iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Greetings, programs! Oh, what an occasion we have here before us. Because your rumors are true. The website is indeed closing down. When started 8ish years ago, it was one of a very few. Now, there are many many ACARS sites and its just not needed any longer. Time to close the dumpster!

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Got a few new VDL ACARS stations limping, they are going to come and go as we get things a bit more sorted. Remember, you can view them any time you want, start here: tbg.airframes.io/das...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Now is the best time of day to see the power of ADSC (satcom) tracking. There are a big mix of position plots on this map. ADSC, ACARS, HF, Iridium. Use the squawk code to filter, details here: tbg.airframes.io/das... Still a few plots with math errors that I am working on fixing.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I first de-lidded the C5-WROOM to see what was going on. Then just took a Dremel to the feed and soldered on the pigtail. Pulls WAY more numbers than the little C5 with an FL connector for some reason. Why did I not just buy the 1U WROOM? Heh, more to come. #AllTheWifi #wardrive

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

RocketGod just added a killer feature to his Android only app - an antenna test feature. In 1 hour I was able test all my stash of Wifi antennas and quickly sort them. In front of the kangaroo, everything measures -54db. On the left, the small number there measured -34db.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Hard to believe that its almost exactly a year since I first published my #wardriving brain dump blog. Recently folks have reached out and asked I update it with all the software & hardware goings on. k6thebaldgeek.blogsp... Check it out and let me know what I missed. #AllTheWifi #Wigle #wardrive

k6thebaldgeek.blogspot.com

wardriving

Sep 2026 Added Bingfu 9dbi antenna teardown photos. Thoughts on Acceltex dome antenna. Aug 2026 Added WDG, Wardrive Go and Biscuit shop sect...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

No, you are not seeing things. We have a mobile #avgeek feeder that is currently in Manila and feeding the site VDL2 traffic using the station code 'MOBL' from a hotel room. Other squawk filter codes here: tbg.airframes.io/das...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Website Update. Its back up. I personally find it odd that out of the 20-30 people that use the site, only one bothered to tell me it was down. Unlike you lot, I don't live on the site, I got antennas and satellite dishes to fix to feed the site data. I often don't know if it crashes.....

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Website Update: The site is down. Working on it.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Satcom ADSC/ACARS feeds are back up and running. tbg.airframes.io Who has been with me since v1 of the site? Remember those days? I'd either break the site or it would crash probably 6 times a week! Now I'm scared to touch it because so many of you actually use it to do important stuff!

tbg.airframes.io

Node-RED Dashboard 2.0

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Website update: Our 25e C-Band (ADSC and satcom aircraft) feed is currently down. I've let the station operator know and will get it back just as fast as we can. Its a 'best effort' website and we all have jobs etc. You can check the site feed status on this page: tbg.airframes.io/das...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Very late to the party I know, and yes I'm ashamed it's taken me this long... I just now migrated off Chrome to Firefox 100%. DuckDuckGo is now my backup browser. Chrome allowing all the ads made me think I'd gone back to the 2000's Internet. What a backwards step for them and some of us.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

We've all heard the question: "What's in my pockets?" My version is slightly different..... "What's under my box?" Answer will be on my wardriving brain dump blog soon, but feel free to dump any and all guessed answers here. k6thebaldgeek.blogsp... #AllTheWifi #Wardriving

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Wow. 54w and 25e are really dialed in right now. Lots of oceanic flights over EURO. Our guy in Australia (143e) is also keeping up the numbers. I'm still working on getting my 98w dish back up and running - sorry its taking so long. tbg.airframes.io/das...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

If you are wondering why, when you ask 'AI' about ACARS, you get a dumpster fire in reply.... It's because the models have been trained on my web content, so much so its baked in the weights of the models. Sorry, not sorry. intheweights.com/

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

I got the itch to press the #Wifydra by @lozaning back into full-time #wardriving mode. You may (or may not) have caught the test I did with the panel antenna vs Yagi out the car window. (Photos here: k6thebaldgeek.blogsp...) Decided to go with the panel antenna full-time. 1/

k6thebaldgeek.blogspot.com

wardriving

Added WiGLE App Settings: Oct 27th 2025 Topic menu Why wardrive Links and resources tbg vs Kismet GPS Android Phones Phone Placement WigleFi...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

A few hours either side of now is still the best time to see the most ADSC (Satcom) aircraft on either of my two maps. Be sure and check out the map link page as it has helpful hints on how you can filter them by squawk code. tbg.airframes.io/das... Be sure and check out ALL the other site pages.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Every hour that Cloudflare and I spend blocking YOUR bot is an hour I DONT spend on improving the site or its feeds. We are now blocking 167 unique IP addresses and 262,144 rotating bot IP addresses. I've only had one person complain that their VPN address got caught up in YOUR bot mess.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Rip out the M.2 Wifi card and replace it with an M.2 to Ethernet adaptor. Reconfigure Proxmox to use the new ETH interface to the Linux-Bridge. Now do it 11 times. How's your day going?

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Website Update: Our 25E C-Band feed is currently degraded. L-Band is normal, just the C-Band data feed is intermittent. This impacts both the aircraft plots on the two tracking sites and the ACARS messages. I've reached out to the station, and we are working on the issue. No ETA as yet.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

At this rate its going to take me longer to find the parts for my next project than to get it built and running. <sigh> One of these days, I'm going to label them better and sort them into little tubs. But for now, I need 1 x 560 Ohm and 2 x 4k7 for a Raspberry Pi experiment.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Bumping the gain on the car #wardrive rig from a claimed 6db to a claimed 12db. Its getting a bit long, but as long as I am careful going off road, it should clear most places I drive. BTW, this is my tbg madness build of the Signal Sluth. You can read about it here: k6thebaldgeek.blogsp...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

That's a lot of sky trash. I mean, I get why we need to send up #radiosonde to collect the weather data, but wow. When you see a week or two's worth like this... It's a lot of batteries, GPS antennas, latex, and Gore-Tex string.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Question for you @wiglenet.bsky.social I have three phones the exact same, I can't tell which is which on the upload list. Anyway to change that name under the wigle filename drop down? (Got the chance to do a little more #wardriving and suck back into the top 100 again). Thanks for all your work.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

It's a military ACARS rich map right now. My site has two maps, and remember, NONE of them have ADSB aircraft on them, so they are going to take you a hot moment to keep that in mind as you use and view them. Links and helpful hints here: tbg.airframes.io/das...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

I traded my red car for a gray (grey) one.... So the #wiglefin must also change. I mean, you gotta catch #AllTheWifi and feed WiGLE.net all the #wardrive goodness. This is the first of 4 fins that I run when in hardcore mode. k6thebaldgeek.blogsp... Read the blog to learn more about the wiglefin.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Slightly off-topic thread (hey, it still has flying things in it). My wife wanted to learn more about bird calls and the birds that match them, and to teach them to our grandson. So I loaded up BirdNET-Go on a Pi and stuck a microphone out the window. github.com/tphakala/... 1/

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Just got our Southern California station up and running on Iridium-sniffer. Circles are spot beams, dots are aircraft. 4 ground stations now feeding data to tbgmap.airframes.io/

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Will 2026 finally be the year of #Iridium for #avgeeks? A few of us are working hard to make it happen! We have @ElbaSatGuy digging into SBD for position data, and @cemaxecuter working on a single-package decoder. Still some issues, but here are 3 stations from 2 days ago. This is a big deal!

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

No, your eyes are not playing tricks. There really are more satcom (ADSC) aircraft on the map. Tweaking things and seeing a nice bump in numbers. More work from more folks to come. Jump to all these maps from here: tbg.airframes.io/das...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I understand that this post will annoy some of you here. I don't mean to do that, it's just stating facts as I've seen them over the past few years. k6thebaldgeek.blogspot.com/2026/04/theb...

k6thebaldgeek.blogspot.com

thebaldgeek and X (Twitter)

I've been forced to make some changes in how I use X. I was 'happy' (not really - but) to pay the $8 per month to get two key features: 1. ...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

No question, the new version of acarsHUB has had a massive facelift. Still the same idea for my site. Military-only aircraft with ACARS messages or position plots via ACARS. tbgacarshub.airframe... Click on the aircraft and read the messages. ACARS with alerts really jump out now!

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Just when I thought I was getting along with Docker, it goes sideways on me. I still hate it. Back up and running. Big update by the looks of it. Few #avgeeks asked for dark mode. They have it now. Remember, do NOT remove existing alert terms, ADD only.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

No good deed goes unpunished. There was an updated acarsHUB, so I did a docker pull and up command, and of course, it broke with an error that I can't understand. So, for now: tbgacarshub.airframe... is down. Sorry. Working on it. Not my code. No idea. (Only about 20 people used it anyway)

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Saw this just now on my personal ADSB setup. Tinkering with my map while working on adding Iridium aircraft plots to my main ACARS map: tbgmap.airframes.io/ Iridium-sniffer and others. More soon.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Because of course North Korea launched a missile... ADSB is the where. ACARS is the why.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

This should be a really helpful blog post for any of you that want to get better at ACARS searching on the website. While focused on mission codes, the tips will work for any topic. Please share for visability if you don't mind. k6thebaldgeek.blogspot.com/2026/04/miss...

k6thebaldgeek.blogspot.com

Mission Code Search Tips

tl;dr I've mostly fixed this - but take a read just the same. (Spoiler - Tankers are on Iridium). I happen to be DMing with one of the #Twi...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Some of the parts I ordered to move the C-Band dish build along came in today. Guess I know what I will be doing this weekend.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Well, you lot had a busy day on the site. Typical 30 to 50 uses (green), but 1800 pages (yellow) is quite a few more than usual. I guess you found something of interest on there. #ACARS #OSINT #AVGEEK tbg.airframes.io

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Just added a new SATCOM page to the site. You will need to read the blog post about it, which includes a link to the new page (or find it in the site menu as usual). k6thebaldgeek.blogspot.com/2026/02/airc...

k6thebaldgeek.blogspot.com

Aircraft-to-satellite log on table

This blog tries to explain the 'logon' table located here: https://tbg.airframes.io/dashboard/logon Intro Before an aircraft can send any ...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

New squawk page is now live on the site. tbg.airframes.io/dashboard/sq... The past 10 records of the 4 common codes. Both military and civil will (should) show on the page. I may do some filtering if the same ones come up too often. Feedback welcome.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

Just got our STDC feed from Asia Pacific back up and running. tbg.airframes.io/das... Yes, a marine data source on an aircraft #ACARS data website. Odd, I know. But where the ships are, aircraft often are. Also, these guys are super quick with alerts on North Korea #missile launches.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

Picked up some new followers the past week and a bit, so here is the usual reminder that NONE of the aircraft on either of my two maps are ADSB. They are ALL ADSC or ACARS position plots. More details here: tbg.airframes.io/das...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

I'm sore, tired, and a bit beat up.... I know my last post was a bit cryptic.... But just know I am super pumped to FINALLY be working on my ACARS data feed. More to come, I just hope it's worth the wait.... Working like crazy to make sure it is! Whatcha all got planned for the weekend?

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

After 3.5 months and hours and hours of work... Today is the day. thebaldgeek is a little bit nervicited. I thought about live-streaming it, but did not want to annoy the music copyright overlords, and I really, really need my tunes for this one (Pandora - tbg tuned retro synth channel).

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

I just noticed that the HF blackout map was broken on my HFLD page, so I fixed it. There is a bit of a solar storm happening now, so HFDL ACARS numbers will be down. Check out the repaired page here: tbg.airframes.io/das...

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

As I mentioned last week, I had a fantastic #Wardrive in Denver. Just now uploaded my #radiacode #Geiger counter maps from the same drive to radiaverse.com They filter out high-speed data, so since wardriving is slow, 99.6% of my data is valid! Woot. Split-screen mapping for the win!

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Website Update: Sites up, but the feeds are down. No ETA till I can figure out what's going on. You will just have to sit on the runway and wait for the dumpster fire to restart... Sorry for the delay.

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thebaldgeek @thebaldgeek.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Hey @wiglenet If you don't know, your app uploader is currently broken. It says "Unable to connect to WiGLE". Also, if you try to check rank, etc, under that menu, you get a broken connection icon. #AllTheWiFi some of the time. #wardrive but not just now.

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