MLAT stats now live - Friday December 18 2015

#1

Hi everyone,

FlightAware is pleased to announce that we’ve just released a huge upgrade to our stats system that significantly improves our processing speed (faster stats and we can have nearly unlimited receivers now) and we now generate stats for MLAT flight tracking, both separately from ADS-B and totaled for rankings. Everyone’s stats has been upgraded automatically although MLAT data processing only started in the last day. For more information on MLAT, please visit flightaware.com/adsb/mlat/

Now that we’re on the new highly-scalable stats platform, we can focus on new features and other improvements to the stats program.

This project has been underway for months and involves a team of about four developers at FlightAware – kudos to them!

Thanks everyone,

Daniel

#2

Great improvement! Congratulation to the team!

One question thought - the sum of the lines do not match the total line. Any explanation?

#3

love it! thanks! loving FA more! Merry xmas!

#4

Yes, it all looks very nice.

The 30 day ranking seems to have locked up. Or is it that the db cannot cope with the non mlat feeders in freefall?

I really hope you haven’t shot yourself in the foot with this. I appreciate that it does truly reflect the contribution but sadly I think you will see people in low coverage areas leaving even more quickly.

Phill

#5

I’m perplexed by the above comment. You seem to be stating that most of us are here simply for the chance to rank high in the stats, is that correct???

If so, for me you could not be more wrong. I maintain my receivers to provide coverage in a very low coverage area because if I didn’t there might be holes in that coverage. Stats are useful though when testing a new piece of hardware be it an amp or new antenna.

If you’re just looking for high score buy a pinball machine. Just joking, have a pleasant holiday season, Tom

#6

I live in a very low coverage area and find the new stats fascinating. I accept the reality that my location is difficult and I will never see but a fraction of the aircraft that receivers in high traffic areas will. On the other hand I am not in competition with anyone but myself and enjoy tweaking my system to get everything possible out of it. We have a very good view into parts of Chihuahua State of Mexico and log planes not everyone in our region can see.

So maybe we cannot predict outcomes from my interest and experience, but being involved with FA has been a pleasure as well as technically satisfying. I am confident others are having the same experience.

Hearty congratulations on the latest improvements.

#7

Looks pretty cool.

Virtual round of beers for the dev team!

#8

i love the new stats - before they were best in industry - and now flightaware plays simply in another league - congrats :slight_smile:

one tiny annotation: in the ‘nearby ads-b sites’ mlat column - how about not only display ‘Active’ but e.g. three different stages:

  • Active (just for the ones which activated mlat)
  • Approved (above + very precise location and altitude settings)
  • Perfect (above + good antenna placement and thus transmitting lots of messages (20% and above from maximum for this sites area))

… of course this idea is a bit selfish too - as i’m hoping to get more stations doing mlat well in my area for better low-flight-level mlat :slight_smile:

#9

Actually TJ, I like pinball, but was never able to get proficient with the tactical “nudge”.

I’m surprised you’re perplexed, and even more surprised that you’re putting words in my mouth.

You seem to be stating that most of us are here simply for the chance to rank high in the stats, is that correct???

No it’s not. Who said anything about “most”!

All credit to those who feed for altruistic reasons. I’ll be honest and say that my interest is technical, having played with weather fax, POCSAG and half a dozen other modes over the years. Hey I was even geeky enough to go hunting long range maritime beacons on a Lowes HF150. I’m interested in squeezing all the mileage I can out of my rig. I couldn’t give a toss about my own ranking.

What did concern me were post recently where FA appears to be sending FFs out to low coverage areas where they feed for a few days and then are never seen again. I would like to see that reversed and people retained.

You have a great Christmas. 8)

Phill

#10

A good job with great graphs.

But, sure would be nice to have the average Positons/Aircraft ratio for the last 2, 24 hour periods reported (no graph needed).
It would eliminate the need to hand calculate.
I compare the ratios to alert me for antenna/amplifier problems or to evaluate antenna modifications .
Total aircraft don’t necessarily change much but positions per aircraft can change dramatically when something is failing (kind of like C/N ratio).

#11

Now this I can agree with, thanks for the clarification.
Merry Christmas Phill.

#12

The total is the sum of Mode-S, ADS-B, MLAT, and any other messages that fail classification or validation. We only really care to emphasize the ADS-B and MLAT, so the other things are not listed separately and are only reflected in the total.

#13

How is the ranking calculated now? Previously it was the number of aircraft seen, but now that doesn’t seem to be the case: The person below me in the list has 131022 adsb aircraft seen and 562 for mlat. I have 130401 and 625, and there is someone above me with 127939 and 0 for mlat. Is it using some statistic that we can’t see, or are the figures combined somehow?

#14

Wow, that’s a great improvement. Great job and thanks! :smiley:

#15

First of all, the new stats are great, so thank you!

I might be reading this wrong, but the hourly collection graph doesn’t seem right. For example, the stats on my page indicate vastly more MLAT vs. ADS-B positions per day, by a factor of more than 4:1. However, the hourly collection graph shows consistently higher ADS-B positions vs. MLAT. This seems backwards.

Additionally, the line for today’s ADS-B positions is 4-5x higher than the trailing 24h line. Is something being double counted?

Thanks,

Andy

#16

There is a known issue in which database column is being graphed in the hourly collection graph for the “ADS-B positions”, but that will be fixed in our Monday website release. (The graph is currently depicting the “total” for what is labelled as “ADS-B”.)

#17

Awesome job FlightAware. This is a nice gift for Christmas. Keep up the awesome work. Merry Christmas. :smiley:

#18

Interesting thing on stats. I have always been in about the same relative position in the statistics since my first site (407). A better antenna and higher placement upped it a little. For me, it’s been about contributing something, not competing for some ranking. Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays as you prefer. :slight_smile:

#19

Just checked and It looks fantastic. Much cleaner reporting as well.

Keep up the great work !!

#20

Nice keep up the good work, I love FlightAware, but when will be the FightFeeder will be available for Multilateration(MLAT) because now FlightFeeder is not yet supported with the Multilateration(MLAT)?