thebaldgeek.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Making progress to getting my 98w C-Band dish feed back up and running. Trench in the cables (coax for signal and 10 core for tracking motor control), punch them through the side of the garage, connect up the two computers and see if we can get some aircraft data flowing - probably 5-8 hours work.

submitted 11 hours ago • 0 comments

New blog published about how I do my best to extract and, more importantly, how call signs are displayed on the site. If you have wondered about the F, V, L, C in front of the calls, this blog is for you. k6thebaldgeek.blogsp...

submitted 19 hours ago • 0 comments

#earthquake Mag: 6.1 Depth: 101.614 Location: 71 km ESE of Sarangani, Philippines Quite deep this one. That's what got my attention.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Scott on BlueSky gave me a UAV ICAO via chat. Its a new one for the list. "Danish Schiebel Camcopter S-100 drone seen on the flight radar circling at the mouth of the North Sea, 4550 feet altitude. #SEG17 #44784E" Have added it now to the UAV button on the trackmap page. tbg.airframes.io/tra...

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

143e APAC STDC (Marine Broadcast) feed is back up. Using the #satdump CLI as described on my page here: thebaldgeek.github.i... Explore the messages here: tbg.airframes.io/das... APAC feed gives early warning of North Korea rocket launches. Never a dull moment on the site.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Need some #satdump help @aang23.satdump.org I have 2 RTLSDRs connected, SN #1 and #2. From the CLI, how do I select the SDR? Nothing mentioned here: docs.satdump.org/sdr_options....

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

I've got the 98w STDC (Marine Broadcast) feed back up and running. I'm also working with our Aussie mate to try and get his STDC feed back up, as it always gives early notice of North Korea rocket launches. I'm still open to input on reformatting the STDC page or how to add its feed to the main site

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Website Update: Great news! I pushed hard today and got the small #discoverydish mounted on the roof, and so 98w 4F3 (AOR-W) is back up and running, feeding mission codes, etc, to the site search. This leaves my large C-Band dish to get back up and running. Working hard on that as well!

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Website Update: 25e feed is back up. 3 out of our 4 feeds are working as usual. Just my 98w feed is down. Im working really really hard to get it back up and running. tbgmap.airframes.io/

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Website Update. Our 25e (Alphasat - UK/Euro/Middle East) ADSC feed is down. This is not part or related to the outage a few days back. I've reached out to our guy over there and hope I've caught him before he goes to bed!

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

One map that is constantly underutilized is this one. It only shows military airframes and you can browse through any ACARS msg on each by clicking on it and then each message. You can see where its from, usually uplink L-Band at the moment. tbgacarshub.airframe... Works best on PC/Laptop.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Busy day, just sitting down at the computer now. Seeing LOTS of comments from well-meaning #avgeeks about how a lot of the tankers are 'going dark' and 'running in stealth' etc. No. Just rotten timing my site feeds going down. Use all the maps, not just the 2-3 popular ones. tbgmap.airframes.io/

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Website update: Some ACARS feeds to the site are coming back online. C-Band and L-Band for the Americas are still going to take some time yet. But super happy it's going smoother than expected.

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

News! The website is up, but ALL feeds are down. This is a 'planned' event. I hope to get everything restored in about a week. More details here: k6thebaldgeek.blogsp... The aircraft and #avgeeks wait for the dumpster fire flames to reignite!

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Sometimes I am still surprised at the coverage a few dedicated #avgeeks have built together over the past few years. tbgmap.airframes.io/ #adsc #adsb #acars #aviation

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

#earthquake M 6.3 - 17 km NNE of Paratebueno, Colombia Depth 10.0 km I'm sure that woke up a lot of people in Bogota just now. Hopefully no damage.

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

We've been asking for years and today is the day. RTLSDR with a USB-C connector. As usual the gold is in the comments... Will it work with a C to C cable? Time will tell. But regardless. THANK_YOU! Finally! www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-...

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

Welcome to the sudden influx of new followers. Reminder that my site is centered around ACARS - think of it as text messages to and from aircraft. Neither of the two maps linked from my site plot the typical ADSB positions. Here is the key to reading the maps. tbg.airframes.io/das...

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

I'm really glad to see we have all finally learned to get along and ADD your alert terms to the list and NOT delete any. Just a reminder that its a military only feed. So 'red coat' is just not a military term etc. tbgacarshub.airframe...

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

I got two DMs today, both about Iridium. One mentioned B52's. lets leave that one for now. The other was about aircraft having both Inmarsat and irdm. tbg.airframes.io Do you know how to decode the equipment list? Did you know there is a list on the Equipment List page?

submitted 30 days ago • 1 comment

Super excited to announce our first ever guest blog. Mike, @ElbaSatGuy, talks about AI and LLM use in taming and visualizing the ACARS message firehose. Check it out: k6thebaldgeek.blogsp...

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

I've copy pasted the (interesting) ACARS messages from flight #UA1169 from Honolulu to Los Angeles #AA75EF due to a bomb threat. You can read the exchange at the top of the page here: thebaldgeek.github.i...

submitted 39 days ago • 2 comments

Welcome new followers. I've not been posting much the past month. Got some personal stuff going on that I will post soonish as it will impact the site. But. In the mean time. Lets test these three L-Band helix ACARS antennas. VNA to tweak the first 1/4 turn. Ship to buyer soon. Nope, not for sale.

submitted 40 days ago • 1 comment

I feel a fireside rant incoming.. I don't want to rant/blog all that is in my head about AI and LLMs. I want to put them to real work!! But they are oh so lacking in actual functionality! Googled ACARS acronyms and this is the crap I get back. URLs blanked to protect the guilty. (ie Google et all).

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

I've just added a few more ACARS abbreviations to the home page. If you see any in the ACARS messages you are wondering about, please DM or chat me and ask. Can't list them all (there are thousands!), but happy to add the common ones to the home page. tbg.airframes.io/das...

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

Great example of: ADSB is the where. ACARS is the why. If you are just watching planes on a map, you are missing over half the story of each flight. ACARS search page here: tbg.airframes.io/dashboard/home

submitted 42 days ago • 1 comment

Very large #earthquake M 7.4 just off the southern tip of Argentina Depth10.0 km

submitted 58 days ago • 0 comments

New blog about the UAV hex code button list on my trackmap page. Special thanks to @vcdgf555.bsky.social and @ameliairheart.bsky.social for supporting the list over the years, also @scott7876.bsky.social for the spark that ignited the blog. k6thebaldgeek.blogspot.com/2025/04/comm...

submitted 62 days ago • 1 comment

Thanks to two kind avgeeks I finally got Iridium docker up and running. I wish I could have done it a few weeks back and been able to directly compare docker vs #DragonOS Its a test for another time, but I will try and update my irdm GitHub page soon, it was not straight forward for a noob like me.

submitted 64 days ago • 0 comments

New blog that talks about how the E6 aircraft are using tactical hex codes and so are harder to track on ADSB. There are some links to X in the blog, sorry, just don't click them, you still should get the idea via the screenshots. k6thebaldgeek.blogspot.com/2025/04/e-6-...

submitted 67 days ago • 0 comments

Website Update. New Iridium feeder! KHIO (Portland–Hillsboro. Oregon USA) is feeding via HC610, Airspy-R2 and a Mini PC running Docker. @tsl_pdx was really helpful by sorting some Docker issues. I'm converting my setup to Docker and making notes to update my GitHub page. Thanks for the feed Tim.

submitted 68 days ago • 1 comment

Hey @crowd_supply and @rtlsdrblog Thanks a heap for the shoutout. The DD is still running twin feeds from 98w. ACARS and STDC. Still massive signal strength. Looking forward to testing out your rotator on some LEO stuff. www.crowdsupply.com/...

submitted 72 days ago • 0 comments

Callsign 'waypoint'? No, not really. If the ACARS msg with the lat/lon does not have a call I can extract, I put in the _type_ of ACARS so it helps identify how that aircraft position was plotted on the map. Something to keep your eye out for when using my ACARS/ADSC maps.

submitted 74 days ago • 0 comments

I've spent some time writing and editing this blog. I think it's an important one for all #ADSB #OSINT #avgeek folks to understand how aircraft are identified, not just on my site, but on many other #aviation ones. Take a read. Feel free to ask questions. k6thebaldgeek.blogsp...

submitted 75 days ago • 0 comments

#earthquake. M 5.2 - 4 km S of Julian, CA Depth 13.4 km Personally, that was my strongest quake yet!!! The office building (just north of San Diego) really got rattled! It maxed out my @Raspberryshake2 #seismograph Will check in with wife and family now.

submitted 76 days ago • 1 comment

Had a 98w C-Band satellite dish tracking glitch today. Took about 30 seconds to fix once I spotted it. celestrack URL did not resolve. I clearly need to make the TLE tracking data more robust. First dish outage I've had since I changed the feed a few months back. Red is sat. Yellow is dish.

submitted 78 days ago • 0 comments

Here is how to look at the military aircraft movement heatmap on my site.... Hit the URL, give it a moment to load up, then click the 'U' icon in the top right. tbgmap.airframes.io/...

submitted 80 days ago • 0 comments

This is interesting. Google said I could access their #AI search. So the first thing I asked it was about setting up a system for #ACARS reception via #Iridium. It returned the website it quoted from. My GitHub. Take a read and let me know what you think of its 'search result' and if you like it.

submitted 81 days ago • 0 comments

Brain dump blog about setting up my 137Mhz @tinygs.bsky.social station. Mostly it is about how you need 2 MQTT topics, one API call and a hidden URL to get meaningful data about your stations performance. k6thebaldgeek.blogspot.com/2025/04/tiny...

submitted 82 days ago • 0 comments

Arch of military aircraft across the USA/Atlantic/Europe Orange colored icons have ACARS alert terms. tbgacarshub.airframe... Mobile/cell phone browser not recommended. Leave your browser open for 30 minutes to sync messages to aircraft.

submitted 85 days ago • 0 comments

Three of our 4 C-Band satellite dish feeds are really cranking it out just now. Our forth dish picks up data twice a day. I'm working on the dish tracking control system to ship over soon. Once that's installed, the ADSC coverage will be amazing. Reminder, ZERO ADSB here. tbgmap.airframes.io/

submitted 85 days ago • 0 comments

Bit of a different format blog from me today vs the past few posts. More long form about #AI, #OSINT and #ACARS. It's the weekend. Take your time, slow down and have a read. k6thebaldgeek.blogspot.com/2025/04/ai-u...

submitted 85 days ago • 0 comments

#Earthquake: Mag: 6.9 Depth: 10km Location: 194 km ESE of Kimbe, Papua New Guinea Checking for tsunami alerts.

submitted 86 days ago • 1 comment

I'm trying harder to get along with Docker, really I am.. But I'm still very nervous when I have to use it. Updated the acarsHUB docker just now. tbgacarshub.airframe... Mostly just to fix the Iridium frequency graphs on the 'Statistics' page, but there were a ton of other updates that came with it.

submitted 86 days ago • 0 comments

Munching comfort food for lunch (celery and peanut butter) while reviewing the military aircraft with ACARS messages over mainland USA. I am looking forward to the code bump that should add Iridium to this picture.... Always something to do. tbgacarshub.airframe...

submitted 87 days ago • 0 comments

Yet another #earthquake M6.8 Depth 10Km Reykjanes Ridge

submitted 87 days ago • 0 comments

Thanks to a deep dive into L-Band from 84e by our ground station operator in Cairns Australia, I have updated the frequency list at the very bottom of my GitHub page. If you are getting data from this sat, even if you are not feeding my site, double check your settings. thebaldgeek.github.i...

submitted 87 days ago • 0 comments

My aircraft website moves data via #MQTT, so does @tiny__GS Thus is only took me about 5 minutes to mash up a quick @NodeRED flow and groov dashboard for my new 137Mhz station. I want an SNR baseline for any future LNA tweaks I might do. Nice distraction for 30min the past few days. Back to ACARS.

submitted 87 days ago • 0 comments