Author Topic: Tracking flights coast to coast from takeoff to landing, is this possible?  (Read 23241 times)

Offline uh1hhuey

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Was wondering if someone can help me out with this. I like to track aircraft using either Plane Finder, FlightAware of FlightRadar24 and I like to listen to those aircraft using LiveATC. I attempted to track my childrens flight from LAX to BOS which is easy enough with any of the flight tracking apps but gets a bit difficult with LiveATC. I am trying to figure out how I would be able to find the frequencies and names of the sectors they are flying through so I can listen on LiveATC. From KLAX this is how I listened to them as far as I remember. Ground then Tower then Departure, then they were handed off to Los Angeles Center (ZLA) and this is where it all fell apart. There are many ZLA Sectors and names I just had to skip around to find the LiveATC feed and I only caught the flight one time over Chicago area and then it again gets easier once they are in the last 40 minutes of flight into their destination. So is there anyone that knows how I could figure out the frequencies and sector names ahead of time and maybe what frequencies they would be on in a geographic area are they on a sectional or is this all done with flight planning software for the airlines. It would be awesome FlightAware was able to track the flight and listen in on coms and have the capability to follow/switch coms as they fly into different sectors. Any help would be great. Thanks



Offline JetScan1

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Attached below are my own personal notes showing all the high altitude sectors between LAX and BOS. (Need to be logged into the Forum to access the attachment). The map shows typical sector configurations during the daytime shift. Note that sectors can be combined. Nightime/overnight shift configurations can be much different, often combining with low altitude sectors/frequencies. You can use the LiveATC search function to see what frequencies are covered for each Center, search using the 3 letter ID (ZLA, ZAB, ZDV, etc).

Offline nycrich425

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I constantly use Liveatc to track flights along the East Coast, Midwest, and West Coast and there are numerous holes in coverage. I frequently track from Florida to NY/NJ/CT and there is holes in coverage along the way

Offline MIAMIATC

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Rich and Jetscan how are you guys ? These 2 folks have great info on this

Offline uh1hhuey

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Thank you to the 3 that replied to my post, I really appreciate you giving your input.

Offline AustinEverett

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I'm delighted I stumbled into your remarks because I'm hunting for posts that are comparable to yours.

Offline nycrich425

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So not all of the US ATC sectors are covered by Liveatc. As a result there will be holes in coverage. I usually have a map of all the east coast (downloaded from this site) and would just skip over that sector and tune to the next available sector to hear the flight when it comes up on that expected sector.

Offline SD_Mark

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Re: Tracking flights coast to coast from takeoff to landing, is this possible?
« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2023, 09:20:49 PM »
This seems an old thread - but I don't find any newer on the topic.  @JetScan1 I downloaded your LAX-BOS.pdf and have used it to follow flights in that corridor.  However a week ago I was trying to track a flight from Houston to LAX and it was off the bottom of the plot.  It looks like this PDF is a part (maybe a screen grab) of a larger image - does anyone know where the original might be, such that I could expand the covered area to encompass all the lower 48 states?

Thanks.

Offline JetScan1

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Re: Tracking flights coast to coast from takeoff to landing, is this possible?
« Reply #8 on: December 23, 2023, 11:16:33 PM »
does anyone know where the original might be, such that I could expand the covered area to encompass all the lower 48 states?

Attached below is the original. These are just my personal notes. Any updates or corrections always appreciated.