On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 00:48:57 -0400,
wrote:

On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:50:23 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:53:53 -0000 (UTC), Bill
wrote:

John wrote:
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:42:32 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 15:32:12 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 14:16:24 -0400,
wrote:

Things have been a little slow here so thought I'd post something a
bit out of the ordinary and get some discussion going about what we
are all doing to spend time during the Covid crisis.

To set the stage, I've had a long time interest in electronics, ham
radio, short wave radio reception, etc., ever since I was a kid. Those
interests eventually morphed into a career of programming, designing
and managing computer systems, so the skills I learned early on served
me well. About 5 years ago I started another hobby which combined my
interest in boats and boating with my interest in electronics and
computing. I set up a receiving station for the AIS position report
transmissions that all large boats transmit, as well as many smaller
ones. My equipment decodes position reports and boat data, logs it to
my chart plotting software, and forwards it to a web site called
www.marinetraffic.com. Anyone can log onto that site and see the
position of boats all over the world thanks to a network of volunteers
like myself who share their data via the internet.

Recently I learned that there is a similar network of hobbyists who
track the position of aircraft by decoding what is called their ADS-B
transponder data. We live near two fairly active airports, and have a
steady stream of planes and hellicopters flying around so I thought it
would be cool to know more about them. Thanks to some recent advances
in electronics it is now possible to buy a minature USB device which
not only receives radio signals but decodes their data and makes it
available for processing on your PC. All that, with an antenna, for
about $30 or so on Amazon. Now when I hear an airplane fly over, with
a few mouse clicks, I can get all of their flight data and plot the
position of the plane on a chart. With a few more clicks the tail
number, registration data and a picture of the plane is displayed.
From there you can see their flight plan if any, know where they came
from, and where they are going.

I have quickly learned that there is a lot more going on up there than
I'd ever realized. We've got a huge number of private jets zooming
around, lots of small aircraft, flight school planes practicing,
mosquito control hellicopters spraying, sheriff's hellicopters
patrolling, med evac aircraft doing their thing, and the usual number
of commercial flights coming and going. It can be a bit addictive to
watch all of this going on. If you're a real junky you can also
monitor control tower transmissions on various web sites.

https://www.amazon.com/FlightAware-FA-PROSTICKPLUS-1-Receiver-Built-Filter/dp/B01M7REJJW

https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/how-to-install-pro-stick-dvb-t-on-windows/25070/2

https://www.liveatc.net/

You can also listen to RSW here

https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...rsw&mount=krsw

===

Yes, and FMY is he

https://www.liveatc.net/hlisten.php?...kfmy&icao=kfmy

OK, so what's ESW and FMY?
--

Freedom Isn't Free!


Airport codes.

RSW is the new airport, FMY was built for bi planes in the 20s and
upgraded as a training field in WWII. It was out in the country in
those days, Now it is downtown. They were still landing commercial
727s there when I moved here tho. It was pretty exciting when one
rotated and climbed out about 40' over you on US41.

They all moved over to RSW as their gate leases expired but even in
86, you could go out there and only see a handful of flights an hour
in the middle of the day. At night it pretty much closed. The military
used to play there, flying in from all over.

FMY is all private aviation or charter now.

===

FMY is right across the river from us and surprisingly active for a
small airport. A bunch of corporate and charter jets are based there
as well as a substantial fleet of single and twin engine prop planes.
On a busy day when the flight schools are active there are frequently
two or three planes in the landing pattern at the same time. It's fun
watching them on my tracking screen at the same time they're getting
radio instructions from the tower.

One of my IBM buddies owned a plane that was tied down there. He lived
in the Villas and he could get there without going out on the main
drag. He thought it was cool until his maintenance bills made it too
expensive for a hobby. He did fly to Tennessee a lot tho and he said
that was really the only way to get there easy. When he moved to
Tampa, he sold the plane.