r/ADSB

Hi all,

I've built https://map.flights/, a live flight map I've been working on for the past few weeks. The hard part now is the data, so I'd like to ask for your help: would you add it as one more feed target?

The important bit up front, so you don't find it out from someone else: this is heading for commercial operation. Today I read from community aggregators — one of them declined to give me access and another is personal-use only. Both are entirely their call, and it's exactly why I'd rather build my own receiver network than argue about it.

This isn't a switch, it's one extra line. Please keep feeding wherever you feed now — I want to be an additional target, never a replacement. For readsb:

--net-connector=feed.map.flights,30004,beast_reduce_plus_out,uuid=<your uuid>

The protocol matters: beast_reduce_plus_out is the one that carries the UUID, so your station shows up as yours. You mint the UUID yourself at map.flights/receivers — no email to anyone, no approval queue. Without a UUID it still works and the positions still help, you just show up anonymous. Ultrafeeder and the adsb.im image take it like any other network.

What you get back:

– A station score with the formula published and frozen. The API returns the raw inputs and the per-component points, so you can recompute your own score in a spreadsheet. If I ever change a constant, it goes in the changelog with a date — I changed one today and it's there.

– Measured coverage gaps. I compute daily where traffic should be and isn't, so I can tell you whether a receiver at your location actually adds anything, instead of asking everyone everywhere to feed.

– Location privacy by default. Public pages show a grid cell and a country — never your town, never the antenna position — and per-sector range is rounded to 5 km. Trilateration from published neighbour distances is a real attack and I treat it as one.

What I don't have: no MLAT server (it needs density I don't have yet), and the network is brand new — two stations today, both mine. The map currently shows about 6 900 aircraft from aggregators plus 1 300 estimated positions over areas nobody covers. No ads, no tracking, sources credited at map.flights/transparency.

If you'd rather just look at it and tell me what's wrong, that's nearly as useful as the feed. Thanks!

https://preview.redd.it/xufibquogxjh1.png?width=1992&format=png&auto=webp&s=927e7b875fd22d6ac656ce194c3f25c8878b1da9

Sorry if this the wrong spot to post. Two planes were coming in staggered to SFO at about 9:37 this morning. The first aborted the landing on the left side pretty aggressively maybe a mile short of the runway. The second landed, but seemed to jog over to the right pretty late in the approach. Any ideas what happened?

What are the platform's on which i can share my ADSB data? Like ranking from best, also perks wise like which platform's UI and features are best.

So the idea is I am sharing data in FlightRadar24 and Plane Finder. Both the apps are good and easy to use. But am I missing something? How can I get the best out of my receiver.

Anyone else running a mobile unit? I have a large antenna unit setup at home, but i also just built a uconsole to have as a mobile unit. I travel a lot for work and love the idea of being able to see and share data when i get to new places.

I know this question has been asked a bunch in various subreddits, but I wanted to see if folks had tips based on what I'm building.

Basically, I want to build a desktop LCD screen that shows when a flight flies over you within a certain radius and then shows you basic information like the plane, it's route, etc. I'm an avgeek myself and plane spot at SFO a few hours a week.

When I talked to friends about it, we had lots of ideas like creating alerts for squawk codes, plane types, etc.

Disclaimer: This is a product I intend to sell.

As a bunch of people have already complained, getting this data is actually quite expensive, and I'm really trying to avoid a subscription in the product beyond the hardware.

Right now, the best I have is:

- Use ADSB.lol 's free API to get callsigns within a given radius.

- Call FlightRadar24's paid API with the callsign and cache that data for a month before calling again (DL1 at 1:24PM on Monday's is usually JFK - LHR for example).

- The above based on historical data at least in the United States seems to have ~95% accuracy w/ around ~$2/mo/user in cost to me. Good not great. Cache hits were ~62%. That's not assuming some global cache as well, which would yield better numbers as more people use it.

Does any one have other ideas who has explored this a little bit? I've been researching for a few days and am in awe by how pricy this industry is.