KDEN Aircraft Activity Has Long Delays

[Tamba765]

I've been noticing rather long delays of "Live" traffic movement at KDEN. While watching the flightradar24 displays, and listening to the LiveATC app, there are delays of up to a minute or more on flightradar24 displayed aircraft positions. Additionally, aircraft move backwards and sideways quite often. My internet connection is fast, and there are no other problems on my end. What could be causing this? Thanks.

[SoCalBrian]

The site using data from multiple sources.
Some data might be older and newer. That's why you see the aircraft jumping on the map.

and

Under 'Settings' look under 'Visibility' tab and adjust the Estimations options. See if that makes any difference.

[fungus]

I thought I'd add a little further to the discussion on this topic as it's an interesting one, although acknowledging that Brian is 100% correct. I'm rather glad Admin haven't yet had their way in removing radars from the aircraft info list as it made checking the subject of this post a little easier.

Firstly and for the benefit of those who may or may not use it, LiveATC has a small delay but as they are simply re-broadcasting a UHF analogue audio signal, that delay doesn't compare to FR24 who are effectively rebroadcasting a digital signal comprised of all its multiple 'bits' of data (and then some). Anyone who has watched the television coverage of 'The Tour de France' can attest to issues faced when they changed from analogue to digital broadcast. Depending on your audio player though, if you lose the signal and simply hit 'resume' or replay or whatever word/phrase it uses to reconnect you may well find yourself listening to a replay of your audio that you were listening to some time ago, bearing no resemblance to what's occurring 'live' on the FR24 map. A rookie error that I've made a number of times. Far better to close your audio player and start it up again.

Then there's the latest effort by the browser wizz kids to not update inactive windows. Just bring up an inactive window these days in any browser and you can watch aircraft dancing into position from where they were when it was last active. This has nothing to do with FR24.

Tamba765,

You've got something of a dogs breakfast over there at KDEN with the multiple data sources. The FAA feed is something we don't have to contend with here in Oz and I can see after watching that area for a short while why it's problematic. It seems quite acceptable down to about 10,000ft but then seems to hit the proverbial skids from there on. Aircraft dance all over, hover and fail to even land, disappearing into the ether at around 6-7,000ft. It seems on par with M-LAT although I'd honestly give M-LAT an A+ compared to FAA. The T (privately owned) feeders and F (FR24 supplied) feeders seem to work nicely bearing in mind they have an inherent delay of up to about 15 seconds by the time you see aircraft on the map but at least they are fairly consistent.

Aircraft on ground introduces another issue and that is the likelihood of blocked signals and partial/outdated info being displayed on the map. Of course there's also the fact that not all aircraft have the latest and greatest positioning equipment on board and this can also influence the display on the map. This is however becoming less of an issue as time passes and some of these older aircraft (767's, 747's etc) are retired to the desert over there.

As I said I think in your particular case Brian is correct and I'm not at all sure there is a simple fix but for the benefit of others it can be seen there may be many factors contributing to these dancing or incorrectly positioned aircraft a lot of which is outside the control of FR24.

Just a note on the settings point, I like to disable the 'animate aircraft' (Settings/Map).

Regards,
Gregg

[Tamba765]

I live close to KDEN, and the LiveATC broadcasts are very accurate. The aircraft that depart RWY 25, heading west through north, fly right over my house. I usually run FR24 concurrently on my phone while watching aircraft departures in my back yard, and there is usually, but not always, as noticeable difference in aircraft position. It's really not that big a deal, I just thought I'd throw it out there to see what others thought. I'm a former Airline Pilot, whose neighbors probably wonder why I'm looking up at airplanes with my binoculars during the 8:00AM departure rush.

[fungus]

I live close to KDEN, and the LiveATC broadcasts are very accurate. The aircraft that depart RWY 25, heading west through north, fly right over my house. I usually run FR24 concurrently on my phone while watching aircraft departures in my back yard, and there is usually, but not always, as noticeable difference in aircraft position. It's really not that big a deal, I just thought I'd throw it out there to see what others thought. I'm a former Airline Pilot, whose neighbors probably wonder why I'm looking up at airplanes with my binoculars during the 8:00AM departure rush.

Thanks Tamba765 for your posts;

I'm in a similar boat here as far as distance from the airport and aircraft overhead on westerly departures from YSSY Rwy 34L. I prefer to use LiveATC over my scanner as I can cover more frequencies simultaneously. However if I go nearer to the airport for photography I need to allow for the delay in real time otherwise it can mean the difference between a good pic and missing it altogether. An aircraft can be lifting off the runway when it is given take off clearance on LiveATC. Not much of a delay but it can be critical at times. In this case I rely heavily on the scanner.

The delay in FR24 is also not such an issue for overflys (OTT's) some distance from an airport but that changes again at an airport as an aircraft can be getting handed off to departures by the time it's shown on the map as beginning its take off roll.

The point of my post was to acknowledge that there are delays and your noted idiosyncrasies and explain some of the reasons for them. Then allowances can be made depending on the purpose for which people may want to use either FR24 or LiveATC and not be left wondering. I was also glad to have the opportunity to witness the FAA traffic over there and see first hand its limitations. You've raised some very interesting points.

When I head out to the backyard with my trusty 70d with 150-500mm lens and occasionally my bino's I'm sure I've noticed the neighbours closing their blinds or heading indoors so I can relate to your comment on that.

Regards,
Gregg

Addendum:
So as to uphold my reputation for exceedingly long posts I wanted to add that for those with a receiver we can actually see something of the delay on the FR24 map compared to what's on our screen. Simply by observing our receiver via 'Radar View' and searching for a blocked aircraft you may notice two aircraft are displayed when in fact there is only one. FR24 will display an aircraft with a generic callsign such as CL60, B737 or GLF6 etc but we can see the aircraft with its actual callsign which may for example be the reg and they have a perceivable gap between them. It's also handy for checking out blindspots as when it hits one the 'two' aircraft begin to catch up, move much closer or merge.

It's also possible to hear the delay in LiveATC by simply tuning a scanner to the same frequency. I defy anyone to try and listen to this cacophony for any length of time.