Show high (>15000m) altitudes correctly on the Flightradar24 web page

[Eule]

Hi
I noticed that altitudes higher than 15000m are not displayed correctly in the FLightradar24 web page.
We currently have a Google balloon trial happening here in New Zealand. Some of the balloons are being tracked (http://fr24.com/LOON163) but once they climb above 15000m their altitude is displayed incorrectly as 0 or a few meters. I can see on my local feed that the altitude is being transmitted correctly (they go up to 20000m).

Is there a reason for that?
Could that be corrected?

Regards

[Oblivian]

Commercial airline ceiling FL500 So part of the method of not showing bogus data is to ignore alt past this I believe

[Mike]

Oblivian is correct. Data above FL500 is today ignored as some transponders send incorrect data. We are working on a fix for this.

[Eule]

Thanks for that information and good to hear that you are working on a fix. A physical constraint model could help filter out bogus reading (max speed, acceleration ect.). Since the balloons slowly rose above the FL500 that could then be seen as indicating valid data.

[Oblivian]

Record for me. 253nm out. But starting to get low signal.

[Eule]

@Oblivian: How do you determine signal strength for a specific target? Do you measure it or do you infer it from less frequent valid readings? Error count?

I lost the group of balloons going south east at 200NM (from Christchurch) but still holding on the other two going SEE (LOON160 and LOON161).

[Oblivian]

Guenter built an algorithm into the beast to calculate signal from 0-50. And its output and displayed in Planeplotter. Also matches cookie-crumb trails that start to turn to dots from nice lines.

Finally lost them at a whopping 268.4NM! a new personal record for the 3 years running.

[Eule]

@Oblivian: Do you know if there is a similar feature in the FR24 box?

[Jarod]

@Oblivian: Do you know if there is a similar feature in the FR24 box?

Virtual Radar Server now has a Avg. Signal column: http://x264.nl/dump/vrs-avg-signal-2014-03-02.jpg

Lowest i seen while checking a couple of minutes: 0
Highest i seen while checking a couple of minutes: 145
No idea what the highest limits are, can't find anything here: http://www.virtualradarserver.co.uk/documentation/

[Eule]

@Jarod Thanks for that info, I wonder how that value is calculated. The highest Avg. Signal level I have seen so far is 175.

I lost the last of the Google balloons at 233NM.

[HermanZA]

About a month ago I also activated the Average Signal column, however I never could get it to work. Guess it might be a limitation when using a dongle and/or dump1090. Any others who got it to show?

Sent from my Z10 using Tapatalk

[Ex nihil]

Slightly off topic but I wonder if the HBAL balloons could be given correct descriptions and picture. They currently appear as twin engined jets and no clue as to what they are. I was intrigued by the 61,000ft altitude and Googled one.

[DSmart]

Not just on the web page. I'm getting the same info on the IOS app and on the web page. This is happening today (July 20) so the anticipated fix from has clearly not eventuated. (Specifics: IOS app, 20 July 2014, UTC 08:46, HBAL265 is 548 ft, HBAL260 is 540 ft, HBAL259 is 51075 ft.) Actually, the web page is inconsistent ... sometimes it reads the same low altitude as the IOS app, other times it gives altitudes > 63,000 ft. Could be server software level mismatch.

[peterhr]

FR24 has an issue with the number if icons sent to devices to represent different flying objects - adding more icons, slows the data display.