Spotting military aircraft

[Triple7]

Hi Tibo,

I'll just add a few bits from the PP help file, together with a couple of examples from my radar.txt file:

Beamfinder

If PlanePlotter is used with a Mode-S receiver giving the appropriate raw data (currently SBS1, PGR, AVR/Beast, miniADSB, microADSB, SSRx), the identifier of the interrogating radar site can be determined from the air-to-ground Mode-S reply that PlanePotter picks up.

The radar heads rotate at speeds between 5 and 15 revolutions per minute (between 4 and 12 seconds per complete rotation). If PlanePlotter knows the identifier and the location of a specific radar site, together with its rotation rate, then any time that it receives a identified "ping" from an aircraft with a known position, it can determine the instantaneous azimuth of the radar beam from that radar site, at that precise instant.

Identified in your radar.txt file with 'SI' or 'II'

Example:

;KENT INTERNATIONAL
SI 36 51.348609 1.349953 7.50

Beamfinder Plus

This method is similar to the Beamfinder method except that it uses Mode-A/C radar pulses instead of Mode-S radar pulses. Currently, only the "Beast" and the SBS3 receivers provide Mode-A/C data in a format that this feature can use.

Identified in your radar.txt file with 'ZZ'. However, you will not be able to use Beamfinder Plus with a R820T dongle.

Example:

ZZ 0.006599 37.195 -8.600 12.123 3 (from the PP help file as I can't receive Mode A and C pulses)

Beamfinder Plus S

This method is similar to the Beamfinder method except that it uses the timing of the Mode-S radar pulses instead of the IID attached to some Mode-S radar messages.

So if you log the radar timings then you may be able to use that as well. Identified in your radar.txt file with 'ZS'

Example:

;BOURNEMOUTH
ZS 0.005560 50.778363 -1.841266 15.894

If you want to see your screen remotely, Teamviewer is good for that.

Hopefully this and the other replies will help you sort things out.

Tim

[TTECH]

Thank you for the answers everyone!
I am starting to understand everything better now.

OK - just checking that things are working as they should be.

Edit: And I'm surprised that there are not more PP users looking for military aircraft in Belgium given how popular Scramble website is (based in Netherlands).

Scramble is more Netherlands oriented.
https://www.coaa.co.uk/pp-user-charts.htm#1
It seems that there are around six PP users in Belgium, me included. But they are only Sector Master Users (white) and other uploading sharers (yellow) so I don't know if they are suitable for Mlat.

I saw some Belgian Air Force F16's, C130's and SF260's on PlanePlotter this morning.
I was only able to find to location of one F16 using Mlat. For the other aircraft, there was not enough data(PP sharers) and were only a little time visible on the Aircraft List.
I know that they all have a transponder here, but I don't receive all of them.

I will take a look at Teamviewer. Although, I will need internet outside of my house so maybe a 3G network will work with my laptop and Teamviewer.

What are your suggestions for me? Is my 'mission' not realistic?
Not enough MLAT users here in Belgium. Beamfinder not accurate with my dongle.

Maybe I can buy a better antenna and see if I get better results.
I am also thinking about the Mode-S Beast or SBS-3.

What do you think?

Regards,
Tibo

Edit:
You can see 3 pictures of some military aircraft that was on my Aircraft List.
Again, not enough Mlat sharers for finding the location.
Beamfinder doesn't show beams when I click on the aircraft in the list.
Will PlanePlotter automaticly search for the location or do I have to manually 'Shift + Click' it everytime?




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[Triple7]

Hi Tibo,

OK, I'll try and have a stab at some suggestions.

Firstly, your radar.txt file, I can't see any location names in your one - not that it matters but it just makes it harder to determine where they are. I have used the co-ordinates to roughly determine a close by town / city:

SI 06 near Jalons
SI 44 near Eupen
SI 55 near Vaux-Les-Rubigny
SI 60 Near Meeuwen
SI 62 near Anschau
SI 22 near Gulpen

You don't need repetitive locations in your file, just one entry for each radar head. You can leave any unknown's or questionable ones in but add a semi colon ";" to the start of the line = text entry and is ignored.

You should also be aware that due to some technical stuff about how aircraft respond to radar interrogations (someone else can explain that) radar heads that are close to you don't very often produce good results. In fact in some cases those that are 400km away do offer a better chance as the plane in question is way outside the range that that radar head covers. However, if you are interested only in military stuff which is at low level, you may be expecting too much from the system due to the target being below the radar horizon 

Also don't forget that radar heads in Germany are sometimes clustered meaning one identifier can cover more than one radar head so that makes it useless for beamfinder - that's not PP's fault either 

You may like to try running your evaluation for radar heads for a longer period and see if you get some from the UK, those coupled with some from France may give you a better spread.

In connection with Teamviewer, I had rather assumed that for you to see your desktop PC remotely you had some form of internet connection available to you. Even a free WiFi will work, if you can find one.

Shift+Click initiates an Mlat. Beamfinder starts as soon as you single click on an appropriate target in the list - it takes maybe a minute to do its thing but then the beams appear. Not forgetting the altitude problem noted above.

Tim

[TTECH]

Thank you for the clear answer, Triple7!

I will run the radar evaluation log for a longer time today or tomorrow.
How long would you suggest to get better results?
Also, I can click on 'Log radar identifier pings' or 'Log Mode-S radar interval pings'.
I only tried the last one till now so that means I only have configured Beamfinder Plus S.
I will try 'Log radar identifier pings' now for Beamfinder.

Would it be possible to combine Beamfinder and Beamfinder Plus S log results into one radar.txt file?
I am little confused now

There is no WiFi at the spotters corner of the military air base, but maybe I can try a 3G/4G network.

Regards,
Tibo

edit:
Strange thing is, in the Help file they say you have to do 'Log Mode-S radar interval pings' for Beamfinder Plus S and 'Log radar identifier pings' for Beamfinder.
I only have done   'Log Mode-S radar interval pings' till now but I get Beamfinder(SI, II,...) results in my radar.txt file, instead of Beamfinder Plus S(ZZ...).

[Triple7]

Hi Tibo,

If you have only logged Mode-S radar interval pings, then your radar.txt file should contain entries similar to this:

;BOURNEMOUTH
ZS 0.005560 50.778363 -1.841266 15.894

However, yours shows II and SI entries which are Beamfinder radar identifier pings i.e. the original Beamfinder using the radar identifier, location and rotation speed. Bedmfinder Plus S uses the interval (timing) of the pulses. (see above description of each method).

You certainly can (and should) have a mixture of SI, II and ZS entries and of course with the right receiver you could add ZZ entries as well - all in the one radar.txt file.

Initially we only ran the radar log for 15 mins, but then it was suggested you could run for longer maybe 30 mins or even an hour, the results may not be as accurate in terms of derived location but you might get a better selection of what's available to you. You can then refine your recordings over different times to try and produce a better radar.txt file.

If you can't convince McDonald's to open a "restaurant" where you need one and offer free WiFi, 3/4G is the next best thing albeit not free.

Good luck,

Tim

[TTECH]

Thanks Tim!

So it would be the best to run the the radar identifier log AND the mode-s interval log?

I just configured TeamViewer and it works as it should.
I have also configured a 3G network with my laptop using my phone(tethering).

How much data should TeamViewer consume when using PlanePlotter remotely?
Honestly, I think that a 3G network will be too slow.
In worst case, I would have to transport my whole setup to the spotter area, but then PlanePlotter isn't configured for home location.

Regards,
Tibo

edit:
I just tried TeamViewer with 3G. That's slow!
I think that will not work   

[Triple7]

So it would be the best to run the the radar identifier log AND the mode-s interval log?

Yes, absolutely.

How much data should TeamViewer consume when using PlanePlotter remotely?

I really have no idea on that, sorry

I just tried TeamViewer with 3G. That's slow!
I think that will not work   

I that case you could always get things set up at home and buy a second dongle for mobile use and as long as your 'spotters corner' isn't too far away from your home location, you should find your radar.txt file will work when mobile. I still have a feeling you might be disappointed with the results due to the traffic (potentially) being at such a low altitude.

Tim

[TTECH]

Thanks for the answer again, Tim

I that case you could always get things set up at home and buy a second dongle for mobile use and as long as your 'spotters corner' isn't too far away from your home location, you should find your radar.txt file will work when mobile. I still have a feeling you might be disappointed with the results due to the traffic (potentially) being at such a low altitude.

That's a good idea indeed!
So I will install PlanePlotter on my laptop and registrate it(I think the license works for multiple computers).
And actually, it's a better situation:
- PlanePlotter will run at my home with a 'big' antenna setup
- PlanePlotter will run at the spotters area with the 'mobile' antenna setup
So maybe MLAT will work better as there will be two receivers, one on site and one at home.
The air base is around 10km away from me.

I still have a feeling you might be disappointed with the results due to the traffic (potentially) being at such a low altitude.

But it's only 10km away from me and I will mount a better antenna on my roof.
Shouldn't that be good enough?

Today there was much traffic at the air base but I think that I only received 10% of it.

Regards,
Tibo

[Triple7]

Hi Tibo,

If you are thinking of Mlat, then you are not going to be be very happy in a few seconds .........

Using a PC with RTL1090, does not provide sufficient raw data for Mlat to work, you need a more expensive receiver, SBS, Beast or even the MicroADSB stick (there are others too). The cheap dongles don't work - yet. Now, there maybe some development that improves the situation but nothing is certain. It would appear that using a Raspberry Pi with the very same dongle and Dump 1090 does work. This is a Linux based system and it might be quite complicated to get it working when mobile as you need some form of screen / keyboard to see what's happening. Maybe a laptop running windows, network crossover cable to the Pi running Linux and to see what the Pi is doing use PuTTY.

My understanding was you were focusing on Beamfinder which should work with the Dongle but as we have discussed, the radar information is not shared, but beamfinder fixes can be, have a look in Options>>sharing>>set-up and on the left hand side in the box labelled 'Download' check Beamfinder fixes. That way you might see some fixes that others have initiated.


All good fun,

Tim

[TTECH]

Hello Tim,

It's not very bad news I think, because that is maybe the reason why Mlat doesn't work always or as good as it should.
So till now, I always used Mlat with the help of other users receivers, not mine.
That also means that I can use Mlat on my mobile laptop when I'm running PP without a suitable receiver.
I really thought that I was providing Mlat data

I have in mind to buy a Beast receiver, but I am comparing to the SBS-3 and some others.

As for Beamfinder, I am running another log evaluation now.
Hopefully I will get better results.

Thanks for the help!

Regards,
Tibo

[IanH]

Probably of little interest but my recollection is that Dump1090 will work on any PC with Debian on it, not just the Raspberry Pi.

When Dump1090 was first being tested some time ago with PlanePlotter, I successfully compiled Dump1090 on a PC - maybe it was being considered as an alternative to other decoders, or just testing the compilation process? Cannot remember much more - the PP Yahoo group will have more info, if you can find it 

Maybe I should try that again 

[TTECH]

I can't answer your question IanH

I can't get Beamfinder work with mil aircrafts, even when I receive them.
No beams showing up.
The beams only show up when I designate a positioned aircraft.
I will try to refine the radar.txt file.

Here is the current military traffic:(see attachment)

Is it possible to filter aircraft on country(not sorting) in the list? I can't find a correct coditional expression.
Do I really need NTP for using MLAT?

Regards,
Tibo


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[viking9]

Ian,

Have you selected 'View/Chart display options/Beamfinder' and ticked 'Beamfinder labels'. If you do, do you see the radar ident codes in the labels of any non-positional aircraft?

Tom

[IanH]

Last message probably for Tibo rather than me 

[TTECH]

Ian,

Have you selected 'View/Chart display options/Beamfinder' and ticked 'Beamfinder labels'. If you do, do you see the radar ident codes in the labels of any non-positional aircraft?

Tom

Yes it it checked.
Where can I see the ident codes in the Aircraft List?