I was wondering why Flightradar24 shows only part of the track?
Most probably not enough FR24 ground station coverage – particularly of your aircraft doesn’t have ADS-B out.
Without ADS-B out the aircraft must be in range of at least three ground stations to allow FR24 to determine the position by triangulation. If you have ADS-B out, then the aircraft transmits its own position and only one ground station in range is enough.
Yes, our aircraft doesn’t have ADS-B out, but I do have something DIY for FLARM out, which was not used for this flight. I reckon if I use that FR24 should be able to show most of the actual track, right?
Arun wrote:
Yes, our aircraft doesn’t have ADS-B out, but I do have something DIY for FLARM out, which was not used for this flight. I reckon if I use that FR24 should be able to show most of the actual track, right?
I don’t know if FR24 uses FLARM. If it does, yes. On the other hand, the range of FLARM transmissions is much less than ADS-B out due to lower transmitted power.
There’s more information here: https://www.flightradar24.com/how-it-works
Whenever I tried, Flightaware was much better than Flightradar24. No clue why.
It certainly is for me; much more accurate – example. But not always.
It is possible FR24 gives you better data if you are a paying customer. I have seen some very smooth FR24 tracks, from paying customers.
Peter wrote:
I have seen some very smooth FR24 tracks
In my experience as non-paying customer, ADS-B out tracks are always very smooth, while MLAT tracks are not.
I’ve also found FlightAware better that FR24 for many flights, but like mobile phone coverage, it just depends on where you are and how many receivers each of the networks has.
ADS-B is always going to be best since any single receiver suffices, whereas MLAT requires multiple receivers to acquire and track your transmissions.
That is also why ADS-B will track you on the ground, taxing from the hangar, rather than from (say) 1000ft or higher.
I haven’t found any difference as a paying customer of either network. If you operate your own receiver then you get free business accounts with them. It is fairly straightforward to setup your own receiver using a Raspberry Pi and a plugin SDR receiver dongle. Quite easy to have the same box supporting both FR24 and FlightAware. Stick it in the loft with a power supply and forget about it.
I sorted out mine during the first lockdown and found it a useful diversion.
What is the gray shade on the vertical profile mean?
