How can I track the military traffics?

[DaveReid]

This has been done to death.

4 ground stations, in good locations relative to where the aircraft is, are more than enough.

3 will suffice, provided that the aircraft being tracked is within the circumscribing triangle (and the nearer the centre, the more accurate will be the plot).

And, as has been repeated ad nauseam, but I'll say it again - for MLat to work at all, the ground stations picking up the aircraft also all need to be picking up a reference ADS-B aircraft for synchronisation.

If any one of those conditions isn't satisfied - simple, you can't MLat.  It's not rocket science.

[CoastGuardJon]

Hi Tom, I've no axe to grind whatsoever, but I did download PlanePlotter and tried to install it, with no success whatsoever - I couldn't get past the bit where I was told to calibrate the map or something similar.   I know I'm a technonumpty, but if I have to pay for the use of a program (which I've no problem with - I don't mind paying someone for their work) I expect it to install and work properly without needing to be an IT expert - I suspect there's probably a fair few other RB owners out there, who like me, bought the RB as it's so easy to install and use.    If PP and MLat were easier to get to grips with, believe me I'd be using them.    When they are developed to the stage working easily and ,accepting/using data from RBs, I'll be there in the queue to pay up and get going and contributing data, although I suspect my "freebie" network use will be expired before that happens.   In fact, I'm probably showing my ignorance there - do you even need to be subscribed to the ANRB network to export data (thinking of the 5 min. delayed info. on port 30003 or whichever - when this port was first mentioned, I thought there was some physical connection that my RB was missing!   Doubtless, you, Gary and many others will be thinking "What a numpty!",but installing Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit and finding some of the required drivers really stretched my abilities (and patience!), but I was 30+ when the BBC, Spectrum and Commoore 64 were just coming in, who else remembers the Jeff Minter Revenge of the Mutant Camels and others?

[DaveReid]

We've been promised that RadarBox MLat will be plug-and-play, so your prayers may be answered.

[CoastGuardJon]

Hi Dave, here's hoping, but I'm not going to try holding my breath..............

[viking9]

John,

I see more people on here having trouble installing ANRB than I do on the PlanePlotter forum installing that product. And of course, some of the features in ANRB still do not work  properly - I won't bore you with the details, they are all here in previous posts.

PP does accept data from your RB and passes it to the PP network You do not have to be subscribed to the ANRB network. You can be a Master User and track Mode-S only flights seen by your and other virtual radars. You can also log those flights. ANRB does not allow you to save flights from the network, which in fact only provides you with flights by aircraft having full ADS-B.

PlanePlotter is not a competitor to ANRB, its an application to enhance either virtual radar product. Not only that, but it can operate without a box and still provide a network and mlat. And it's dirt cheap. I'm sure AirNav will come up with multilateration - Kinetic already supply a commercial product that does it - but I'm not sure the average spotter would want to pay the price they will be charging.

I'm sure nobody on here thinks of anyone as a numpty because they have problems installing an application. I'm 71 now and I was building microcomputers in the late 70's and programming flight simulators in octal. In fact I left the aircraft world to work for IBM in the late 80's and spent the rest of my working life in IT, but I still sometimes struggle to get some applications to install properly.

To get back to the original poster's question, the answer I gave was the only useful one. If he wants to track Mode-S only aircraft with his RadarBox - get PlanePlotter or... Unfortunately it brought out the usual crop of brown-noses who see some sort of ulterior motive in that. Now if I were to post that my SBS-1er picks up about 30% more aircraft than my RB on the same antenna that would really upset them, wouldn't it? That's why I would never do that :o))

If you ever want help installing PP drop me a pm. I'd be pleased to help.

I'm off to bed now. Have to be up early to attend the ML&S open day at Chertsey tomorrow. Must not forget to take a USB stick for all the free software.

Tom

[radarspotter10]

Hi Tom, I've no axe to grind whatsoever, but I did download PlanePlotter and tried to install it, with no success whatsoever - I couldn't get past the bit where I was told to calibrate the map or something similar.   I know I'm a technonumpty, but if I have to pay for the use of a program (which I've no problem with - I don't mind paying someone for their work) I expect it to install and work properly without needing to be an IT expert - I suspect there's probably a fair few other RB owners out there, who like me, bought the RB as it's so easy to install and use.    If PP and MLat were easier to get to grips with, believe me I'd be using them.    When they are developed to the stage working easily and ,accepting/using data from RBs, I'll be there in the queue to pay up and get going and contributing data, although I suspect my "freebie" network use will be expired before that happens.   In fact, I'm probably showing my ignorance there - do you even need to be subscribed to the ANRB network to export data (thinking of the 5 min. delayed info. on port 30003 or whichever - when this port was first mentioned, I thought there was some physical connection that my RB was missing!   Doubtless, you, Gary and many others will be thinking "What a numpty!",but installing Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit and finding some of the required drivers really stretched my abilities (and patience!), but I was 30+ when the BBC, Spectrum and Commoore 64 were just coming in, who else remembers the Jeff Minter Revenge of the Mutant Camels and others?

hi.john
Same problem here i gave up as well, but we are not all perfect john.
all the best from pat

[cray725]

One thing for sure PlanePlotter and MLAT are not an easy install and setup! I have PlanePlotter working well after many months of playing around with it. I gave up on the MLAT trial, too complicated and I was getting crap plots! I have an SBS1e box as well as my Airnav Box. My Airnav box gives me a what I want out of the box without extra downloads. If MLAT was provided by Airnav, that would be heaven for me :)

[DaveReid]

I gave up on the MLAT trial, too complicated and I was getting crap plots!

If MLAT was provided by Airnav, that would be heaven for me :)

Well AirNav have promised that their MLat will be easier to use, so one of your wishes will be granted.

But AFAIK they haven't promised to rewrite the laws of physics, so given roughly comparable sharer networks you would be unwise to assume that RadarBox MLat plots would be immune from the problems that affect PP MLat - if you don't have enough sharers, in the right place, to perform the MLat then your plots will indeed be cr*p, if not non-existent.

[bratters]

Hi Tom, I've no axe to grind whatsoever, but I did download PlanePlotter and tried to install it, with no success whatsoever - I couldn't get past the bit where I was told to calibrate the map or something similar.   I know I'm a technonumpty, but if I have to pay for the use of a program (which I've no problem with - I don't mind paying someone for their work) I expect it to install and work properly without needing to be an IT expert - I suspect there's probably a fair few other RB owners out there, who like me, bought the RB as it's so easy to install and use.   

I'm with you as well John. We used to call it "black box technology" in the old days - no idea how anything worked but as long as you knew how to connect it up and switch it on, your were in business.

And it doesn't get easier with age sadly.

C'mon Airnav - get that new black box out!!!

[DaveReid]

I'm with you as well John. We used to call it "black box technology" in the old days - no idea how anything worked but as long as you knew how to connect it up and switch it on, your were in business.

I spent many years in airline maintenance, where it was a well-known fact amongst the engine/airframe technicians that all avionic systems were based on something called PFM.

Pure F***ing Magic  :-)

[Allocator]

I see more people on here having trouble installing ANRB than I do on the PlanePlotter forum installing that product. And of course, some of the features in ANRB still do not work  properly - I won't bore you with the details, they are all here in previous posts.

I'm sorry Tom, but that is just a ridiculous statement!

I think that I'm pretty good with IT and I've worked with Bev in the past, including getting PP to work with RB in the early days.  All credit to Bev in what he's achieved and the constant development of PP.  However, even I have difficulty with the PP settings and often more than one setting will work but who is to know which one is the best?

Yes, PP is excellent within the limitations of what it is, but it's hardly a straight-forward to use program.  Yes, there is a strong user community to provide support, although I find the Yahoo forum a bit of a mess.

I'm sure that ML&S will be pleased by the free advertising - have a good day :-0

[EMA]

I found Planeplotter difficult to setup and I too have many years IT experience. I have used Radarbox and other products and out of the box Radarbox is much easier to configure without messing about with add ons. I will not resort to knocking the competition though.

Each to their own but there is no need for people to deliberately come on here to cause trouble.

I am very suspicious about threads like these when started by new members.

[tarbat]

I  remember you had a bad attitude to the PP people right from the start because you were unable to set it up properly.

NOT TRUE :(  I've been using Planeplotter since Sept 2007, and you'll see from posts on this forum that I have even recommended it.  For example, see:
http://www.airnavsystems.com/forum/index.php?topic=1358
http://www.airnavsystems.com/forum/index.php?topic=1596

What gets me annoyed is when people suggest that multilateration in Planeplotter is accurate.  In my experience, it is very innaccurate, and is a complete waste of €14.40 per year.  Out of 100 multlateration requests, I'm lucky to get one success.  And that then shows wildly innaccurate aircraft positions.

[DaveReid]

What gets me annoyed is when people suggest that multilateration in Planeplotter is accurate.  In my experience, it is very inaccurate, and is a complete waste of €14.40 per year.  Out of 100 multlateration requests, I'm lucky to get one success.  And that then shows wildly innaccurate aircraft positions.

I don't think anyone here is actually disputing your findings - the reason for your disappointing experience with MLat is, as you know, principally down to geography.

And I'm struggling to see how RadarBox MLat is going to give you any better results, unless AirNav can magically conjure up some more sharers in your area.

Incidentally, do we know if AirNav are proposing to provide MLat as part of the standard network subscription, or will there be an additional charge ?  I haven't seen any mention of that anywhere.

[bratters]

Regarding paying an additional charge, I would expect the question to be how much rather than whether.

Seems fair enough to me to pay more to get more. As I see it, there would be at least double the number of aircraft on screen.

And from a personal perspective, there are of number of locally based aircraft, especially helicopters,  that I would love to plot.