SOFTWARE FOR ACARS RECEPTION

ACARS SHORT FOR ' AIRCRAFT COMMUNICATIONS ADDRESSING AND REPORTING SYSTEM ', NOTHING SPECIAL IS REQUIRED FOR THE RECEPTION OF ACARS OTHER THAN A VHF SCANNER RECEIVER COVERING THE AIR-BANDS AND YOUR COMPUTER AND THE SOFTWARE, YOU JUST NEED TO MAKE A CONNECTION FROM THE SCANNER HEADPHONE OUTPUT JACK TO THE LINE/MIC INPUT SOCKET ON YOUR PC SOUNDCARD.THE BEST SOFTWARE BY FAR IN MY OPTION IS THE PROGRAM FROM AIRNAV I HAVE LOOKED AT A FEW PROGRAMMES AND IN MY OPTION THIS ONE IS HEAD AND SHOULDERS ABOVE THE REST, ITS NOT FREE BUT WORTH THE MONEY,MAKE SURE YOU DOWNLOAD THE 'POSIFIX' FREEWARE PROGRAMME TO GET THE MAP PLOTTING FACILITY. WACARS ( WINS 95.98 & XP ) IS  FREEWARE BUT I FIND IT NEEDS A BIT OF EXPERIMENTING WITH AUDIO AND SOUNDCARD SETTINGS TO GET IT TO DECODE ANYTHING WELL..ACARS IS ALSO USED ON THE H.F BANDS AND IS EASY TO COPY, BUT YOU NEED THE PC-HFDL PROGRAMME ( AGAIN DOWNLOAD THE POSIFIX PROGRAMME, AS THIS INTERFACES WITH PC-HFDL  ALSO)  I CAN RECEIVE THE HF STATION IN BAHRAIN AND PLOT AIRCRAFT IN THAT AREA  AND BEYOND, BUT YOU DO NEED A DECENT SSB RECEIVER. PDW DE CODES POCSAC / FLEX & MOBITEX AS WELL AS ACARS, BUT YOU NEED TO HAVE SOME PATIENCE SETTING THE SOUND CARD LEVELS, OR BUILD THE INTERFACE FOR THE SERIAL PORT.

IF SOME OF THE ABOVE PROGRAMS DON'T SEEM TO WORK, ESPECIALLY PC-HFDL ( IT KEEPS SAYING" CRL FAIL" , EVEN WITH STRONG SIGNALS, TUNED IN CORRECTLY ) AND YOUR SOUND CARD IS BUILT INTO THE COMPUTER MOTHER- BOARD  ( AC97 ) OR IF ITS AN EXTERNAL USB TYPE, OR ITS A CHEAP UN-BRANDED TYPE - THEN CHANGE IT FOR A" CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER LIVE" TYPE AND EVERYTHING SHOULD BE OK.THIS HOLDS FOR MOST SOUNDCARD PROGRAMS THAT ARE PROBLEMATIC.

ITS ALSO USEFUL TO HAVE A LIST OF ICAO CODES FOR AIRPORTS SO YOU CAN WORK OUT THE DEPARTURE AND DESTINATION AIRPORTS FROM THE FLIGHT LIST GRID SCREEN OF AIRNAV ACARS.

THE ABOVE FLIGHT LIST GRID OF ACARS SHOWS THE FRENCH REGISTERED PLANE ' F-GFKD ' ON ROUTE FROM MANCHESTER, U.K TO PARIS, FRANCE. FROM THE SECOND LIST WE CAN FIND THAT ' F-GFKD ' BELONGS TO AIR FRANCE.

ANOTHER PROGRAM FROM AIRNAV IS THE AIRNAV SELCALL DECODER PROGRAM. WHICH BASICALLY JUST DECODES SELCALLS AND THEN USING A LOCALLY HELD LOOKUP TABLE DISPLAYS THE AIRCRAFT REGISTRATION,COMPANY AND FREQUENCY ETC. NOT OVER EXITING ON ITS OWN, BUT IF YOU ARE RUNNING WINDOWS XP ( AND ONLY XP,AS WINDOWS 98 WILL SAY "SOUNDCARD ALREADY ALLOCATED"  IF YOU TRY TO RUN TWO PROGRAMS OF THIS TYPE TOGETHER ) YOU CAN RUN THIS PROGRAM AT THE SAME TIME AS RUNNING THE ACARS PROGRAM.131.725 MHz HERE IN EUROPE WILL PRODUCE A LOT OF SELCALS,AS WELL AS ACARS MESSAGES SIMULTANEOUSLY.THE ONLY DOWNSIDE IS THAT THE LOOKUP TABLE IS BADLY OUT OF DATE,BUT YOU CAN EDIT IT YOURSELF ( SEE EXCEL SHEET BELOW )

THE FORMAT THAT THE SECALL LOOKUP TABLE TAKES IS STRAIT FORWARD,SO IS EASY TO EDIT/ADD NEW ENTRIES.

FOR A DATA BASE OF ALL AIRPORT & AIRLINE CODES / SELCALS / REGISTRATIONS

VHF ACARS FREQUENCIES

H.F ACARS GROUND STATIONS FREQUENCIES

RED = NOT KNOWN TO BE ACTIVE AT THE MOMENT

BLACK = ACTIVE FREQUENCIES (DEPENDENT ON TIME OF DAY/PROPAGATION CONDITIONS )

TO DECODE H.F ACARS YOU WILL NEED THE PC-HFDL PROGRAM, PLUS A GOOD H.F. RECEIVER CAPABLE OF RESOLVING USB WITH A BANDWIDTH OF ABOUT 2.8 kHz. THE " POSFIX " PROGRAM WILL ALSO INTERFACE WITH PC-HFDL ( THE REGISTERED VERSION ) THE MAPS FROM DX ATLAS WILL ALSO INTERFACE WITH PC-HFDL

YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN MAPS UP FOR BOTH THE PC-HDFL & AIRNAV ACARS PROGRAMS - YOU JUST NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU INPUT THE CORRECT CARDINAL POINTS I.E. SET THE NORTH-SOUTH & EAST-WEST CO-ORDINATES CORRECTLY, OTHERWISE THE AIRCRAFT WILL NOT PLOT AT THE CORRECT LATITUDE / LONGITUDE. ALTERNATIVELY YOU CAN USE THE DX ATLAS MAP WHICH INTEGRATES WITH PC-HDFL.

   ANYONE USING PC-HDFL, AND IN THE SQUITTERS SCREEN,OR MAIN SCREEN THEY ONLY SEE NUMBERS INSTEAD OF ACTUAL FREQUENCIES, THEN THEY NEED TO UPLOAD A RECENT "PCFHDL.DAT" FILE .THIS "TABLE" IS SENT VERY OCCASIONALLY BY THE GROUND STATIONS, AND THEN IS STORED IN THE "PCFHDL.DAT FILE"

DOWNLOAD FILE

VOLMET FREQUENCIES

( WEATHER FORECASTS FOR AIRCRAFT )

SHANNON VOLMET AND RAF VOLMET ARE ON THE AIR MORE OR LESS CONTINUOUSLY

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL FOR THE ATLANTIC ETC

THESE FREQUENCIES CAN BE QUITE BUSY AT TIMES - YOU WILL HEAR AIRCRAFT AS WELL AS THE GROUND STATION- TO DOWN LOAD TXT FILE OF UK VHF / UHF AIRCRAFT FREQUENCIES

CHECK ON AIRCRAFT FLIGHT ARRIVALS AT MAJOR AIRPORTS

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