I have had a couple of emails from gb.vrs-world.com / mlat-radr.net regarding sharing MLAT data.
I was wondering if anyone else is sharing data with mlat-radr.net and if you ned to download software, etc. to share ?
What does the email say?
Hi Mike,
Full email below. Regards Charlie
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Gents
Finally some good news. We have now had word from Oliver that the MLAT server side code will be released in the next few weeks. The Admin team and I are very excited about this as it allows us to map the future of the UK and Ireland server.
Because of the direction we are taking with regard to MLAT, we are dropping the gb.vrs-world.com domain. We have taken a new domain name.
This is mlat-radar.net. We have tried to make this as country neutral as possible due to the fact that the feeders of MLAT will be coming from multiple countries.
I would like to make it clear that we are still providing a feed to VRS World, although this will have all MLAT generated traffic removed.
We in the Admin team are very happy that this is going to become a full UK and Ireland effort. Hopefully we can gain some cross channel feeds to bolster the channel paths. Jester is already providing some great data.
Hopefully we can get the three French feeds which are on Oliver's server to provide a feed as they would benefit the cross channel MLAT for us.
It would be nice to pick up some new feeders along the south coast and indeed the Channel Islands. Again, Scotland is poorly represented and could benefit from new feeders.
So, what is happening on the server?
1. We have moved to the old VRS World server which has quite some horse power. Most of you will not have seen a change in this.
We do need all push feeders to change the url again, sorry! I need to release the vrs-world.com domain to Nigel by the end of June. The new url is www.mlat-radar.net. No need for http or anything. Those who need an IP address, this is 46.105.15.51.
2. Once we have the MLAT server in operation, we will be locking down the website. Access will be by unique user-name and password. Because there is much sensitivity about MLAT data, we need to become a private network. Let me be clear, this will remain free for access to the web site by the registered current feeders. Any new feeders will also have free access by user-name and password.
If anyone who does not feed wants to access the site, they will be asked to pay a nominal yearly fee which will go towards the cost of running the server (Our Windows server costs £31.00 per month which I normally pay unless I have received a donation). Any non-feeder will be positively vetted prior to being given access to the site. The monthly cost of the MLAT server is pretty much unknown at present. We are running an MLAT Client server at present, more of that in a minute. We may be able to run the MLAT server code on that.
We will be issuing user-names and passwords shortly to each user. Please do not share these with anyone else. We will be monitoring usage. If you have a specific need for someone else to have access, please contact us.
We will review each and every request and if relevant then will issue new access credentials for that user.
3. MLAT Client. At present this is only built for the Raspberry Pi and Debian Linux systems. It could be built for other Linux distributions but there is no point in doing that. Many people are Windows only. This is why we have set up an MLAT Client server. If you have any of the Kinetic Products, The Beast or Radarcape or even dump1090 running on windows, you can contribute to the MLAT community. Unfortunately the Airnav Radarbox range products do not provide any usable data. I doubt that the Airspy unit has even been considered although this will be raised with Oliver at some point.
To contribute you will need to allow the MLAT client server (MCS) to access your system. Basically once that happens, we take your RAW data and pass it though the client running on the MCS to send to the MLAT server (MS). Your MLAT data is then returned to you for your usage. The data that you have produced will be added to all the other MLAT data and sent directly to the mlat-radar.net server. There will be no need for you to send your MLAT data to us, therefore saving some bandwidth.
We will be writing to those of you already feeding into the system about the changes as they happen. For those of you not feeding MLAT data, if you would like to take part, please drop us a line and we can get you set up.
We will be putting some simple how-to documents together over the coming weeks. We will send out the links to them when they are ready so that you can download if you wish.
So all considered an exciting summer coming for us. I have now been freed from running VRS World (Thank you Nigel) and also VRS America. I can now concentrate on passing my exams this summer (RHCSA parts 1 & 2) and also the MLAT server set up. Our new Admin team of Steve, Mike, Gareth and Vince will be taking a far greater role in the support of the servers. We are acting as a team now and each of us will be putting suggestions forward for the direction of the server. No one person has final say in this, we will go with the majority!
If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, please feel free to contact us on support@mlat-radar.net.
Best wishes
Jon and The Admin Team
Thanks Charlie.
I think the same "Oliver" has been involved with an MLAT trial over at FlightAware but I could be wrong.
Reading the email it looks like a PlanePlotter type MLAT implementation, perhaps not dissimilar to the recently announced FlightAware beta:
https://discussions.flightaware.com/post167270.html#p167270
To answer your question about software, I think this part of the email is relevant:
3. MLAT Client. At present this is only built for the Raspberry Pi and Debian Linux systems. It could be built for other Linux distributions but there is no point in doing that. Many people are Windows only. This is why we have set up an MLAT Client server. If you have any of the Kinetic Products, The Beast or Radarcape or even dump1090 running on windows, you can contribute to the MLAT community. Unfortunately the Airnav Radarbox range products do not provide any usable data. I doubt that the Airspy unit has even been considered although this will be raised with Oliver at some point.
To contribute you will need to allow the MLAT client server (MCS) to access your system. Basically once that happens, we take your RAW data and pass it though the client running on the MCS to send to the MLAT server (MS). Your MLAT data is then returned to you for your usage. The data that you have produced will be added to all the other MLAT data and sent directly to the mlat-radar.net server. There will be no need for you to send your MLAT data to us, therefore saving some bandwidth.
We will be writing to those of you already feeding into the system about the changes as they happen. For those of you not feeding MLAT data, if you would like to take part, please drop us a line and we can get you set up.
Good to see alternative MLAT developments, both for the enthusiasts and commercial tracking sites.
I have been feeding into this new network for just over a week and it seems to be well configured.
I'm in Northern Ireland and the automatic MLATs through this system are far faster in initial response and refresh than PlanePlotter, despite the same stations feeding both networks. And the positions seem fairly accurate; there was a fighter deployment yesterday and mlat-radar did a good job of repeatedly plotting the tankers across the island. PlanePlotter just gave a single plot over NI.
The mobile version of the online map works fine on my phone and I prefer it for the laptop too.
Of course like FR24 it requires Internet access and there's no means of logging contacts locally, so you'll probably need another service running off your receiver for that.