Tracking planes with dump1090

A RTLSDR receiver and dump1090 can track planes hundreds of miles away.

A RTLSDR receiver and dump1090 can track planes hundreds of miles away.

As an amateur radio operator and full-time geek, I’ve always been interested in the convergence of technologies, especially when the convergence scratches a few of my itches. One one of my latest hobbies is tracking commercial airliners through their ADS-B broadcasts. It’s a hobby that doesn’t take much time outside of setting it up. In about two hours, I configured a receiver, built an antenna, and set up software that shares what I find with the world, and all for under $30. Here’s how I did it.

The ADS-B protocol is a digital “status update” signal broadcast by airplanes which updates other aircraft around it with important location information and the like. The FAA would eventually like to see ADS-B take the place of ground-based radar but not all airplanes use it yet. Transceivers are still pricey and owners of general aviation aircraft like Cessnas largely haven’t yet adopted the system. There’s an amazing amount of data being sent and anyone with the proper receiver can intercept it (oops, that’s what we called radio reception when I was a Navy cryptologic technician), and that receiver can be dirt-cheap like the RTLSDRs.

Three years ago the radio-geek world was set ablaze when it was discovered that a mass-market DVB-T USB device had the ability to become a software-defined radio, basically a wide-range receiver that can easily decode almost any signal. Hobbyists soon were using these $15 RTLSDR dongles for just about everything, including tracking airplanes. I had a few lying around that weren’t really being used for anything so I hooked one up to my Raspberry Pi
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Apple defends decision to remove 3.5mm headphone jack, cites “courage” | Ars Technica

I want to love Apple. I really do. But then Apple does something boneheaded like phase out a perfectly-good 3.5mm headphone jack in favor of its own, $160 proprietary headphone technology and I want to throw out every Apple product in my home.

Apple doesn’t want its customers to have choices. It has become the Microsoft of the 2000s. “Courage,” my ass. How about greed? How often do you think Apple’s customers will lose these loose, pricey earbuds?

"Airpods," a.k.a. overpriced junk

“Airpods,” a.k.a. overpriced junk

SAN FRANCISCO—Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller took the stage at Wednesday’s iPhone event to announce the news most tech geeks had been expecting: the iPhone will leave the 3.5mm headphone jack behind. It was Schiller’s job to justify why Apple was doing so, and he defended the company’s decision by citing three reasons to move on—and one word: “courage.”

Schiller explained to the San Francisco event crowd that Apple would push the Lightning port standard for wired headphones and push a new proprietary wireless standard, driven by the new “W1 chip” in iOS devices, which Schiller called Apple’s first wireless chip.

The 3.5mm port, on the other hand, has to go, Schiller said, because the company can’t justify the continued use of an “ancient” single-use port. He described the amount of technology packed into the iPhone, saying each element in Apple’s phones is fighting for space, and it’s at a premium. And while every iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will include a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter, Schiller was a lot more bullish about the company’s wireless-audio standard.

Source: Apple defends decision to remove 3.5mm headphone jack, cites “courage” | Ars Technica

SpaceX’s Explosion Reverberates Across Space, Satellite and Telecom Industries – The New York Times

This is a fascinating look at all the dominoes that fall when a rocket like SpaceX’s explodes.

The explosion of a SpaceX rocket last Thursday will have an impact across the space industry, far beyond the losses on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Fla.

An Israeli satellite operator’s deal to sell itself to a Chinese company is imperiled. Planned launches of communications satellites that support international mobile phone service and digital television are delayed and put in doubt. NASA’s cargo deliveries to the International Space Station will probably be disrupted.

All of them are customers of the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, whose rocket exploded in Florida. The private space launch company, led by the entrepreneur Elon Musk, has a generally solid safety record.But last week’s setback and a failed launch last year, when its rocket carrying a NASA cargo fell apart in flight, are raising questions about SpaceX, a company that has risen rapidly by offering lower costs and promising accelerated launch schedules.

Source: SpaceX’s Explosion Reverberates Across Space, Satellite and Telecom Industries – The New York Times

Inside The Federal Bureau Of Way Too Many Guns | GQ

Anytime a cop in any jurisdiction in America wants to connect a gun to its owner, the request for help ends up here, at the National Tracing Center, in a low, flat, boring building that belies its past as an IRS facility, just off state highway 9 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in the eastern panhandle of the state, a town of some 17,000 people, a Walmart, a JCPenney, and various dollar stores sucking the life out of a quaint redbrick downtown. On any given day, agents here are running about 1,500 traces; they do about 370,000 a year.

“It’s a shoestring budget,” says Charlie, who runs the center.
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Dix Park Advisory Committee chosen

Raleigh city council approved the members of the Dix Park Advisory Committee yesterday. My son Travis and I did not make the list. I was disappointed about this for a little while until I recognized how much time I now won’t be spending in meetings. I had cleared the decks to devote the proper time and attention to this but now I am free to pursue other initiatives. Now, how to fill it?

Aunt Beverly and Uncle Bill

My uncle, Bill Turner

My uncle, Bill Turner


Up until recently I’ve been fortunate not to have any of my friends and relatives die. Sadly, this has not been the case recently. My Aunt Linda died last spring and in the past two weeks I’ve lost both my Aunt Beverly and my Uncle Bill.

Aunt Beverly was married to my dad’s oldest brother, Jimmy. She was a longtime Spanish teacher in Birmingham and raised two of her three kids on her own after Jimmy died in the 80s. I didn’t know her too well.

While I was making plans to attend her funeral I found out Uncle Bill was in serious condition. Bill died last week. I was unable to attend Beverly’s funeral but was able to get away for Bill’s, also in Birmingham.

It’s an 8+ hour drive to Birmingham from Raleigh, so my brothers and I carpooled there. We spent the next few days eating barbecue, catching up, and attending services. Then it was a long trip back.

Uncle Bill was just a fun guy. He always had a funny story to tell, the result of a keen sense of observation. He worked as a service manager at a car dealership for most of his career but filled his retirement with golf and trips. He was also the only other member of my family to be a veteran of the Navy. Like me, Uncle Bill only spent four years in the Navy but those four years transformed his life. He was fiercely proud of his service and his Navy. I hope my service was up to his standards!

The occasion did give me the opportunity to spend time with my family in a way that has become increasingly rare. I just hope the next occasion is a more positive one.

Russia is harassing U.S. diplomats all over Europe – The Washington Post

Russian intelligence and security services have been waging a campaign of harassment and intimidation against U.S. diplomats, embassy staff and their families in Moscow and several other European capitals that has rattled ambassadors and prompted Secretary of State John F. Kerry to ask Vladimir Putin to put a stop to it.

At a recent meeting of U.S. ambassadors from Russia and Europe in Washington, U.S. ambassadors to several European countries complained that Russian intelligence officials were constantly perpetrating acts of harassment against their diplomatic staff that ranged from the weird to the downright scary. Some of the intimidation has been routine: following diplomats or their family members, showing up at their social events uninvited or paying reporters to write negative stories about them.

Source: Russia is harassing U.S. diplomats all over Europe – The Washington Post

Brexit Is Only the Latest Proof of the Insularity and Failure of Western Establishment Institutions

Great commentary by Glenn Greenwald on Brexit.

Brexit — despite all of the harm it is likely to cause and despite all of the malicious politicians it will empower — could have been a positive development. But that would require that elites (and their media outlets) react to the shock of this repudiation by spending some time reflecting on their own flaws, analyzing what they have done to contribute to such mass outrage and deprivation, in order to engage in course correction. Exactly the same potential opportunity was created by the Iraq debacle, the 2008 financial crisis, the rise of Trumpism and other anti-establishment movements: This is all compelling evidence that things have gone very wrong with those who wield the greatest power, that self-critique in elite circles is more vital than anything.

But, as usual, that’s exactly what they most refuse to do.

Source: Brexit Is Only the Latest Proof of the Insularity and Failure of Western Establishment Institutions

What mysterious force whisked away the water on Venus? – CSMonitor.com

Fascinating research might explain why all the water on Venus has disappeared.

Venus is remarkably Earth-like, with a similar size and gravity to our own planet. But the second planet from the sun is missing a key element to be a twin to our blue planet: water.

Scientists say there were once oceans on Venus’s surface, but with surface temperatures topping 860 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s no surprise the surface of Venus today is bone-dry.

But where did that water disappear to?

Source: What mysterious force whisked away the water on Venus? – CSMonitor.com

Obama, Truman, and the atomic bomb

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman

On my port visit to Sasebo, Japan, during my Navy service, I decided to take a tour of Nagasaki. Standing at ground zero of this city was an unexpectedly deeply moving experience for me, one that I will never forget. The U.S. Army photos displayed there of mangled, radiation-poisoned bodies will haunt me forever.

It was a horrendous decision to drop the bomb. Anyone who visits Nagasaki or Hiroshima and does not agree has lost all humanity.

Obama is visiting Hiroshima and some of my right-wing friends are having a hissy fit about it. Many claim this is a “slap in the face to veterans,” though many of them are not veterans themselves, so it’s unclear how they can speak for veterans.

As a veteran I have debated whether dropping the bomb was the right thing to do. I always thought Harry Truman did a lot of good as President but how could I reconcile his decision to nuke hundreds of thousands of people with his good deeds? I’ve since grudgingly come to think it was the right call, given the fanaticism in Japan at the time. Casualties from an invasion of Japan (proposed as Operation Downfall) would have been from 500,000 to over a million in bloody, take-no-prisoners fighting.

So Truman’s decision most likely saved lives, though it brought the world the madness of nuclear weapons. It was a decision we’re still paying for today.

It’s easy to second-guess President Truman today since things look so much different from our perspective. The war, however, has long been over. Japan and America are close friends and important allies.

Should Obama apologize? I really don’t care either way. The only people who do care are the ones who just can’t let go.