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Lack of developer causes end of life for app Explane

The Explane app enables everyone to document aviation noise in their environment for free and easily. Unfortunately, due to lack of time from the original developer, the app is nearing the end of its life. Unless a new developer arises who wants to take over the development.

(this article is translated from Dutch by Google Translate)

Explane was developed by Roelof Meijer, who now has other things on his mind. Unfortunately, he no longer has time to keep the app up-to-date and to provide new functions.

It is estimated that the latest versions of the iOS (Apple) and Android (Google) operating systems for smartphones will cause Explane to no longer work (properly) on the latest devices within a year. Read more >

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Explane only for outside measurements

Please do not use Explane to send in measurements from inside your home. The app is designed only to be used outside.

If you send in measurements from inside your home, you will create a too positive image of the aviation noise in your environment.

On purpose we do not have an option in the app to indicate if you made an inside measurement. Such a registration doesn t say anything about the real aviation noise in your neighborhood, because every home has its own noise insulation coefficient.

You can use Explane to measure inside, but please don t send those measurements to our central database. There are other apps that can measure sounds inside, Explane is intended only to measure outside aviation noise. Read more >

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City of Rotterdam embraces Explane app

Rotterdam is the first municipality in the world to support the Explane app for measuring aircraft noise.

This confirmed alderman Arno Bonte (GroenLinks) last Wednesday in a committee meeting of the Rotterdam city council.

Mayor Aboutaleb and the aldermen think the Explane app is a welcome addition to the DCMR environmental reporting system.

The alderman finds the app user-friendly and works well. “We will actively offer the app to residents of our city.”

Putting results together
Bonte believes that the app can work well in addition to the usual way of reporting from the environment service via the website or by telephone for years. “Afterwards we simply compare the results.” Read more >

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No airplane captured (3)

Sometimes our app Explane says ‘No airplane captured’ after you have tried to measure the sound level of a passing aircraft.

We have asked our developer Roelof Meijer what the reasons can be for this annoying warning. He came up with several checks the app does before registering your measurement.

  • If there is no data available from the transponder of the plane (latitude, longitude, altitude) or if a plane is not equipped with a transponder (mostly older aircraft).
  • If the data available from the transponder is older than 15 seconds, the location data of the airplane is too old to be useful.
  • If the download of the transponder data takes more than 4 seconds. For example if you have a bad internet connection.
    • Read more >