Are you posh or not? Tracking aircraft

Fit together a raspberry pi computer board, a trick of a USB SDR dongle plus some bits and bobs of software and antenna to roll your own personal aircraft tracking device for under 50 quid.

A Daft British Mystery

Above you every day are any number of craft zipping about too and fro with all of them emanating various wireless signals.  Some are the aircraft crew reporting via voice radio for arrival instructions, post departure issues, air to air communication checkups and more.  Data radios receive detail on surrounding aircraft to prevent collisions while others transmit operational parameters up to orbiting satellites, ground stations or curious blokes like whomever may be reading this.  From the largest to smallest aircraft, there are many different types of wireless systems focused on specific tasks.

Just this morning in east of the beautiful Hudson Valley area of New York was a private aircraft of sorts with the call sign of "2 Posh" flying through at 39,200 feet at between 521.3 and 522.5 miles per hour . The registration details came back as a Cessna Citation CJ3 with the international civil aviation organization identifier of 43EC0E.

This was not the first time this aircraft has passed through the area according to the data generated by the signals received by the ADS-B receiver and logged automatically via mySQL database. It was only realized while running a query of military aircraft that have passed through in the last day. For some reason "2 Posh" was tagged as a non-commercial or private aircraft which is interesting. Plus, it also had the aircraft type of C25B which is a version of the Cessna Citation that makes it quite the speedy high flying jet according to the detailed Wikipedia page on the subject.

Data analytics & wireless signals as a hobby

Perhaps the largest self identified group of hobbyists involving wireless signals is held by amateur radio, since they all need to be licensed by government agencies around the world if they will be transmitting within the allocated spectrum reserved for such people.

Another hobby called "Plane Spotting" involves no such licenses and maybe only some common sense.  Participants often take photos of aircraft and create scrap books of interesting craft. Some take this to another level by monitoring aircraft communications. Information gathered is not necessarily secret since anyone can see airplanes flying around, but what about tracking them?  This opens up a somewhat secret aspect of plane spotting that if used incorrectly, can create security issues.

For people with interests in areas like analytics, wireless technology, relational databases, embedded computers, internet of things and probably another 1,000 things - setting up your own inexpensive ADS-B receiver for real time, unfiltered air traffic data could be of interest for personal use or to create a shared network of receivers feeding into one database or user interface to cover a wider area.

Many commercial websites such as Flightradar24, Flightaware and others do not offer the same details but you can replicate something very interesting at minimal expense and learn about a ton of unknown things like how certain wireless signals propagate and how to create optimal antennas for different applications.

Further Learning: Insert Ideas Here

Amateur radio spectrum includes access to the 1240 to 1300 MHz range for all license classes in the United States.   ADS-B signals used to track aircraft are found at 1090 MHz and travel much in the same way.   VHF 118 to 136 MHz voice channels for aircraft which can be received with the same inexpensive receiver as ADS-B are not too different than the amateur 144 to 148 MHz frequencies.  

From a satellite perspective, there are options for aircraft tracking via L-band satellite services in the 1500 to 1700 MHz spectrum with the exact same inexpensive receiver. 

What else can you do with aircraft data or the same hardware?  Many things. More details on setting up your own ADS-B receiver can be found here.   HVDN also offers its members with access to our very own network of receivers for a small donation or no charge depending on your level of membership.

Almost forgot....  the aircraft known as 2 Posh may have something to do with a former member of the Beatles or extended family.

Details:   https://hvdn.org/adsbmoreinfo  

How was it? February HVDN Meeting

Even with all the snow, ice, sub-zero temperatures and sporadic unseasonably warm winter weather, it was possible for just over 20 people to venture out on March 11th and take part in the first Hudson Valley Digital Network meeting of 2019.

What was on the agenda?

Our meeting inspired both the local maker community and national level of amateur radio leadership to have representation that illustrated first hand what amateur radio is all about as created by the Federal Communications Commission almost 100 years ago!

Because amateur radio is a federally licensed service, we have our own unique set of rules to follow. Part 97.1 of the FCC rules found in many places such as government, lobbyist and even legal academic websites such as New York's own Cornell Law School.  

From the over 21,000 MHz of discontinuous wireless spectrum we are provided to the equipment, power levels and information we are allowed to transmit - there is so much that amateur radio can offer a wide range of hobbyists that goes unnoticed at times today.

The major draw of the evening in Rhinebeck New York at the ultra modern co-working space aptly named CO. were our two presenters. Sean Swehla of the Squidwrench maker group and rarest of rare contacts to ever make through "on the air" methods, talked about the upcoming (and nearly sold out!)  Build It: Oscilloscope & Signal Source event taking place on March 9th.

This upcoming event focuses on education about soldering and how many hobbyist groups can benefit through education of practical use of basic or advanced test equipment.

STEM & Amateur Radio Together?

In comparison, our other presenter was Ria Jairam spends much more time making use of the wireless amateur radio spectrum compared to Sean who also holds an amateur radio license but they both have different yet similar hobby interests which is one thing that makes amateur radio great!

Ria holds the distinction of being the newly elected Hudson Division Director of the Amateur Radio Relay League provided a great presentation and insight as to the priorities of the ARRL at the highest levels including renewed focus around Science, Technology, Engineering & Math.

She also highlighted the new executive leadership of the ARRL and experiences that will help ensure that amateur radio principles are made more visible to wider audiences. Ria also highlighted the newly improved and expanded Hudson Division website and its activity calendar.

The Future Of Amateur Radio

The organizers and presenters of the meeting all agreed that the future of amateur radio is under attack if we as a community do not promote modern and relevant aspects of the hobby in an overly connected world we have come to know today. 

The attending audience seemed to be in agreement and following the presentations during refreshments were many discussions covering topics including some of the following:

• DMR University (Details shared in person by Len N2LEN at the meeting too!)
• Satellite communications
• Electronically steerable antenna
• Upcoming Trenton Computer Festival  (Thanks Joe N1JTA & Steve K2GOG)
• What is the Circle of HOPE? (Thanks Joe NZ2E)

The next HVDN meeting will be on March 11th at 6:00 PM in Rhinebeck with location details at https://hvdn.org/meeting . Featured March discussions will likely include:

• Sneak preview of Steve K2GOG's satellite spectrum presentation and live demonstration of SATCOM

• Oscilloscope use cases based on the DSO150 scope and signal source constructed at Build It two days prior.

• Special guest speaker and topic 

Anyone interested in suggesting future presentation topics or contributing in some other way (snacks, prizes, etc) for the future meetings, please contact HVDN at info <at> hvdn <dot> org

March 23rd: TCF19 Computer Festival

This event has a little something for everyone interested in modern technology and applications, not just related to amateur radio or even computers.

The featured keynote this year will be led by Tony Sager of the Center For Internet Security which is headquartered just outside Albany, New York.  Tony will talk about the importance of cyber-security and how it affects almost every aspect of our connected lives today.

Other featured presentations include:

• The State of Cyber Crime in New Jersey by NJ Department of Homeland Security Cyber Team!

• Maintaining the Integrity of Elections in a Digital World – Rebecca Mercuri

• Quantum Computing – Barry Burd 

• Amateur Radio Satellite Spectrum - Steve Bossert 

• WordPress Bootcamp – Lou Judice

• Cybercrime and Theremin Zen – Kip Rosser 

• MMDVM Hotspot Construction - Joe Apuzzo  

• Hands-on Arduino Workshop for Beginners – Katalin Frolio

• All Day Robotics Pavilion – Seung-yun Kim

What about amateur radio? 

HVDN's very own Joe Apuzzo N1JTA and Steve Bossert K2GOG will be among the 50+ presentations and workshops also taking place during this fantastic event.

In N1JTA's 30 minute presentation he will talk about how radio and computers has converged through the popularity of digital modes in Amateur radio and how it has grown exponentially over the last few years due to the affordability of VHF/UHF digital handheld radios and other equipment.

One of many MMDVM hot spot options, the N2BOC version 

is full duplex capable and the same size as a Raspberry Pi Zero. 

A large part of this growth can also be attributed to the impact of hot spot devices and the unique learning capability they create. A hot spot is a small access point type device that uses amateur radio spectrum and a decentralized network of servers to enable global or local  digital communication.

Joe will cover at a high level, what is needed to construct your own "micro repeater" or hot spot device and how it works, along with how to create secure connections and utilize a decentralized network maintained by a group of amateur radio operators around the world.

Brandmeister is unique in that it can route all types of digital voice traffic through its decentralized network of servers to end node devices such as hotspots and repeaters

Since the hot spot device is nothing more than a Raspberry Pi single board computer and a multi mode digital voice modem hat plus some open source software called Pi-Star it is relatively inexpensive but very complex to understand how it works.

Steve will be cover in varying detail more than 21,000 MHz of spectrum available to amateur radio operators looking to experiment with satellite communications today. While much of this spectrum is above 1.2 GHz, this still leaves over 60 MHz of varied spectrum that can be used by those holding the easiest to get Technician class amateur radio license and with minimal expense.

Your DMR radio can also be used for satellite communications
via analog FM mode you might have forgot exists.

Steve's discussion will cover the most common spectrum used today for amateur radio operators interested in satellite communications, additional spectrum users to be mindful of and a review of the most active satellites that can be used with less than $100 of invested equipment.  He will also give a "sneak peak" on this topic to attendees of the March 11th HVDN meeting in Rhinebeck, NY.

More about TCF19, the full agenda and when is Joe's presentation can be found at https://tcf-nj.org/

Interested in other interesting events? Check out the HVDN activity calendar