{"id":41982,"date":"2026-08-12T04:27:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T02:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.graviton.at\/letterswaplibrary\/tips-on-reliable-flight-data-for-hardware-flight-tracker\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T04:27:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T02:27:19","slug":"tips-on-reliable-flight-data-for-hardware-flight-tracker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.graviton.at\/letterswaplibrary\/tips-on-reliable-flight-data-for-hardware-flight-tracker\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips On Reliable Flight Data For Hardware Flight Tracker?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- SC_OFF --><\/p>\n<div class=\"md\">\n<p>I know this question has been asked a bunch in various subreddits, but I wanted to see if folks had tips based on what I&#8217;m building.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, I want to build a desktop LCD screen that shows when a flight flies over you within a certain radius and then shows you basic information like the plane, it&#8217;s route, etc. I&#8217;m an avgeek myself and plane spot at SFO a few hours a week.<\/p>\n<p>When I talked to friends about it, we had lots of ideas like creating alerts for squawk codes, plane types, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Disclaimer: This is a product I intend to sell.<\/p>\n<p>As a bunch of people have already complained, getting this data is actually quite expensive, and I&#8217;m really trying to avoid a subscription in the product beyond the hardware.<\/p>\n<p>Right now, the best I have is:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Use <a href=\"http:\/\/adsb.lol\/\">ADSB.lol<\/a> &#8216;s free API to get callsigns within a given radius.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Call FlightRadar24&#8217;s paid API with the callsign and cache that data for a month before calling again (DL1 at 1:24PM on Monday&#8217;s is usually JFK &#8211; LHR for example).<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The above based on historical data at least in the United States seems to have ~95% accuracy w\/ around ~$2\/mo\/user in cost to me. Good not great. Cache hits were ~62%. That&#8217;s not assuming some global cache as well, which would yield better numbers as more people use it.<\/p>\n<p>Does any one have other ideas who has explored this a little bit? I&#8217;ve been researching for a few days and am in awe by how pricy this industry is.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- SC_ON -->   submitted by   <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/user\/Full_stack_SWE\"> \/u\/Full_stack_SWE <\/a> <br \/> <span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/datasets\/comments\/1vm0vj3\/tips_on_reliable_flight_data_for_hardware_flight\/\">[link]<\/a><\/span>   <span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/datasets\/comments\/1vm0vj3\/tips_on_reliable_flight_data_for_hardware_flight\/\">[comments]<\/a><\/span><\/p><div class='watch-action'><div class='watch-position align-right'><div class='action-like'><a class='lbg-style1 like-41982 jlk' href='javascript:void(0)' data-task='like' data-post_id='41982' data-nonce='98ae9a493b' rel='nofollow'><img class='wti-pixel' src='https:\/\/www.graviton.at\/letterswaplibrary\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Like' \/><span class='lc-41982 lc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div> <div class='status-41982 status align-right'><\/div><\/div><div class='wti-clear'><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know this question has been asked a bunch in various subreddits, but I wanted to see&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-datatards","wpcat-85-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graviton.at\/letterswaplibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graviton.at\/letterswaplibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graviton.at\/letterswaplibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graviton.at\/letterswaplibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graviton.at\/letterswaplibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.graviton.at\/letterswaplibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graviton.at\/letterswaplibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graviton.at\/letterswaplibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graviton.at\/letterswaplibrary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}