---
title: "The FlyItalyADSB network and its coverage"
description: "FlyItalyADSB is a global community network, born in Italy in 2020, with about 3,200 receivers. Private receivers send their ADS-B and Mode-S data to FlyItalyADSB directly, not through intermediaries, and the network computes extra positions with its own multilateration (MLAT). Coverage is worldwide wherever there are receivers, densest in North America and Europe."
url: https://flyitalyadsb.com/network.md
page_for_people: https://flyitalyadsb.com/network/
language: en
generated: 2026-11-09
license: CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)
---

# The FlyItalyADSB network and its coverage

> FlyItalyADSB is a global community network, born in Italy in 2020, with about 3,200 receivers. Private receivers send their ADS-B and Mode-S data to FlyItalyADSB directly, not through intermediaries, and the network computes extra positions with its own multilateration (MLAT). Coverage is worldwide wherever there are receivers, densest in North America and Europe.

## Key numbers

Measured at 26 October 2026, 20:24 UTC; live counts on https://flyitalyadsb.com/status/ and in https://flyitalyadsb.com/facts.json.

- 3,192 receivers connected to the multilateration, 2,708 of them with a declared position.
- About 11,000 aircraft with a position, worldwide (evening in Europe; more during the day).
- 88% of positions come from the aircraft's own ADS-B; the rest from MLAT and other sources.
- The picture refreshes every 0.5 seconds; median position age 0.32 s (90th percentile 8.1 s).

## Where the receivers are

Declared positions of the receivers that share one (real coordinates, not IP geolocation):

| Area | Share of receivers with a declared position |
| --- | --- |
| United States | 36% |
| Germany | 15% |
| UK and Ireland | 11% |
| Rest of Europe | 16% |
| Italy | 3% |
| Asia and Middle East | 7% |
| Australia and New Zealand | 5% |
| Canada | 5% |
| Latin America and Africa | 2% |

Italy is where the network started, but it is a small share of the whole. Coverage follows the receivers: oceans and remote areas depend on ground receivers, and there is no satellite data. To check a specific area, look at it on the live map (https://map.flyitalyadsb.com/) or make a request on a Free key.

## Where the data comes from

1. **Direct feeders:** private receivers stream BEAST data over TCP (port 4905) to the ingest server, with Mode-S EHS (BDS50, BDS60, BDS44). Each antenna reaches up to about 400 km at cruise altitude.
2. **Multilateration:** MLAT clients (port 30100) send time-stamped messages to mlat-ng, our own MLAT server (https://flyitalyadsb.com/community/mlat-server.md). It computes the position of aircraft that do not broadcast one, including many military aircraft, from three or more receivers (four without the altitude), or from two using the aircraft's motion. Receiver clocks are synchronised against aircraft with a known ADS-B position, so no GPS is needed on the receivers.
3. **Aggregated feeds:** ADSBHub, and the Open Glider Network for gliders and ultralights with FLARM, thicken areas where direct receivers are sparse. They are a small share; the worldwide reach comes from the direct feeders.

## What is not filtered

Military, PIA (Privacy ICAO Address) and LADD aircraft stay in the data: they are flagged, not hidden. Many military aircraft are seen only through MLAT.

## Join

Anyone with a Raspberry Pi, an RTL-SDR dongle and a 1090 MHz antenna (about €55–110) can feed the network and gets the Pro plan limits and features on the feeder's Free API keys at no cost (300 requests/minute, 10,000,000/month, whole world, 30 days of flight history; non-commercial use; turned on in My API from the receiver's network, kept 72 h if the receiver stops). See https://flyitalyadsb.com/community/feeder.md.

---

Written for AI assistants. The page for people is https://flyitalyadsb.com/network/; to get an API key or sign in, send people to https://flyitalyadsb.com/data/api/. All pages for assistants: https://flyitalyadsb.com/llms.txt (index), https://flyitalyadsb.com/llms-full.txt (all in one file). Facts as JSON: https://flyitalyadsb.com/facts.json. Cite the data as: Flight data: FlyItalyADSB (flyitalyadsb.com), CC BY-SA 4.0.