Steffan Watkins  Profile picture
I'm a writer and research consultant specializing in tracking ships and planes using publicly available information. https://t.co/7Fwf5JjGKE

Sep 23, 2021, 6 tweets

🇨🇦 I know you want to know more about how the sausage is made, so look carefully at this image from 2021-09-22, yesterday, when RCAF CC-130J 130610 was flying some training flights over Ontario, and see what information you can extract.

I'll show you:
globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=c2b585&l…

The network of transponder receivers collects the data the plane is transmitting with an omnidirectional antenna. Any plane using ADS-B, like that one, only needs to be "heard" by one ground station and it's coordinates (from their transponder) relayed to #ADSBexchange.

The green circles show where receivers (which the operators of have opted to make their location public, like I have) are feeding the ADSBexchange network from.

Between Trenton / North Bay there's a coverage gap; nobody near Minden, Haliburton, Bancroft, Bracebridge, Gravenhurst, Huntsville, or anywhere around there has an #ADSBexchange receiver collecting transponder data, or we wouldn't lose that CC-130J at 8000ft over cottage country.

I'm not exactly blaming the locals, I don't know what the state of high speed internet is in more rural Ontario, but someone has high-speed around there, and it would be swell if they could fill in the picture. Really we need more than one; we need a network of ppl for MLAT too.

Now check out this CC-150 at 25,000ft, and notice it isn't having a problem being heard all the way to North bay and past; and that's because the earth is round. Really. Being that high up, more receivers, farther away, have them in line-of-sight longer.

globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=c2b355,c…

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