Guide Map sharing

Guide: map sharing and the live map website

What it is. map.on-air.dev is a public live map of aircraft, ships, APRS stations, mesh nodes, radiosondes, satellites and other positions that OnAir users choose to share. Anyone can watch it in a browser. Your receiver sends data only when you turn that on.

Turning sharing on

1. OnAir asks once at start with three choices: Send positions, Not now (nothing is sent in this session; it asks again at the next start) and No, do not ask again (nothing is sent and the question does not come back until OnAir is updated).
2. You can change your mind at any time: Server > Send data to map server (or the Server button in the classic top bar).
3. Next to it, Server > Also share interesting ACARS messages (text becomes public on the map) is a separate switch, described below.
4. The menu also tells you "The map is at map.on-air.dev". The status shows "connecting", "retrying" or "connected" with the number sent.

Sharing is switched off automatically while the radio transmits ("Turned off while transmitting, so a signal from this radio is not sent to the map"), and it cannot be switched on during a transmission.

What is shared

Positions that the signals themselves carried. For each track: its kind (aircraft, vessel, APRS, drone, sonde, satellite and so on), an identifier (an aircraft's ICAO address, a ship's MMSI or the callsign or name the signal carries), a label, latitude and longitude, altitude, heading, speed, climb rate, squawk, the age of the fix, the source mode and a short recent path of up to 60 points. The request carries a random 20-character station ID that OnAir makes on your computer the first time; it is not derived from you.

Modes that can send: ADS-B, radiosonde, AIS, marine (DSC), ACARS, Inmarsat Aero, Iridium, APRS, VDL2, HFDL, Orbcomm, Remote ID, FLARM, DJI and Datawell. GNSS satellites are shown from valid broadcast ephemerides only; see GNSS satellite map.

What is never shared

• Your receiver location.
• Catalogue satellite orbits (not decoded from your signals), drone operator locations, cell towers.
• Privacy-flagged FLARM aircraft (their no-track and stealth flags are respected everywhere).
• The built-in test signal.

Old fixes are dropped before sending (for example 30 seconds for ADS-B), at most one batch is sent every few seconds, and a heartbeat goes out every minute while sharing is on. A small diagnostic log of the upload is kept in the app for support and included by Copy diagnostics.

ACARS messages

By default only positions go to the map. If you also tick Also share interesting ACARS messages, messages that aircraft sent by ACARS (free text, crew, operations, company and maintenance messages) are shown on that aircraft's card for 48 hours. Phone numbers and e-mail addresses are removed first. Position reports and link tests are not part of it. You can turn it off at any time.

Using the website

• Open map.on-air.dev. Choose a source kind to show; click an aircraft or vessel for its card.
• The map combines what all participating users receive, so coverage grows with the number of receivers.
• An aircraft heard only through ACARS or VDL2 starts as a dot and becomes a plane icon after its second position.
• The map depends on volunteers' antennas: a gap does not mean there is no traffic.

Privacy checklist

Question	Answer
Is it on by default?	No. OnAir asks.
Is my location sent?	No.
Can I turn it off?	Yes, in the Server menu at any time.
Does the station ID identify me?	It is random and made on your computer.
Where is it documented?	Privacy and Live map.

Troubleshooting

• "retrying connecting with server": a network problem or the server is busy; OnAir retries.
• Nothing appears: only some modes send; check your mode is in the list above and that you are decoding positions.
• Sharing switched itself off: you transmitted; turn it on again afterwards.

Related

Live map | Privacy | ACARS message log | ADS-B