Thread by @thebaldgeek

Iridium update.
I'm going to try (and hopefully fail) and keep a lid on my excitement for this thread.

Because of the work on @thenewarea51 'AT1.' decode question it was very fresh in my mind as I was working on the site.
I noticed the same 'AT1.' ACARS messages on Iridium.
1/n

@thenewarea51 It was a case of 'cant see the trees for the forest'.
The AT1. messages had been there since day zero, but it had not 'clicked' in anyone's minds eye what they were.
They are arinc622 encoded messages, just like in the VDL2 feeds.
libacars is the right tool to decode them.
2/n

Tomasz has done great work on this library and had made a Windows binary of it so it was quick to spin up on my @NodeRED computer to test out.

It was pretty easy then to detect AT1. msg and send them to the decoder and get the decoded ACARS back.
3/ngithub.com/szpajder/libac…

@NodeRED In short, you take the AT1. or in this screenshot, an ADS. msg and get back the decoded arinc622 message.
A LOT more interesting to both humans and area51 aliens.
Yes, there is a Linux option, but I wanted to test it out quick vs get caught up in the build from source trap.
4/n

@NodeRED This is HUGE. This extra decoding really lifts the returned value of running an Iridium station from 'if you can', to 'totally worth it' in my mind.
Lets take a look at the site search results now - ie a bigger picture.
5/n

@NodeRED Here is a search for AT1. and from source 'irdm-'
This is the sort of thing we all have been seeing mixed in our search results for any airframes that use Iridium.
Not very helpful (or interesting to @thenewarea51 point).
Was so excited, after 2-3 hours could not sleep...
6/n

Here is the same search but with some newly arinc622 decoded messages.
WOW! Night and day difference.
Of course this new decoding cant fix the Iridium fragment issue. That's just the nature of the LEO beast (for now). If we can get enough coverage in the same area, we might be ale to try and re-build a message that is broken up. This is way beyond me, but I hear it might be possible.
7/n

The most common arinc622 types on Iridium seem to be AT1. CR1. ADS.
Please let me know if you find something else that is not getting decoded. Keep in mind that not everything is arinc622, but point it out and we can take a look.
It will take about 32 hours to finish filling the 48 hour rolling buffer in the site search.
8/n

And yes. I will be raising a GitHub issue for the @muccc guys to see if they can add libacars to the Iridium toolkit so everyone can have this extra value, but till then, happy site searching
Details on building a station here:


EOL.tbg.airframes.io
thebaldgeek.github.io/Iridium.html

@NodeRED @thenewarea51 @muccc @threadreaderapp unroll