The Aero Thread..

[Confucian]

Serious stuff, this time i'm actually going to put a project in a box :-)

 

[Analoguesat]

It occurs to me a junk sff computer base box would be ideal for a project like that - strip the innards out but leave the drive chassis mounts in & you have plenty of mounting points.

 

[Archive-8]

Still playing with this dongle, it's got a bit of coax plugged in, and the whole thing is hanging on the back of the tv mount.

It's in the window. I can see most things coming in to Bristol airport and some at Bournemouth.



Will try and play with the arieal. Or see if I can find some more coax

 

[Confucian]

Impressive Mick ...very impressive..
TBH I didn't realise you still had stability issues ....but the idea of locking both ..a Titanium C1 ..and an RTL dongle to a common 'fixed' source ...great idea ...
Love the way you work as well mate ...Typical tech bench ...looking like a birds nest ..
reminds me of my own..
lol

Thats Knackered it, never find anything now. Lol

 

[Vipersan]

View attachment 98744
Thats Knackered it, never find anything now. Lol

Handy if you get peckish during the build tho' eh ?

 

[Analoguesat]

Looks like one of Doc's contraptions from Back To The Future

 

[spacedish]

The latest version of PP is now available...main feature is the ability to create rendered terrain mapping , as below.

Regards

John

 

[Analoguesat]

Oh that is so cool its freezing

 

[River Patrol]

Is anybody using JAERO to receive AERO signals on Inmarsat having trouble getting the aircraft database to update? It seems that the link for the database has gone secure (https and JAERO does not have a SSL capability.

The file name for the csv file has changed as well. Tried merging the new csv file into the database but there must be some changes it doesn't like. I left a note on Jonti's GitHub location but haven't heard anything back yet.

I'm currently just receiving L-Band signals with a VIVALDI slot antenna but after going through this thread I'm looking to get a C-Band LNB and give it a shot. I'm located in eastern Virginia, USA.

 

[River Patrol]

Is anybody using JAERO to receive AERO signals on Inmarsat having trouble getting the aircraft database to update? It seems that the link for the database has gone secure (https and JAERO does not have a SSL capability.

The file name for the csv file has changed as well. Tried merging the new csv file into the database but there must be some changes it doesn't like. I left a note on Jonti's GitHub location but haven't heard anything back yet.

I'm currently just receiving L-Band signals with a VIVALDI slot antenna but after going through this thread I'm looking to get a C-Band LNB and give it a shot. I'm located in eastern Virginia, USA.

UPDATE: Just got a reply back through GitHub and he is adding SSL support to JAERO to correct the issue. Thx

 

[Confucian]

Is anybody using JAERO to receive AERO signals on Inmarsat having trouble getting the aircraft database to update? It seems that the link for the database has gone secure (https and JAERO does not have a SSL capability.

The file name for the csv file has changed as well. Tried merging the new csv file into the database but there must be some changes it doesn't like. I left a note on Jonti's GitHub location but haven't heard anything back yet.

I'm currently just receiving L-Band signals with a VIVALDI slot antenna but after going through this thread I'm looking to get a C-Band LNB and give it a shot. I'm located in eastern Virginia, USA.

Welcome RP, not noticed anything, Just tried to download and everything seemed to work ok. I have 3 cband dishes working at the moment but looking at trying the Lband in the spring.

 

[River Patrol]

Welcome RP, not noticed anything, Just tried to download and everything seemed to work ok. I have 3 cband dishes working at the moment but looking at trying the Lband in the spring.

Jonti just e-mailed me back and said that his system has the dll's that gives him SSL support on his link so it could be a simple fix and so some people's pc's wouldn't have the issue and others would I guess when not accessing it through a normal web browser.

 

[spacedish]

Hi RP and welcome to the world of Inmarsat Aero!

Good to see that Jonti continues his excellent support for JAERO.

If you are serious about setting up in C band , then consider adding in PlanePlotter and feeding your data into the network.
That way you will not only see your own uplink but also our global Oceanic coverage , which is increasing all the time as operators
join the Inmarsat system.
The advantage of C band of course is that the downlinks provide positional information.

If you combine C and your existing L band , then you'll receive both uplink from the satellite ground stations...and downlink from the a/c

Its a fascinating aspect to the hobby :O)

Best wishes for 2017

John

 

[River Patrol]

Hi RP and welcome to the world of Inmarsat Aero!

Good to see that Jonti continues his excellent support for JAERO.

If you are serious about setting up in C band , then consider adding in PlanePlotter and feeding your data into the network.
That way you will not only see your own uplink but also our global Oceanic coverage , which is increasing all the time as operators
join the Inmarsat system.
The advantage of C band of course is that the downlinks provide positional information.

If you combine C and your existing L band , then you'll receive both uplink from the satellite ground stations...and downlink from the a/c

Its a fascinating aspect to the hobby :O)

Best wishes for 2017

John

Thx John

Was out of town for a few days but I see that Jonti has updated the files with a new revision to utilize SSL for the aircraft database and all is working great. He was 100% proactive in solving this issue and I really appreciate his supportive attitude and a wonderful program.

I am serious about C-band and hopefully through this thread I have enough information to receive the signals so I'm in process of finding a proper dish for it's use. I will certainly look at PlanePlotter once I have dedicated something for continuous operation.

I currently use an ADS-B dump 1090 setup receiving up to 250 miles from the NE to the SE of my QTH (less in other directions as I'm at sea level on a river) as well and HFDL which I normally pick up Iceland, San Francisco, New York, Ireland, Panama City and the Spanish GS off of western Africa. I'm currently using VRS and I assume I could send a feed to PlanePlotter but I haven't looked into it as yet.

Thanks to all the people in this thread (and entire site) that have inspired me to try the 3.6 Ghz area of the spectrum as L-band is as high as I've been so far.

Bill

 

[Archive-8]

How do you power the c-band lnb?

Do you use a sat card?

 

[River Patrol]

How do you power the c-band lnb?

Do you use a sat card?

I have an older RCA Directv receiver and found out if I go to "tuning" and select odd channels I get 13VDC out for Vertical and on even channels I get 18VDC out for Horizontal so I ran it through a power inserter and on the "radio in" side of the insertter I get the signal less the DC voltage to my SDR. I'll probably just add a RF out jack on the receiver and cut the trace to the receiver\decoder section to eliminate any attenuation. Cheap and easy and I tried it on the existing Directv dish and the signals were there.

 

[spacedish]

How do you power the c-band lnb?

Do you use a sat card?

Hi Chris

Yes a sat card would do , but ideally just an old sat receiver with loopthrough so that the lnb is powered , but you can use the loop out to send the signal to the dongle without allowing the voltage to leak back.It also makes it easier to change polarity from 12 to 18V at the touch of a button.
Many of the very cheap sat receivers have this feature and you could probably pick one up for far less that a PC satellite card.

Best wishes

John

 

[spacedish]

I have an older RCA Directv receiver and found out if I go to "tuning" and select odd channels I get 13VDC out for Vertical and on even channels I get 18VDC out for Horizontal so I ran it through a power inserter and on the "radio in" side of the insertter I get the signal less the DC voltage to my SDR. I'll probably just add a RF out jack on the receiver and cut the trace to the receiver\decoder section to eliminate any attenuation. Cheap and easy and I tried it on the existing Directv dish and the signals were there.

That's exactly it RP....and great news about you looking for a C band dish.
Planeplotter will accept data from JAERO and also your Mode S , ACARS , HFDL etc input so you'll be able to see all your data in one piece of sw.

PP is on offer at present [ 15 Euros plus tax] , however , for anyone setting up a continuous C band feed to the network , we can give a free licence
in recognition of the work put in to collect the signals....so let me know once you are getting the T channel data at C band :O)

 

[River Patrol]

I have been completely through this thread twice to try to glean all the information here concerning C-Band JAERO reception and have started getting some items to try this when the weather gets a little warmer. I take it that a 1.2 size dish is a good compromise between gain and being able to maintain a signal on birds such as Inmarsat 54W 3F4 so I'm looking for something in that size range and have already purchased a Titanium C1-PLL LNB. I have a good shot at 54W as I can receive L-Band JAERO from inside the house on a RFSpace Vivaldi antenna (see pic). 3F2 15W is a possibility and I've heard there are T-Channels on 4F3 97W as well from my location. I've never seen more dedication toward receiving C-Band signals than through the efforts of Vipersan and Confucian! You guys are an inspiration. A couple items I noticed that was discussed several times were issues with SDR# and I was wondering if any of you have ever used SDRconsole by Simon Brown? It's a great SDR front end with multible VFO's built in and works well for me decoding digital signals with SDRplay RSP, Airspy and RTL-SDR dongles. It can be found here: V3 Preview Downloads Another item brought up was trying to "listen" to VAC outputs. This can be done by simply checking "listen to this device" in the sound menu (see pic). I hope to get back on here once I have found a dish and start trying to receive some signals as I'm a newbie when it comes to these frequencies although I've been receiving signals from lower frequency birds for a while now. Thanks again for all your help.

 

[Confucian]

1.2 dish has been proved to work ok on 15W but 25E & 54W may need something slightly larger but I suppose your location will come into it. I use 1.4 offset on 15W & 54W and 1.8 prime (petaled) on 24E , nothing scientific in this just what was available second hand and cheap at the time.