FEDEX plane mysteriously vanishes off the coast of Gloucester MA!!

[Xringer]

Good Morning,

It was 4/11/2014 / 06:50:37AM, and I was watching the plane (FX1473) on-line at Plane Finder Tracker,
it was going to Logan, but it just started heading out to sea.. Where it suddenly vanished!!
See right side of picture below.. It shows FX1473, just seconds before it disappeared over the ice cold Atlantic..

However, being the proud owner of a $20 USB-dongle radio,
I knew the plane had turned south, dropped down to 1050 feet,
slowed to 97 kts, before safely landing at Logan..
(See my retired-nerd 'radar' display on left side of screensave pic below).

My plan is to help out the Planefinder folks, by providing them better data from here in Woburn..
(Using equipment they will provide).
The goal is, to put an end to these scary runaway Fedex flights!
Why? Because we all need to know that our Amazon shipments are safe!

Warning, large pic..

[ecomodded]

ha ! shipments are safe ! what about the people lol

That is interesting, I did not know you could track airplanes/ commercial jets but it stands to reason.
I track large commercial ships and log haulers that leave my Port and steam past my view, all are headed to the orient with the Logs some with 6x6 lumber that is destined for Japan for building material / rebuilding lumber.

[Xringer]

I'm using an old Ham radio antenna to track about 20 planes right now.
(The antenna was made for VHF & UHF, not made for microwaves)..
Most are within about 50 nautical miles of me.
I've been waiting all day for the mail man to show up with the new 1090 mHz antenna.. (Made in the USA)!
DPD Productions - VHF Air/Aviation Band, FBO Base, ACARS & ADS-B (SBS / RadarBox) Antennas for Commercial & Hobbyist Applications

If it's a good one and 30 feet is high enough, I might get around 100 mile range.. I hope!

The tracking is easy, just need a little USB radio..
http://ecorenovator.org/forum/applia...sb-dongle.html
And some free-ware off the web..

PS:
My Amazon shipment got here at noon. It's a 16gB USB drive/nubby stick.
I'm going to see if my Sister-in-law's XP laptop will run linuxmint-16-mate-dvd-32bit ,
whatever that is..?.

[ecomodded]

A Yagi design antenna would give you a extra long distance punch, although being directional you would have to point it toward the airplanes flight path, being its over so many miles the antenna beam will be wider then normal which will aid in finding the jets in the sky. I have a sneaking suspicing that you could build a Yagi antenna of the required frequency, judging by your interests and abilities with gadgetry and previous antenna construction projects ( I pay attention..lol), you could easily make a high power Yagi to Rival most commercially available Yagi's.
A home brew directional Yagi could have 20dbi or more of gain and all in the right direction !

[ecomodded]

Of course you have spent money on a antenna already, its always seems to happen that way.. maybe a 2 antenna system could be rigged, if the ohms could be worked out..


I use a 15ft active usb extension cable for my 18" omni wifi antenna and the usb 1w wifi booster the antenna hooks up to, No signal loss as the antenna sits right on top of the 1w usb wifi adapter and the active usb extension cable passes the usb signal flawlessly. I first tried with a 10ft non active usb cable but it did not work.

[Xringer]

Got my 'free' antenna this afternoon, just before the rain hit..

At this frequency, it's limit is line-of-sight.. And, since I'm seeing planes 229 km down south,
I might be limited by the curvature of this planet's surface..
Yagi can't help with that.. My Yagi building days are behind me.. I hope..

Don't really need much more gain, with this radio.. I took out the LNA..
It was picking too much noise.. Or too many signals..
So much data was streaming out of my little XP server, my Fios crashed..

[ecomodded]

I see, I had thought with the curvature issue if you aim higher then it meets, but I am only hypothesizing after hearing others mention it , I don't know for sure..if the rf waves can be aimed like that with the curvation (my new word) of the planet. Regardless it sounds like your new antenna is giving you a big boost, 229km from about 80km or so if i read that right.

[Xringer]

I've net-tracked planes using an app on my iPhone.. PF AR
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/plan...390039844?mt=8


As I watched planes going down closer and closer to the horizon in the south,
I realized they weren't getting closer to the ground.
But the ground between us, was coming up, between us..
Anyways, I found out that my eyeball is only good for small planes out to 26 miles..

Just watching them dip beneath the skyline of rolling hills,
I said, 'if I can't see them, I can't pickup any microwaves from them either'..
That's why I'm kinda amazed at picking up planes down below Long Island..
That's a pretty long haul..

[Higgy]

You're a weirdo Xringer. Just saying.

[Xringer]

Originally Posted by Higgy

You're a weirdo Xringer. Just saying.

Me?? What did I do? I just got a free $150 antenna in the mail, and put it up..

Check out these guys!
ADS-B DIY Antenna | Plane Finder Forum

I don't think there's a week goes by, without another new antenna hack!