Hello everyone,
since we started collecting data 4 years ago, we've learned two things about acquiring new receiver sites:
On the one hand, there are many many people around the world willing to setup, deploy, and operate a receiver. While some of them have the money, knowledge, and the access to the required hardware, most don't. Other commercial flight tracking services compensate for these difficulties by distributing free pre-configured receivers to such people, if the site is of a certain value for them (e.g. in an area not yet covered well enough).
On the other hand, as a non-commercial research association, we mostly rely on the support by other institutions or private people. As a first step, we usually ask our collaborators to buy and operate a receiver and contribute with the data. While buying and setting up the required hardware is usually not a big problem, deploying it and feeding the data to our network oftentimes is
Many institutions have strict networking policies (especially governmental) or simply lack the possibility to install an antenna on top of the building.
Facing these two complementary problems brought us to the following conclusion: why not bringing them together? We are therefore happy to announce our new sponsoring program:
People willing to host a receiver can apply for a free receiver here:
opensky-network.org/sponsoring/sensorapplication
People or institutions who want to support our project or simply want coverage in their area can sponsor one of these applications here:
opensky-network.org/sponsoring/sponsoring
You can find an overview of the sponsoring program and other ways to help us here:
opensky-network.org/join
Thank you all for supporting us!
Best,
The OpenSky Network Team