How to Tracking Airplanes flying in the Visayas as a hobby

For the past several years I have tracked aircraft starting with a USB dongle and its short antenna attached to my laptop or computer . It is amazing to be able to see on your screen what is flying over Leyte, Bohol, Bacolod and IloIlo if you can get that tiny antenna high enough. I got interested by looking at Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker!, Flight Tracker | Real-Time Tracking | Plane Finder and FlightAware - Flight Tracker / Flight Status / Flight Tracking and gathered information on DIY options to see if I could do it on the cheap in my spare time. I got hooked!

Each of those sites gather flight information from hobby trackers like you and me. The only requirement to feed information is always on internet, speed is not important. On each of those sites at a particular instance all of the planes in the air may not be shown because a neighbors tree, building or mountain may be in the way of the hobby receivers antenna that is tracking the aircraft for that service.

Signals are transmitted from each aircraft and received line of site to the antenna/receiver and can be very weak to strong depending on the distance of the aircraft.

The hobbiest provides the pole or mast to mount the antenna so that it sees over any close obstruction.

All three services offer free professional equipment if you or your site qualifies and you want to step up to being a professional hobbiest. It is a labor of love in as much you don't get paid but get to be a part of something larger than your aches and pains.

I have 3 antennas and receivers for the three services and remote admin 2 sites in the Cebu metro area. The combination of aircraft being tracked is http://dgteflyovers.ddns.net/virtualradar/

 

Very nice!! How high up are your antennas? Around Angeles 50’ or higher have to be registered and have all the light works!!! I am into HAM radio for emergency relays I have a 100’ footer and can reach almost anywhere in the world!! Again as you have said its a labor of love and a nice way to spend all the spare time you have!!!! ENJOY

 

Cool hobbie. Thanks for sharing and enjoy.

 

Wow! Great write-up. I would love to see this turn out into a sort of series. Thanks for sharing and would love to see more.

 

cool but be careful not to fall when you climb it

 

I don't know who that is climbing the pole, but I'm guessing the OP hasn't been that skinny since grade school, if ever.