3 articles tagged with ""aviation""
Aircraft don't just broadcast their position — they send actual text messages to airlines, maintenance crews, and dispatchers in real-time. A $25 USB dongle lets you read every single one. I've been doing this for weeks and I have questions about flight UA447.
Every commercial airplane overhead is screaming its GPS position, altitude, speed, and callsign at 1090 MHz — unencrypted — for anyone to receive. I tuned in with my RTL-SDR and suddenly had my own live air traffic radar. FlightRadar24 doesn't know what I know.
ACARS is the SMS system airlines have been using since 1978 to communicate with their aircraft. It runs on VHF radio. It broadcasts in plain air. And with a $20 RTL-SDR and free software, I'm now reading actual operational messages between airlines and their planes in real time. Nobody told me this was possible. I'm mildly furious.