Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B)

Approximately a year ago I became interested in tracking aircraft. I know many of you have looked up and thought, “I wonder where that plane is going and where it took off”. Well maybe its just me, but I think it’s fascinating.

Many people usually go to the normal flight tracker apps such as flightaware.com or radarbox24.com or flightradar24.com or one of the less known sites adsbexchange.com

Have you ever wondered where those websites get their info? Well it turns out every commercial aircraft beacons it’s location (and other information) so that aircraft are aware of each other, so among other things, they can avoid each other. You’d also probably be surprised to know that most tracking websites get a ton of their data from nerds like myself.

With a raspberry pi, an adsb usb receiver and an antenna you can also receive those radio transmissions and contribute. I’m attaching a few links below about how to build your own setup as well as some links to my ADSB site.

Click here to see what my ADSB Receiver is currently receiving.

Click here to see my stats on Flightaware

If you’d like to build your own setup click here for some instructions and a build list.