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My toddler loves planes, so I built her a radar

jacobbartlett.substack.com

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Re: My toddler loves planes, so I built her a radar

#111

Post by jjwiseman »

idatum wrote: post #85

I wrote a simple program that connects to (default) port 30003 on dump1090-fa (Flightaware version). It parses the ADS-B output and uses Flightaware's AeroAPI (there is a free tier based on requests) to augment with airline, aircraft, and city departure information. I then publish to my MQTT (Mosquitto) broker for planes within 2.1 nautical miles (i.e. I can visually make them out). An MQTT client on an RPi3 (Linux)…

I have an iOS shortcut that anyone can use to do something similar. Install it, name it "What's Overhead", and then you can say "Siri, what's overhead?" and then Siri will speak details on whatever aircraft is closest to you.

I use it when driving, or via my watch if I hear an unusual plane or helicopter and don't want to pull out my phone.

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/92f43e8881ce4291b48b28a4b0b...

Re: My toddler loves planes, so I built her a radar

#113

Post by idatum »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #102
idatum wrote: post #85

I wrote a simple program that connects to (default) port 30003 on dump1090-fa (Flightaware version). It parses the ADS-B output and uses Flightaware's AeroAPI (there is a free tier based on requests) to augment with airline, aircraft, and city departure information. I then publish to my MQTT (Mosquitto) broker for planes within 2.1 nautical miles (i.e. I can visually make them out). An MQTT client on an RPi3 (Linux)…

That’s great, do you have a write up somewhere?

I'll finally get motivated and share :)

Re: My toddler loves planes, so I built her a radar

#114

Post by bunabhucan »

>the crew spots you with a cute plane-obsessed toddler, they invite you in to check out the cockpit.

Matching NASA orange jumpsuits are the passport into every cockpit. The crew gets way more excited than the kids. Also makes them super easy to find in the airport.

Re: My toddler loves planes, so I built her a radar

#115

Post by bbarn »

jjwiseman wrote: post #111
idatum wrote: post #85

I wrote a simple program that connects to (default) port 30003 on dump1090-fa (Flightaware version). It parses the ADS-B output and uses Flightaware's AeroAPI (there is a free tier based on requests) to augment with airline, aircraft, and city departure information. I then publish to my MQTT (Mosquitto) broker for planes within 2.1 nautical miles (i.e. I can visually make them out). An MQTT client on an RPi3 (Linux)…

I have an iOS shortcut that anyone can use to do something similar. Install it, name it "What's Overhead", and then you can say "Siri, what's overhead?" and then Siri will speak details on whatever aircraft is closest to you. I use it when driving, or via my watch if I hear an unusual plane or helicopter and don't want to pull out my phone. https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/92f43e8881ce4291b48b28a4b0b...

Great idea. Simple but effective, I'm up on a mountain with weird military traffic here and there, in addition to commercial stuff, so I'll play with this when I am driving around for sure.

Re: My toddler loves planes, so I built her a radar

#116

Post by blt »

ghewgill wrote: post #59
blt wrote: post #7

This is great! Small detail question: Did CRT radar scopes really have scan lines? I would have guessed they were vector displays. Re. list of extra features: Since the app targets planespotting, it would be cool to show aircraft type, maybe for a few seconds after you tap a blip.

They were vector displays. But possibly not quite in the way you're thinking. The original radar displays would scan from the center outward along a radial. The timing of the scan was predefined to scale for distance. The beam intensity signal was directly the (amplified) radar return signal. So a stronger returned signal would cause a more visible "blip" on the long-phosphor display. The interesting part is to make…

I was wondering about that after asking my question, since converting the signal to an x/y scope requires trigonometry. Probably a challenge to do electronically in the early days of radar. Leave it to the WW2-era engineers to find an electromechanical solution!

Re: My toddler loves planes, so I built her a radar

#117

Post by jaxelr »

My son loves this app and he’s 7. Thanks!

A small gripe, I’m unsure whats the api refresh rate and my kid continues closing and opening the app and then it sporadically gets time outs on the API. That being said, I much appreciate taking the time to release it and blog about it.

Re: My toddler loves planes, so I built her a radar

#118

Post by MandieD »

idatum wrote: post #113
lloydatkinson wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s great, do you have a write up somewhere?

I'll finally get motivated and share :)

When you do, I'll be eager to try it, as I currently rely on FlightAware's local web display to show my 3 year old what planes our antenna is picking up.

Re: My toddler loves planes, so I built her a radar

#120

Post by RachelF »

magicmicah85 wrote: post #119

I love the design but go one step further - forget the API and get an SDR that is tuned to ADB frequencies at 1090 Mhz and gather the data yourself. Then she'll have a true radar. Edit: fair point on what a radar is, today I re-remembered :)

Nice app and writeup - but she won't have a radar - she'll have an app that displays the positions of airplanes. A true radar needs to transmit and receive.

The SDR is still just listening to the telemetry from the plane, which they transmit all the time for this ADS mode.

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