Just today I learned that #ADSBexchange got sold to a private equity firm!
It's such a shame and as one comment summarized it: “the paycheck was bigger than the vision”
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. ✈️✈️✈️
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 👍🏻
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 🛸
Oliver Stueker
Alex
Stephen Foskett
Nick Benson
Al Downunder