How to decode HF ACARS (HFDL) free with your SDR - Monitoring Aviation Communications Episode 8 

Awesome video!!! Thanks for posting! 👏 👍

I finished this series and the series for the 2020 SDR series. I picked up quite a bit of information. Thank you for your efforts!

Awesome 8 ep guide, I’ll be using these vids for a very long time as references!

Brilliant, you put some work into this. Thanks for a great explanation and sharing your knowledge.

Thanks for another informative video. I just set my monitoring station up in Minneapolis MN this last weekend with my SDRPlay RSP1A and SDRUno. PC-HFDL is a awesome program. I just got my licensed version today. Having great fun.

great video Rob

Many thanks! Great posts, much appreciated..

Thanks for the excellent video!

Another excellent video 👍

G'day mate wow what an awesome video with incredible results & how timely Thank You so much I haven't yet got around to decoding HF Acars yet but you've inspired me to pull my finger out & get on with it, to many challenges with SDR's. :-) I've just spent the last few weeks playing with just about every known "VHF" Acars program out there ( no doubt you saw my comments on the SDRPlay Facebook Group I saw you were a member ). I have purchased a licence for PC HF DL & find it a great program currently only running it on VHF Acars, after several weeks of trying to get Acarsd working I finally managed to but from what I can see Acarsd is dead program & no longer supports showing aircraft tails, livery's or rego's nor does it seem to interface into any Acars web servers anymore which is a shame it looks like the Author has abandoned it. I'm really surprised just how little Acars programs there are out there these days & from what I have been able to see over the last few weeks it looks like PC HF DL is the only one that might have any upkeep about it all the rest ( not counting Blackcat Systems which is a very generic Acars decoder ) look like they are dead in the water long ago & are no longer supported by their original authors. What a shame there the likes of PC HF DL or any other Acars decoders out there don't or can't interface into the likes of Flightradar24 or planefinder it would make life a lot easier & a lot more exciting. I have found running dual screen a lot easier running say Acars on one screen & Flightradar24 or Planefinder on the other screen saves jumping around to much. Well done & Keep up the great work, as always looking forward to the next video especially on Web SDR's. Rgs Wayne.

Thank you very much Rob !

Thanks for another interesting video. A Google search for 'hfdl system table 51' will give you the current list of ground stations and frequencies. Downloaded, it can then be used in PC-HFDL.

Just found your channel and love it thank you. Can you do a tutorial on the SDRUNO?

Interesting video. You can also use Sorcerer to decode HF Acars with no time limit.

Thanks for sharing! :-)

Great video as usual, one question I will be setting up my aircraft monitoring system and hfdl will be part of it. The question is do all the comms get forwarded to the IMARSAT side including the vhf acars, I thought they were all connected systems. And its so easy to monitor IMARSAT with a patch antenna. Or do I need separate capabilities. AA4CP Chuck Port Salerno FL USA

step 1: get HFDL up and running step 2: get angry at how many planes ping the wrong ICAO hex on HF vs ADS-B step 3: run node-red to find/replace hexes on the way into your map. This was my week last week.

Hi, Rob. I have a question about the HFDL frequencies listed on your HFDL Resources page. What exactly are the "timeslots" and how are they used? Do they represent the UTC time when the frequency starts being monitored by the ground station, and if so do they stop monitoring the other ones at that time? I'm asking because I've noticed that in the Philippines the Guam, Thailand and South Korea ground stations (or at least the aircraft in SE Asia and Oceania sending messages intended for them) remain quite active at 10:00UTC and later. I'm using an SDRPlay RSP1A and an active K-180WLA 55cm loop antenna with 2 or 3 meters of RG58 coax between it an the antenna's power supply. (I use dumphfdl as I have a Debian Linux OS on my computer.)

Rob, can you access any historical ACARS data with regard to mh370? Newbie in London really enjoying your channel.

I was wondering if the HF acars messages transmitted be the same in Inmarsat ? Also have you tried receiving LES ship communications ? Thankyou for your video’s kind Regards Peter

Another question sorry does pc-hfdl automatically switch to the active frequencies when you have downloaded the table of frequencies. And on a sdrplay can you use a scan list of hfdl frequencies to monitor the system ?

Hi. Maybe I missed it somewhere. What mode do we use? USB ,LSB ............. Nice video. Thanks. O , is it USB? Looks like it in SDR Sharp

hi Rob the link for PC-HFDL is for vista os and is not compatable with windows 10 that i use can you point me to a nother trusted site?. Tim

The paid version also only displays numbers, unless you have the latest system table. That might be received off the air, but you can download it - either the HFDL groups.io group, or a bit of googling will lead you to one. The latest seems to be 51 (hex 33) which is from 2019 I believe.

can i use RTL-SDR V3 ?

I found the HF frequency of canaries ground station by chance when i was combing the HF band some couple of days ago, but today i got shocked that i picked the strongest signal from Thailand's ground station, i'm using a 12m wire dipole here in south algeria, i think it's not the ideal length tho (my roof's limit )

These videos are utterly pointless for novices. You're basically just saying ‘with my red-hot setup and years of experience I can do this’, but not really explaining how to get around the potholes. I’m constantly pausing the videos to see if your settings match mine to try to troubleshoot (largely unsuccesfully) why I’m not getting the same results. Can you try to put yourself in the boots of a true novice when you’re making these videos please? Thanks, though, they are useful. Just a minor criticism .