Infrastructure
The network
FlyItalyADSB is a global community network, born in Italy in 2020: about 3,200 private receivers around the world send us their data directly. Of those that declare a position, 45% are in Europe and 41% in North America.
Direct feeders
Private receivers that send their data straight to us, in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Oceania. Each one receives aircraft up to about 400 km away and streams ADS-B and Mode-S in real time to our ingest server. Almost all the data comes from them.
International aggregators
The readsb-globe server also receives the shared feed of ADSBHub and, for gliders and ultralights, the Open Glider Network. They fill in the areas where our own receivers are sparse.
Where they are
Where the receivers are
These are the positions declared by the 2,708 MLAT receivers that share them, that is the antenna coordinates (not a guess from the IP address). Italy is where the network started, but it is now a small share of the whole.
Rough area boxes on the declared positions. Measured on 26 October 2026, 20:24 UTC; live counts on the status page.
Data pipeline
Ingestion
Feeders send BEAST TCP data to readsb-ingest (port 4905). readsb-globe also receives the ADSBHub and OGN feeds.
MLAT
MLAT clients (port 30100) send time-stamped measurements to mlat-ng, our own MLAT server. It keeps the receivers’ clocks in sync using aircraft with a known ADS-B position, and locates aircraft without GPS from three or more receivers (four without the altitude), or from two using their motion.
Aggregation
readsb-globe merges all feeds: direct feeders, computed MLAT, ADSBHub, OGN. Refreshes the picture of every aircraft every half second, which the map and the API read, and updates heatmap history.
Distribution
Data is served to the tar1090 map via local Unix socket.
Add your receiver
Feeders get the API with Pro’s limits and features, free, and Lightcone, their receiver’s own page: the aircraft that passed near it and it did not receive, and how it compares with nearby receivers.