ACARS Decoding

[nwafan20]

Hey, does anyone know about ACARS decoding?

I want to know what hardware to have, I know the software, its the hardware that is confusing me.

Also, how would I feed that to my website for a live readout such as the Washinton Baltamore Spotters group has (http://www.washbaltspotters.net/cgi-bin/webam.cgi)

Rafal, do you know how it is done?

I have heard the SBS-1 box thrown around in a few conversations, but that is live radar, does it do ACARS as well?

I'm confused...

[lijk604]

...cue Senga

[nwafan20]

Yes, Senga please help!

[Lezam]

If Phil is interested, I might be able to set something up on the liveatc stream computer and feed it to the nyca site?

[SmAlbany]

I've done it. I found it to be exceedingly dull. I downloaded the acarsd software to my laptop. Found out the frequency (I forget it now but I believe it was in the 130s). I used a male to male plug from radio shack - plugged the one end into the headphone jack from my scanner (icom IC-R2) and the other end into the mic jack on the laptop. Turned off the squelch and let it do its thing.

Around the Albany area, there really is nothing to see. One time, I was in Boston and ran it - a little more interesting - but not much. I haven't tried it again in a few years - I'd have to have a lot more idle time than I do now to get back into it.

good luck!
Dan

[nwafan20]

Yeah, sounds good to me.

We are going to go ahead and get an SBS box for the live RADAR function.

[lijk604]

Yeah, sounds good to me.

We are going to go ahead and get an SBS box for the live RADAR function.

JUST A WORD OF CAUTION!!!!!
The SBS box only receives aircraft that have an ADS-B transponder in the aircraft, you will be very surprised at the lack of traffic you see...reason being, it is not mandatory in the US until 2012! It is in use in Europe so you will see the BAW & VIR aircraft. As for US aircraft you will catch UPS, and some of the newer aircraft that are being built (late model JBU's) but do not expect to see NWA DC9's, A319/A320's, B744's. You might catch the CPZ E175's as they are new builds.

[nwafan20]

The SBS boxes catches Mode-S/ADS-B, so only very few airlines/aircraft have that?

If that is the case, we may use the money elsewhere, thank you for the word of caution.

Can anyone else verify this?

[tipek]

Nick,

We have several ACARS stations running by members of our group. Blendi is running main server which collects data from local stations and also he collect the feed from other servers around USA, Europe and Asia.

I was running ACARS at my place for few months. I wanted only stuff going to/from DCA. After some time Blendi and Sunil (and many other folks) joined forces and they put main page together with all the transmitions.
This page which you provided link to is combination of 3 databases + ACARS.

To reply to your message; I don't know much about SBS boxes.

Rafal

[SengaB]

Sorry, I just stumbled accorss this thread today,
Yes I use ACARs decoding software.

The SBS cost a lot of money to set up..thats the downside to it. Perosnally I like Acars Better. Like I said in another thread of you can get into Acars I highly recommend geting into it. Its a hobby in itself.

I use ACARSD.
http://acarsd.org/

Currently I have it runing on 2 computers soon to be 4 PCs. Monitoring the three main NY metro area frequencies as well.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
Senga

[markg]

The SBS box is very useful at airports where you can't read the reg. like spotting at Imperial Hill at LAX when a/c land on the other runway. Personally I wouldn't waste the money on one for the NY area.

ACARS will pick up anything transmitting information on the ACARS frequencies.

To answer the original question though, the only hardware you need is a scanner and a PC/laptop. I would also recommend an external antenna (just a regular magnetic mount one will do).

[SengaB]

To back up what Mark Said...The most sound cards the better as you can have more scanners on one PC.
When you get it setup it take a while to get it tweaked optimally but its worth it in the end.
Senga

[nwafan20]

If someone could walk me through the entire process from equipment purchase to setting it up that would be great.

We have secured $750 in funding, so money isn't much of an issue.

[tipek]

There is one on eBay and pretty cheap.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Kinetic-Avionics-SB ... otohosting