Has any one tried Satellite ACARS (SatCom ACARS)?
Planes over ocean can be picked up by Satellite ACARS
For full detail, visit this site:
http://jontio.zapto.org/hda1/jaero.html
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1553/25564678661_7ea13e7209_z.jpg
The simplest L band antenna
(GPS antenna with filter removed)
Would love to try this… got lots of old sat parts kicking around.
Jubilation followed by heartbreak.
Okay - hyperbole - but still.
While Satellite-to-aircraft transmissions are generally in the ~1.5ghz L band, and could easily be received with the janky antenna pictured - these are not of very much interest to most of us.
The positioning information that could output such far-reaching maps as pictured are carried in the 4-8 Ghz C band.
This kind of sucks, as it requires a very large dish (10 feet seems to be the minimum preferred) and some sort of LNB to downconvert the signal.
I’m in an NYC apartment. I’m worried enough about the antenna mast cantilevered outside my bathroom window, I think the NASA-grade dish would surely draw the ire of my landlord.
Perhaps I can somehow convince my suburban-dwelling parents that this is a good idea. Anyone know anybody who has a now-defunct old-school-satellite-dish on their property? Could have a brand new purpose. 
**@tjowen: **
If you’ve got lots of old sat parts, this may be for you. Here’s what the author of the software ABCD linked to has to say… NB his point about the LNB, drift
I would recommend using the biggest dish you can get your hands on. One source says that they use 9 or 13 m dishes for ground stations. These signals have been successfully received off a 1.8 m dish from the UK so clearly the use of much smaller dishes is possible. Remember that not many amateurs have attempted to receive these signals so what makes a good set up is not really well known.
While I have used a regular television C-band LNB for my own set up, if you’re serious about receiving these signals then I would recommend against this. I would recommend using the lowest noise figure PLL LNB you can find as the frequency drift when using a regular television C-band LNB means continuously retuning the radio which makes long-term listening to these signals impractical.
There has been a lively discussion on the nuts and bolts of implementing this on the Yahoo planeplotter group.
If anyone is interested they and join at:
planeplotter-subscribe@yahoogroups.com