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ACARS Message Documentation

Discoveries, documentation, and notes relating to decoding ACARS message text.

Purpose

The purpose of this repository is to document the discoveries and notes related to decoding ACARS message text payload in order to better organize and develop the ACARS Decoder libraries. All efforts here will directly benefit the Airframes ACARS Decoder library.

Research

A collaborative effort of analyzing and researching ACARS message algorithms and structures is ongoing. This section serves to link to primary/current initiatives. We welcome Pull Requests for anything ongoing here so that it can eventually be confirmed and moved into the documentation.

Label Sublabel Preambles Description
:; Aircraft Transceiver Frequency Change
_d Transponder Pings / No-Ops
10
11 Lots of formats
12 N
13
14
15
16 N
17
18
19
1A
1B
1C
1D
1E
1G
1L
1M
1P
1X
20 POS
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
2A
2B
2C
2D
2E
2F
2L
2P
2T
2Z
30 /EA
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
3A
3B
3C
3E
3F
3J
3L
3M
3N
3P
3S
4~
40 Ground to Air, Request for Clearance via Free Text w ATC, OPS and administrative msg/requests from ground, weather info.
41
42
43
44 OOOI + Positions
45
46
47
48
49
4A
4C
4E
4H
4J Position and weather
4K
4L
4M
4N
4P
4Q
4R
4S
4T
4X
4Y
4Z
52
58
5D
5P
5U
5V
5Y
5Z /
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
8A
8D
8E
8S
8X
99
A0
A1
A2
A3
A4
A6
A9
AA
B0
B1
B2
B3
B4
B5
B6 /
B9 /
BA
BB
C1
CA
H1 #CFB, #CFB.01, FPN, POS
H2
HX
MA Media Advisories (appears to be MIAM focused)
Q0
Q2
Q3
Q5
Q6
Q7
QA
QC
QD
QE
QF
QP
QQ
QR
QS
QX
RA
RB
RF
SA
SQ Squitters / Transponder Pings
VA
X1

Documentation

We will compile and create actual documentation as we confirm our research results.

PENDING...

Contributors

Name Description
Kevin Elliott Primary Airframes contributor
Frank Vance / fvance Multiple label research contributions
Andy / andermatt64 Multiple label research contributions
Thomas / period Multiple label research contributions
Michael Johnson / johnsom Multiple label research contributions
Chris Globe / chrisglobe Multiple label research contributions
ge0metrix Label updates
Unnamed Several contributors who wished to be unnamed or I have not yet been granted permission to list here