[time-nuts] Aircraft ping timing

Hal Murray hmurray at megapathdsl.net
Sat Mar 22 01:21:26 EDT 2014


jleikhim at leikhim.com said:
> In retrospect it is kind of crazy that fleet owners will put tracking
> devices on $100K semi trucks and cranes yet $100 million aircraft have to
> rely upon 60 year old technology (Transponders) and ACARS to keep track of
> them. I don't question the utility of TCAS and Transponders, it is just the
> issue of not tracking such a valuable asset that is kind of crazy. Can you
> imagine how much an aircraft like that is worth in spare parts alone? -on
> the world market. If I were an insurer I would be asking questions of the
> industry. 

There is a newer system getting phased in:  ADS-B
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance-broadcast

The plane broadcasts it's position and velocity every second.

The SDR folks are having fun with it.  With one of the USB TV receiver gizmos 
and a Raspberry Pi, you are limited by the height of your antenna vs 
curvature of the earth.  A friend with an antenna 20(?) feet up gets planes 
out to several hundred miles.  I don't know how far it will work if you have 
an antenna on top of a hill.
  http://www.rtl-sdr.com/adsb-aircraft-radar-with-rtl-sdr/

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Is it time to kill this topic on time-nuts?



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