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JOHN G16436's
Aircraft Communications Addressing and
Reporting System
Frequencies 131.525 - 131.725 - 136.900 Mhz AM
On these pages I will try to give
you some idea of what you will need and what you will receive on
ACARS and the Airbands both HF and VHF. Regarding what you will
see on ACARS are messages from Aircraft containing data
appertaining to the flight and some airlines also include the
position in their reports. This page
is still under going construction and will expand.What would you
like to see on it. Let me know at
webmaster@G16436.connectfree.co.uk
What exactly is ACARS ?
ACARS (Aircraft
Addressing and Reporting System) is a digital data link system
transmitted via VHF radio which allows airline flight operations
departments to communicate with the various aircraft in their
fleet.
This VHF digital transmission system, used by many civilian
aircraft and business jets, can be likened to "email for
aircraft," as the registration of each aircraft is it's
unique address in the system developed by aeronautical radio
giant ARINC (Aeronautical Radio, Inc.). Traffic is routed via
ARINC computers to the proper company, relieving some of the
necessity for routine voice communication with the company. With
ACARS, such routine items as departure reports, arrival reports,
passenger loads, fuel data, engine performance data, and much
more,can be requested by the company and retrieved from the
aircraft at automatic intervals. Before the advent of ACARS,
flight crews had to use VHF to relay this data to their
operations on the ground.
The ACARS system is comprised of the following elements:
1. The Airborne Subsystem, onboard the aircraft, which consists
of the:
a.) Management Unit Receives ground-to-air messages via the VHF
radio transceiver, and also controls the replies.
b.) Control Unit is the air crew interface with the ACARS system,
consisting of a
display screen and printer.
2. The ARINC Ground System, which consists of all the ARINC ACARS
remote transmitting/receiving stations, and the ARINC computer
and switching systems.
3. The Air Carrier C2 (Command and Control) and Management
Subsystem, which is basically all the ground based airline
operations such as operations control, maintenance, crew
scheduling and the like, linked up with the ACARS system.
Messages can be categorized in two ways: "Downlinks"
which are those ACARS transmissions which originate in the
aircraft, and "uplinks" are those messages sent from
the ground station to the aircraft.
Example output.
Below is the sort of message generated from WACARS 0.7. The actual message is in blue and the explanation of each line is in black.
G-BDXC
BOEING 747-236B
--This is the aircraft registration and type
BRITISH
AIRWAYS BA0084 VANCOUVER TO HEATHROW --This is the company/flight
number and route.
Using Ground Station N Newcastle.Message No. 2449 --This is the ground station the
aircraft is transmitting to and the message number.
Message Type 10 GENERAL This is the type of message various others are
used.
DEPARTURE REPORT01 VANCOUVER HEATHROW
1154BA7K042594TAKE OFF AT CLOSEDOORS AND
BRAKE RELEASE131725OK N/A OK NVD NVD
NVD N/A OK READY
The 4
lines above are the message actually sent.
----------------------------------------------------12:24:33, 25/04/1999
ACARS Frequencies
Equipment Required
A VHF Airband receiver with an
earphone socket.
An outside antenna suitable for the airbands.
One of the many decoder programms or terminal units capable of
decoding ACARS.
Decoder Programms
WACARS is a Windows programm and
is freeware
KRACARS which is DOS based and also Freeware
Airmaster 3000 is Windows based and is a commercial programm
Sky Spy is Windows based and is a commercial programm
Mailing List of ACARS interest
The ACARS mailing list is for the discussion of anything to do with decoding , software or general discussion of the topic. To join just send an email to majordomo@qth.net with subscribe acars in the body of the message.
The ACARS Logs mailing list is for the distribution of logs from acars. You join by sending an email to majordomo@qth.net with subscribe acarslogs in the body of the message.
Some useful ACARS links
ACARSLINK : Your resource for ACARS Information
AirNav - ACARS, Internet, HF and VHF Flight Tracking and Monitoring
Bart's DACARS Page(DACARS version 2.2 (d) now available)
Lowe Electronics for details of Airmaster software
Pervisell for details of Sky Spy software
I do hope you have found something of use to you here on this page and if you have any suggestions or comments please email me. I love to hear peoples comments and suggestions.
