Rutkowski Personal Links of Interest

Here is a sample screenshot of My Live PiAware Tracking Station which tracks all aircraft within a 250 mile radius from my home in Matthews, NC. The PiAware software is running on a $50 Raspberry Pi 3B computer, which is the size of a deck of cards. The Raspberry Pi is running the Linux Operating System which is free. The computer is connected to a filter and antenna via a USB port. This picks up ADS-B signals from all aircraft within range.

The ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast) is a surveillance technology in which an aircraft determines its position via satellite navigation and periodically broadcasts it, enabling it to be tracked. The data contains information such as Altitude, Longitude and Latitude, the aircrafts ICAO Address and various other data which the software uses to track the aircraft. Airline Flight Number, Heading, & Speed are also included within the data. Here is sample data and a screen shot:

*8da69418582bd37f9271b6f69a30;
CRC: 000000
RSSI: -7.2 dBFS
Time: 50398347182.33us
DF:17 AA:A69418 CA:5 ME:582BD37F9271B6
Extended Squitter Airborne position (barometric altitude) (11) (reliable)
ICAO Address: A69418 (Mode S / ADS-B)
Air/Ground: airborne
Baro altitude: 7725 ft
CPR type: Airborne
CPR odd flag: even
CPR latitude: 35.24748 (114633)
CPR longitude: -80.83431 (29110)
CPR decoding: global
NIC: 8
Rc: 0.186 km / 0.1 NM
NIC-B: 0
NACp: 8
SIL: 2 (p <= 0.001%, unknown type)

Here is an example configuration of my Live PiAware Aircraft Tracking Station running on a Raspberry Pi 3B. The above shows a map of my area (the black dot is my location), and realtime positions of aircraft within a 250 mile radius of my location. The number of flights being track average ~150 to 200 at peak times. The right panel provides more information such as Flight Number i.e. Americal Airlines - AAL828, the aircrafts heading, altitude, speed, etc. Clicking on an aircraft will open another panel showing details on that flight. Clicking on the "Visit Flight Page" button will provide you with even more data on that flight including that flights origin and destination (This informations provided by FlightAware! Below are some photos of the hardware as well. The photo on the left is of the Raspberry Pi 3B with FlightAware USB Interface and signal filter connected to the antenna (photo on right):