Just today I learned that #ADSBexchange got sold to a private equity firm!
It's such a shame and as one comment summarized it: βthe paycheck was bigger than the visionβ
Luckily there are alternatives, like #ADSBfi
@sfoskett Thank you for that excellent writeup!
I had ordered the same #RTLSDR kit about a year ago, but never took the time to set things up. But after reading your post, I realized how easy it actually is.
Took less than an hour (including flashing the microSD card) to set things up and track the first three planes. βοΈβοΈβοΈ
If your in NZ and feed ADS-B to anywhere - especially ADSBExchange because of their not filtering, etc. etc. - there are other sites that could use your feed data which hasn't sold out to an aviation intelligence company - which ADSBExchange has done.
In this case, adsb.fi has a few holes locally in the feed data and would probably be worthy of your captured data.
If you use the SDR Enthusiasts docker containers see https://github.com/sdr-enthusiasts/docker-multifeeder ππ»
My initial #ADSB setup is super simple: I just put the pi and the antenna on top of a hutch in my office near an outside wall. Obviously this isn't perfect, and I don't know nothing about no antennas, but it's working! It can "see" half a dozen planes, including a rescue helicopter just now.
Contributing to #FlightAware gets you a fancy account there and contributing to #ADSBfi is the right thing to do.
Plus there's a serious hacker feeling in decoding mysterious aerial signals!
Interesting to see how much coverage can get spun up fairly quickly; ADSB.fi already tracking 42% the number of flights as ADSBx is.
Number of aircraft being tracked by the large flight trackers at 1600 UTC (10:00 AM CST).
#FlightRadar24: 14059
#RadarBox: 12536
#FlightAware: 12494
#ADSBExchange: 11008
#ADSBfi: 4618
#ADSBlol: 1905
#GrndcCtrl: 1561
#ADSBone: N/A
A quick update on #ADSBExchange vs heir apparent #ADSBfi
ADSBx is currently tracking 9733 flights to ADSBfi's 3914 (~40%).
ADSBx currently has 8815 feeders, down from ~9470 (@lemonodor grabbed a screenshot with that many, close to peak), a decrease of ~7%. Holes in coverage over CONUS are filling in reasonably well, still a long ways to go globally.
Corinair
Halkyn Radio Group
Gjovani πΈ
Oliver Stueker
Alex
Stephen Foskett
Nick Benson
Al Downunder