraft that can’t see each other), we can buy cheap RF receivers to pick up and decode the messages being broadcast by aircraft and ground towers to get our own picture of the local airspace. This rabbit hole actually goes quite deep: FlightAware.com has built a business on crowdsourced ADS-B receivers. They will give you a networked ADS-B kit called FlightFeeder, for free, if you live in an area of sparse coverage.
Here’s one way to receive, log, and real-time visualize the traffic on either of these ADS-B bands using a USB radio receiver and some open-source software on a Mac.
Buy RTL-SDR. $25 kit on Amazon.
Optional: buy antennas. $20 Stratux DMURRAY14 kit.
Install Homebrew (instructions at the site).
Install librtlsdr, a couple of dependencies, git, and moreutils (which provides the ts utility, for timestamping data), by running the following command in your macOS Terminal (Applications → Utilities → Terminal):
$ brew install git pkg-config cmake librtlsdr moreutils
Note that the $ symbol just represents the Terminal command prompt and isn’t a part of the command. Also note that this asks Homebrew to install git and CMake: if you already have these installed, and you don't want Homebrew messing with them, then remove either/both from the command above.
Run the commands below in the Terminal to clone @mutability’s fork of dump1090, which lets us collect and visualize commercial aviation (CA, operating in the 1090 MHz band). You’ll want dump1090 even if you’re only after general aviation (GA), which is on the 978 MHz band—our dump978 setup will use dump1090 for visualization.
$ git clone https://github.com/mutability/dump1090.git
$ cd dump1090
$ make -j4 # You can skip this if you will only do dump978/GA
(Side note: If you’ve ever used the original dump1090 by @antirez: @mutability’s fork of dump1090 is architecturally different than the original. This fork writes a JSON file which has to be served by some external webserver.)
First, in the dump1090 directory, create a directory to store the parsed results in JSON:
$ mkdir public_html/data
Then start a webserver that hosts the public_html directory. You have many choices but here’s a really simple one that uses Python 2:
$ cd public_html && python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8090
This should print out something like Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8090: Python is serving the current directory’s contents to a browser, and if all is well, you can open http://127.0.0.1:8090/gmap.html to see an OpenStreetMap.
If the command above doesn't work (or if it quits immediately, or if your browser says something like “Unable to connect”), you might have Python 3 (good for you!). Run this instead for Python 3:
cd public_html && python -m http.server 8090(i.e., replace “SimpleHTTPServer” with “http.server”).
Now, an application like dump1090 or dump978 can put data inside this directory and the map will display it.
Finally, launch dump1090 and pipe its output to disk for logging:
$ ./dump1090 --write-json public_html/data >> log.txt
You should soon see aircraft showing up on the map:
Here’s some example lines from log.txt: this is the standard output of dump1090. (For debugging, looking at the last few lines of log.txt with $ tail -f log.txt can help.)
*8dab77ee99459081c0084e933a70;
CRC: 000000
RSSI: -22.7 dBFS
Score: 1400
Time: 26780.42us (phase: 300)
DF 17: ADS-B message.
Capability : 5 (Level 2+, airborne)
ICAO Address : ab77ee
Extended Squitter Type: 19
Extended Squitter Sub : 1
Extended Squitter Name: Airborne Velocity
EW status : Valid
EW velocity : -399
NS status : Valid
NS velocity : -13
Vertical status : Valid
Vertical rate src : 0
Vertical rate : 64
HAE/Baro offset : 1925 ft
*8da923cf99157717c004477716b8;
CRC: 000000
RSSI: -30.7 dBFS
Score: 1400
Time: 53030.33us (phase: 240)
DF 17: ADS-B message.
Capability : 5 (Level 2+, airborne)
ICAO Address : a923cf
Extended Squitter Type: 19
Extended Squitter Sub : 1
Extended Squitter Name: Airborne Velocity
EW status : Valid
EW velocity : -374
NS status : Valid
NS velocity : 189
Vertical status : Valid
Vertical rate src : 0
Vertical rate : 0
HAE/Baro offset : 1750 ft
Note that the Time field above corresponds to microseconds since the application started. This provides a simple way of timestamping each observation, assuming you can tell when the application started.
Caveat! If you want real timestamps, and you have the
tscommand (part of themoreutilspackage which I suggested you install above:brew install moreutilson macOS), you can run the following:
$ ./dump1090 --write-json public_html/data | ts '[%Y-%m-%d.%H.%M.%.S%z]' >> log.txtThis will prepend a timestamp like
[2016-11-12.19.31.47.117154-0500]followed by a space, before each line. (Caveat the second: thatstrftimespecifier,[%Y-%m-%d.%H.%M.%.S%z]should work on macOS but could be invalid on other operating systems, checklog.txt!)
In another directory, outside the dump1090 one made above, clone and build @mutability’s dump978 repository. This program collects general aviation beacons, which operate in the 978 MHz band.
$ git clone https://github.com/mutability/dump978.git
$ cd dump978
$ make -j4
$ cp -r /PATH/TO/dump1090/public_html .
$ mkdir -p public_html/data
The last two lines copy dump1090’s webapp to the dump978 directory and (re)creates a data/ subdirectory.
Following the same process as dump1090, we can start a webserver using plain Python (modify the command if you're using Python 3 as above: replace SimpleHTTPServer with http.server). We will choose a different port to avoid conflicts with the dump1090 webapp.
$ cd public_html && python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8978
Open a browser tab to http://127.0.0.1:8978/gmap.html to see an OpenStreetMap. Nota bene: both browser windows (dump1090’s and dump978’s) will say “dump1090”, since we just copied dump1090’s webapp and are dumping 978 MHz data into it. The only difference is the port number in the URL.
dump978 is a little different from dump1090, in that dump978 accepts binary samples output by rtl_sdr, rather than doing this behind-the-scenes:
$ rtl_sdr -f 978000000 -s 2083334 - | ./dump978 | tee --append log.txt | ./uat2json public_html/data
Soon, you should start seeing GA traffic in the web browser. dump978’s uat2json will update the webapp’s data once a second.
Caveat! The above logs
dump978’s output tolog.txt, but without timestamps, which might severely limit the use of this data! If you havets(brew install moreutilson macOS), I recommend the following:
$ rtl_sdr -f 978000000 -s 2083334 - | ./dump978 | ts '[%Y-%m-%d.%H.%M.%.S%z]' | tee --append log.txt | cut -d' ' -f2- | ./uat2json public_html/dataThis will prepend a timestamp, like
[2016-11-12.19.31.47.117154-0500], then a space, before each line. Thatteewrites such timestamped data to a file, but then thecutstrips the timestamps before sending the original result touat2json. (Caveat the second: that strftime specifier,[%Y-%m-%d.%H.%M.%.S%z]is fine on macOS but could be invalid on some operating systems, so check!)
Here are some lines from the log.txt file produced by dump978:
-10a3a09839220f88e80218d911a83a202f00000000000000000000000019c0000000;rs=1;
-10a3a0983921cf88e85e18d911a83a001f00000000000000000000000019c0000000;
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;rs=32;
+3916598895a4bfa000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000;rs=32;
-0b28c2ef38db29868efe279641940cc01105c4e6c4e6c40a82700300000000000000;rs=2;
-00a3a0983921b388e88418d911a83a001900;
dump978 makes available a uat2txt executable, which produces the following when fed in the above:
$ cat log.txt | ./uat2txt
HDR:
MDB Type: 2
Address: A3A098 (ICAO address via ADS-B)
SV:
NIC: 9
Latitude: +40.1717
Longitude: -83.7378
Altitude: 8900 ft (barometric)
N/S velocity: -105 kt
E/W velocity: 115 kt
Track: 132
Speed: 155 kt
Vertical rate: -64 ft/min (from geometric altitude)
UTC coupling: yes
TIS-B site ID: 0
AUXSV:
Sec. altitude: 9275 ft (geometric)
HDR:
MDB Type: 2
Address: A3A098 (ICAO address via ADS-B)
SV:
NIC: 9
Latitude: +40.1710
Longitude: -83.7368
Altitude: 8900 ft (barometric)
N/S velocity: -105 kt
E/W velocity: 115 kt
Track: 132
Speed: 155 kt
Vertical rate: 0 ft/min (from geometric altitude)
UTC coupling: yes
TIS-B site ID: 0
AUXSV:
Sec. altitude: 9275 ft (geometric)
UPLINK:
Site Latitude: +40.1395 (possibly invalid)
Site Longitude: -83.9640 (possibly invalid)
UTC coupled: yes
Slot ID: 14
TIS-B Site ID: 10
INFORMATION FRAME:
Length: 181 bytes
Type: 0 (FIS-B APDU)
FIS-B:
Flags:
Product ID: 413 (Generic Textual Data Product APDU Payload Format Type 2) - Text (DLAC)
Product time: 19:00
Report type: TAF
Report location: KMUI
Report time: 301900Z
Text:
3019/0101 27009KT 9999 FEW050 FEW200 QNH2990INS
BECMG 3120/3121 18006KT 9999 BKN050 QNH2984INS
BECMG 3123/3124 15006KT 8000 -SHRA BKN030 OVC150 QNH2984INS
TX30/3119Z TN15/3110Z
LAST NO AMDS AFT 3105 NEXT 3111=
UPLINK:
Site Latitude: +40.1395 (possibly invalid)
Site Longitude: -83.9640 (possibly invalid)
UTC coupled: yes
Slot ID: 31
TIS-B Site ID: 10
HDR:
MDB Type: 1
Address: 28C2EF (TIS-B track file address)
SV:
NIC: 6
Latitude: +39.9769
Longitude: -85.3885
Altitude: 14800 ft (barometric)
N/S velocity: 400 kt
E/W velocity: 96 kt
Track: 13
Speed: 411 kt
Vertical rate: 0 ft/min (from barometric altitude)
UTC coupling: no
TIS-B site ID: 1
MS:
Emitter category: No information
Callsign: unavailable
Emergency status: No emergency
UAT version: 2
SIL: 2
Transmit MSO: 32
NACp: 7
NACv: 0
NICbaro: 0
Capabilities:
Active modes:
Target track type: true heading
AUXSV:
Sec. altitude: unavailable
HDR:
MDB Type: 0
Address: A3A098 (ICAO address via ADS-B)
SV:
NIC: 9
Latitude: +40.1707
Longitude: -83.7364
Altitude: 8900 ft (barometric)
N/S velocity: -105 kt
E/W velocity: 115 kt
Track: 132
Speed: 155 kt
Vertical rate: 0 ft/min (from geometric altitude)
UTC coupling: yes
TIS-B site ID: 0
It might "technically" be possible to get something like this up and running on your phone, but it would be janky as hell at best. If you really need ads-b in for your plane while you are flying, just buy a commercially available option! Cost wise its not much more, and has the added benefit of not being some thrown together thing. This is for people on the ground who want to track airplanes for fun. It should ABSOLUTELY NEVER be used for actual flight operations. That would just plain and simple be irresponsible!