plane-spotter

Python scrips to pull history from dump1080 ADB-S and summarize planes that are close to your location

Installation

Setup your Rasperry Pi or computer with dump1090. Use the Mutability version of dump1090. https://github.com/mutability/dump1090 Or use the full installer at https://www.adsbreceiver.net/, it has a easy installer for mutability's version. The current values are the default install with ADBSreciever.

Once the system is setup and you've verified this working, install Plane-spotter. Plane-spotter uses additional python libraries: json, yaml, math, time, glob. Most are built-in but you will need to install yaml: sudo apt-get install python-yaml

Put the two Python scripts in the Pi user home or use git clone.

Edit the crontab of the root user to add both scripts (must be run as root)

  sudo crontab -e -u root

• plane-spotter.py, every hour, 10 minutes after the hour (1:10, 2:20, 3:10, etc)
• plane-spotter-weekly, once a week on Monday morning at 1:25 am

Add to the bottom of the crontab and save:

# PlaneSpotter
10 * * * * python /home/pi/plane_spotter.py
25 1 * * 1 python /home/pi/plane_spotter_weekly.py

Create a reports directory in your html directory and give the dump1090 user permission to create files there. If you're not using ADBSreceiver, use your html directory.

sudo mkdir /var/www/html/plane-spotter/
sudo chmod 766  /var/www/html/plane-spotter/

If you're not using ADBSreciever, edit both scripts to change the html reports directory that you created above and the location of the dump1090 json data files.

Edit the plane_spotter.py script with your GPS location and your desired range in kilometers. Find your GPS coordinates on this website: https://gps-coordinates.org/

Once the crontab job runs (10 after), the report directory is ready to view. open a web browser, go to your dump1090 box and add /plane-spotter/ to the URL. For example - http://192.168.1.34/plane-spotter/

Future Development

1. Separate user input to a config.ini file
2. pretty up the tables with CSS code
3. Add a installer script
4. Add alert system that sends a email when conditions are met