Python Client for Mode S Raw Data

The tool is designed in Python to dump raw ADS-B and Mode S message from a beast or AVR data stream.

1. Install dependencies

$ pip install pyModeS tendo pandas

2. Collecting data

[optional] Setting up the source (if you don't have a raw stream)

Install dump1090 and run following:

$ ./dump1090 --net --quiet

Now you will have the raw messages served on TCP ports 30002 (AVR format) and 30005 (beast format). You can check using telnet command.

$ telnet 127.0.0.1 30002
$ telnet 127.0.0.1 30005

Saving raw data using SIL script

Once you have a TCP raw message stream ready, use start_sil.py from this repository to collect data. First download this repository, or clone it use:

$ git clone https://github.com/junzis/sil.git
$ cd sil

Then you can starting save raw messages.

For example, collecting ADS-B only from a AVR stream:

$ python start_sil.py --port 30002 --type avr --df-filter 17

or, collecting multiple DF used Mode S Beast stream from a remote server

$ python start_sil.py --host [hostname_or_ip] --port 30005 --type beast --df-filter 17 20 21

Additional information

• User python start_sil.py -h to see more options
• Option --df-filter allows you to specify the Downlink Formats to save
• Increase --buffer-size to decrease the frequency of saving data to disk
• Data is saved per hour (UTC), under data folder, with format RAW_YYYYMMDD_HH.csv
• CSV columns are: unix timestamp, downlink format, ICAO address, raw message

3. Start the script automatically

To start the script automatically, add the following to contrab:

@reboot python3 \[path_to_script]\start_sil.py [options] &

4. Decoding save data

You can decode saved data using the scripts under extra_tools. For example:

$ python extra_tools/decode_adsb_single_thread.py --fin [input_file] --fout [output_file] --lat0 [receiver_latitude] --lon0 [longitude]