Paul Gulliver

My first attempt at growing Streptocarpus from seed - seed from @dibleys nursery #streptocarpus, #houseplant

@Juverein @jamjake01 Headed towards Lands End, going home??

@jamjake01 That was easily the loudest they've ever been while flying over Swindon! They certainly make their presence known 😅

20.48 SKIFF 12 / 13 2 x B-1B EL airborne from Fairford working Brize 231.950

@Aviation_Movies @jamjake01 They're just returning now 17.55z

@jamjake01 Nice 👌👌

JEWEL 91 holding short Rwy 09 🦴🦴🔥🔥

@LBoergerding @ElbaSatGuy No - just interested in normal acars messaging - from all sources

@ipgphotography @ElbaSatGuy Interesting, so you use his new parsing?

updating the Iridium ACARS rabbit hole… here is the pipeline that extracts aircraft position directly from message content. No Doppler. No multilateration. No satellite tracking. Just parsing what the aircraft is already transmitting. Repo: github.com/mebrown47/irid…

@LBoergerding @ElbaSatGuy If you are close to the aircraft you get uplinks as well, they're within the same frequency band. I usually get around 20 to 30 uplink messages per day compared to many hundred downlink messages. Military uplinks often contain position reports so are useful

@ElbaSatGuy Iridium acars messages are from ground stations to aircraft or not? Aircrafts using other frequencies for uplink. Or is it at new kind of message? Downlink to ground stations?

@thebaldgeek @auonsson From the feeds I have, 25E, 54w,vdl2 and Iridium, everything is normal, getting ini messages from USAF traffic on most formats. Who is complaining about what exactly? Those complaining should set up a receiver and feed you.

I guess my point is, military L-Band (where the mission codes come from) are still flowing in, so it's not broken broken. Just not giving the stuff folks expect (and somehow that's my fault - well, I mean it is... Folks have told me that my site has single-handedly changed the USAF milcom process (conveniently ignoring the ~20 other ACARS websites)).

Wow, a whole hour spent looking at this.... I honestly can't find anything wrong on my end, folks. The feeds are working, the parsing stuff is working, and the database inserts are working. I just can't see any issues with the signal path from the airframe, sat, or website. Not my fault that there are no flames coming out of the dumpster....

@cemaxecuter @ElbaSatGuy @AirframesIO @thebaldgeek Thanks that sounds good, I will try it later

@ipgphotography @ElbaSatGuy @AirframesIO @thebaldgeek Thanks for asking, you can now. How’s up to four sites at one time sound? I have it to where you can enhance and send with acars or without in json.

Entire Iridium ACARS pipeline now runs in a single binary, including optional advanced libacars decoding and JSON output. What’s the preferred (optional) path for feeding dashboards? Direct JSON stream, MQTT, or something else?
@AirframesIO @thebaldgeek github.com/alphafox02/iri…

@DefenceGeek Did you mention the KC-46's - possibly 7 in Prince Sultan AB, 4 went in Thursday, I believe there were already 3 there from the beginning of January

Flight Tracking Update #FreeIran The US now appears to be actively masking a lot of it's aircraft movements to the point where I am unable to release my daily datasheets because aircraft are moving and I can't confirm which airframes in a lot of cases. As I mentioned last night, a few of the changes I have noticed and verified (although as I say I can't identify specific airframes for now): - Al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar has gone from a fleet of 20x KC-135R "Stratotanker" aircraft, down to as few as 7 - Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia had 2x KC-135s, but now appears to have up to 14 KC-135-ish airframes (I'm conscious the Saudi Air Force operates 7 of the similar looking KE-3A from this base, so perhaps only 7 KC-135s present) - Diego Garcia seems to be back up from 2 tankers to 3 - Of the F-16s that have arrived into the Middle East this past week, I can confirm 12 are at Muwaffaq Salti Airbase in Jordan, but I cannnot (as of yet) locate the others (reminder that 12 jets from Aviano, 12 from Spangdahlem and 12 from McEntire were tracked heading into the region, and CENCTOM photos suggested 12 more Aviano were already present before the build-up) - The 6 EA-18G "Growler" electronic attack aircraft are at Muwaffaq Salti AB - There are now 2x RC-135V "Rivet Joint" SIGINT platforms at Chania Airport - Reports that at least 2 of the 3 MQ-4C "Triton" maritime patrol UAVs at Al-Dhafra have departed appear to be confirmed - The 6 E-3G "Sentry" AWACS are confirmed to be at Prince Sultan, along with the 5 E-11A BACN platforms - C-17 and C-5 cargo flights continue, likely bringing in spare parts, weapons and other equipment to support the deployed forces What does any of this mean? - Moving tankers out of Al-Udeid & other assets out of Al-Dhafra is perhaps a precuationary measure, given it's proximity to Iran and the lack of any neutral/allied land in-between that could host air defence missiles - Iran did manage to hit Qatar last time around so reducing the number of assets at both bases means in the event of a pre-emptive attack by Iran, there's less kit that needs to rush to get airborne - It would appear there are 48x F-16C/CJ, 30x F-35A, 36x F-15E, 6x EA-18G in the region confirmed, plus up to 12x A-10C and soon to be arriving 12x F-22A - these figures of course do not include the airgroups of the USS Abraham Lincoln or the incoming USS Gerald R Ford, which between them add a further ~100 fast-jets including 10-12 F-35C - It would appear that US forces are more or less ready for whatever the White House orders - The other tankers positioned throughout the Mediterranean and in the Azores suggests there will either be a further surge of assets moved across from CONUS this coming week, or that 1 or more bomber missions from the US mainland to Iran are in the works (15 tankers at Lajes, 6 at Moron, 15 at Rota, 10 at Chania, 1 at Naples and 10 at Sofia) In short, it is my personal assessment that events could happen now at any time, but in the context of other world events in the next few days (e.g. Winter Olympics closing ceremony, POTUS schedule for the weekend, USS Gerald R Ford's transit across the Mediterranean, F-22s still waiting to move from RAF Lakenheath, etc.) I think sometime next week is perhaps more likely. /END/ @MATA_osint @ArmchairAdml @Osinttechnical @vcdgf555 @steffanwatkins @Andyyyyrrrr @jamjake01 @FaytuksNetwork

@thebaldgeek @cemaxecuter Are you sure? Yesterday when I was testing I put in a gain of 20 and didn't get anything, when I increased it to 30 it started working, not much difference between 40 and 50

@cemaxecuter @ipgphotography The max gain is 16. Any number higher just gets clamped to 16, so you can put in 100 if you want and it will put the gain to 16. You have to be quick, but you can see it clamp to 16 when any of the SOAPY drivers start up with a high gain number.

Went and got the KCOE Iridium / VDL2 station computer. (Still raining, can't retrieve the antennas or put them up). Let's see about this new Iridium thingo @cemaxecuter on a Beelink. (I have a strong dislike for the Pi5).

@cemaxecuter @thebaldgeek Yeah using Airspy R2, I started with default gain, changed it in the hope of getting an improvement - I'll go back to default

@ipgphotography @thebaldgeek Not likely related, but I’d lower gain on the Airspy r2 (assuming that is what you’re using). But thank you, so you’re using the toolkit vs what I’ve baked in. I nee to detail more of what I’ve included.

@cemaxecuter @thebaldgeek This is the command line to run the sniffer ./iridium-sniffer -l -i soapy-0 --soapy-gain=50 | python3 -u /usr/src/iridium-toolkit/iridium-parser.py -o zmq

@ipgphotography @thebaldgeek Cool, looks to check out okay. I’ll try and figure out what else may be different. And then what does your command line look like when running? Lots of room for improvement on my end.

@cemaxecuter @thebaldgeek 2 of 2 -- SoapySDR: enabled -- GPU acceleration: OpenCL -- Configuring done -- Generating done -- Build files have been written to: /home/paul/iridium-sniffer/build

@ipgphotography @thebaldgeek During the install (in the guide) there’s a part where you ran the cmake command and it spit out what was enabled. Right prior to you running make. If you follow the guide again and just stop at the cmake point we can see how it was built,

@cemaxecuter @thebaldgeek 1 of 2 -- Found bladeRF: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbladeRF.so -- Found UHD: /lib/libuhd.so -- Found SoapySDR: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libSoapySDR.so -- SIMD: AVX2 kernels enabled (runtime-detected) -- HackRF: enabled -- BladeRF: enabled -- USRP (UHD): enabled

@cemaxecuter @thebaldgeek How do I find that now? I'm not very familiar with Linux so I need simple instructions - When I installed it I just followed the instruction on your site - Using Dragon Focal by the way - not the latest Dragon o/s

@ipgphotography @thebaldgeek Need to see cmake options when you built to see what was enabled.

@thebaldgeek @cemaxecuter Optiplex i5-8500 16Gb RAM - it's the same computer I've been using for iridium for around 12 months now -

@ipgphotography @cemaxecuter What CPU/Computer are you using Paul? I've only tested it on the Beelink so far. I've not found the CPU to be any different from the toolkit. I'm trying to get just the ACARS out so I can do a clean A/B of actual messages vs 'Ave_Ok'.

@cemaxecuter @thebaldgeek I just know it as Iridium toolkit as describe on the @thebaldgeek github page thebaldgeek.github.io/Iridium.html I've had this running for around 4 years now - for acars - I also noticed the cpu usage is almost double for the sniffer against the toolkit

@ipgphotography @thebaldgeek Actually Paul, I’m not sure i understand the above pictures. Are you showing gnuradio based iridium extractor + iridium toolkit vs iridium sniffer + iridium toolkit or some other combo?

@thebaldgeek @cemaxecuter I thought I would join in the fun, got the new sniffer working without too much trouble but disappointed with the results - the q-max and ok_avg% figures are not looking good - both running on the same X86 system, Airspy R2, sniffer gain = 40 - any thoughts?

@cemaxecuter ITS WORKING!!!! ITS WORKING!! Peak #TwitterRano right here. This is what goes on to track aircraft that no one sees or cares about. (The work, they care plenty about having access to the data - don't get me started).

@DefenceGeek 59-1464 just got airborne from Souda, are the tankers coming home? - perhaps they just stopped off for coffee and a sandwich

UPDATE (1430Z): USAF F-35s move Lakenheath to Middle East #FreeIran Total of 18 F-35As departed/expected, seemingly going to Jordan (Muffawaq Salti AB?) with support from several tankers, most of whom are going to Chania Airport after drop-offs Moves to Chania (LGSA): KC-135T "LAGER10" 59-1464 #AE0659 KC-135R "LAGER11" 59-1475 #AE04C4 KC-135R "LAGER17" 63-8008 #AE048A KC-135R "LAGER14" 62-3540 #AE0669 KC-135T "LAGER13" 59-1470 #AE04C3 KC-135R "LAGER15" 61-0315 #AE0237 KC-135R "RCH465" 64-14832 #AE0394 KC-135R "RCH128" 59-1478 #AE04E5 Moves to Ramstein (ETAR): KC-135R "LAGER16" 60-0324 #AE0480 Jets to Middle East, possibly Muffawaq (OJMS): F-35A "VALKYRIE01" 20-5570 #AE6B00 F-35A "VALKYRIE02" 20-5618 #AE693F F-35A "VALKYRIE03" 19-5487 #AE675D F-35A "VALKYRIE04" 19-5473 #AE6716 F-35A "VALKYRIE05" 20-5475 #AE6935 F-35A "VALKYRIE06" 19-5484 #AE6182 F-35A "VALKYRIE07" 19-5476 #AE6D19 F-35A "VALKYRIE08" 19-5495 #AE6361 F-35A "GREEN01" 20-5589 #AE6E2D F-35A "GREEN02" 19-5473 #AE6A6A F-35A "GREEN03" 20-5581 #AE6B8D F-35A "GREEN04" 20-5615 #AE69A4 F-35A "GREEN05" 20-5571 #AE6E1B F-35A "GREEN06" 20-5600 #AE6E38 Awaits further info: F-35A "VALKYRIE09" ?? KC-135R "LAGER12" 57-2605 #AE04FB @MATA_osint @ArmchairAdml @Andyyyyrrrr @steffanwatkins @vcdgf555 @FaytuksNetwork @TheIntelFrog

@DefenceGeek Last tanker just airborne from EGUN: LAGR 12 AE04FB 57-2605 possible just with VALKYRIE 09

@DefenceGeek Believed to be 20-5605 - GREEN 07 20-5590 - GREEN 08 20-5597 - GREEN 09

Please note there is also: F-35A "GREEN07" F-35A "GREEN08" F-35A "GREEN09" but I'm still awaiting airframe numbers for those!