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moltbot-adsb-overhead

Notify when aircraft are overhead

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adsb-overhead

Detect aircraft overhead (within a radius) from a local readsb SBS/BaseStation TCP feed and notify via Clawdbot messaging.

This skill is designed for a periodic checker (cron) rather than a long-running daemon.

Quick start (manual test)

  1. Run the checker for a few seconds to see if it detects aircraft near you:
python3 skills/public/adsb-overhead/scripts/sbs_overhead_check.py \
  --host <SBS_HOST> --port 30003 \
  --home-lat <LAT> --home-lon <LON> \
  --radius-km 2 \
  --listen-seconds 5 \
  --cooldown-min 15
  • If it prints lines, those are new alerts (not in cooldown).
  • If it prints nothing, there were no new overhead aircraft during the sample window.

How it works

  • Connect to the SBS feed (TCP) for --listen-seconds.
  • Track latest lat/lon per ICAO hex.
  • Compute distance to --home-lat/--home-lon (Haversine).
  • Emit alerts for aircraft within --radius-km only if not alerted within --cooldown-min.
  • Persist state to a JSON file (default: ~/.clawdbot/adsb-overhead/state.json).

SBS parsing assumptions are documented in: references/sbs-fields.md.

Create a Clawdbot watcher (cron)

Use a Clawdbot cron job to run periodically. The cron job should:

  1. exec the script
  2. If stdout is non-empty, message.send it via WhatsApp

Pseudocode for the agent:

  • Run:
    • python3 .../sbs_overhead_check.py ...
  • If stdout trimmed is not empty:
    • send a WhatsApp message with that text

Suggested polling intervals:

  • 30–60 seconds is usually enough (given cooldowns)
  • Use --listen-seconds 3..8 so each run can gather a few position frames

Tuning knobs

  • Increase --radius-km if you want fewer misses.
  • Increase --listen-seconds if your feed is busy but you’re missing position updates.
  • Use --cooldown-min to prevent spam (15–60 minutes recommended).