CSV Telemetry

CSV Telemetry is the CSV you get with With tracks. It has one row for every recorded position. The file name ends in -telemetry.csv.

Flights and detections use the same 15 columns in the same order. A column that one kind never fills stays empty.

Columns

#	Column	Meaning	Unit	Empty when	In JSON
1	operation_id	ID of the flight or detection			operations[].id
2	timestamp	Time of the position, UTC			track[].timestamp
3	serial_number	Serial number. For a flight, the Dronetag device's.		Not reported	Identifier of type serial_number
4	sensor_id	Receiver that heard this position		Flights, or shared publicly	track[].sensor_id
5	operational_state	grounded, airborne or emergency		Flights, or not reported	track[].operational_state
6	latitude	Latitude, WGS 84	degrees		track[].location.latitude
7	longitude	Longitude, WGS 84	degrees		track[].location.longitude
8	horizontal_speed	Speed over the ground	m/s	Not reported	track[].velocity.horizontal_speed
9	vertical_speed	Climb rate, positive when climbing	m/s	Not reported	track[].velocity.vertical_speed
10	heading	Direction of travel, clockwise from north	degrees	Not reported	track[].velocity.heading
11	alt_hae_wgs84	Height above the WGS 84 ellipsoid	m	Not reported	Altitude of type HAE-WGS84
12	alt_ato	Height above the take-off point	m	Not reported	Altitude of type ATO
13	alt_pressure	Pressure altitude	m	Not reported	Altitude of type PA-QNE
14	alt_msl	Altitude above mean sea level	m	Can't be worked out	Altitude of type MSL
15	alt_agl	Height above the ground	m	No sea level or no terrain data	Altitude of type AGL

The five altitude columns are explained in Altitudes Explained.

An empty cell means the value wasn't reported and Dronetag couldn't calculate it. A real zero, such as the speed of a hovering drone, is written as zero and never left empty.

CSV has no accuracies. If you need to know how exact a value is, use JSON.

Facts about the aircraft and the pilot are in CSV Summary. Its id column holds the same value as operation_id, so you can join the two files.

Example

The first row of the example flight and of the example detection (synthetic data):

operation_id,timestamp,serial_number,sensor_id,operational_state,latitude,longitude,horizontal_speed,vertical_speed,heading,alt_hae_wgs84,alt_ato,alt_pressure,alt_msl,alt_agl
3f6b1c2e-8d4a-4b7f-9e21-5a0c7d3e9b14,2026-09-17T07:42:13.350390Z,1596CEXAMPLE00001,,,49.1679989,16.4950113,0.0,0.0,,327.1,0.08,255.81,282.13207082568454,0.43031044931819906
6d2f8a41-93c7-4e0b-b5d2-1f7a9c3e8b60,2026-09-22T15:31:04.048000Z,1581FEXAMPLE00000004,SCT-EXAMPLE-01,grounded,49.9599978,14.4999964,0.0,0.0,0.0,400.3,0.0,327.7,354.9,1.0917571914229143

The flight row has no receiver and no state. The detection row has both.

Opening It in Excel

A CSV is written in one of two styles. Some places let you choose the style when you export.

• Decimal point writes 1.5 and separates columns with commas. It suits English-language Excel, Numbers and LibreOffice.
• Decimal comma writes 1,5 and separates columns with semicolons. It suits Czech, German and most other European set-ups.

When the style matches your Excel, double-click the file and it opens in columns. Accents and the degree sign display correctly.

If everything lands in one column, the file was written in the other style. Import it instead.

1. In Excel, choose Data → From Text/CSV and pick the file.
2. Set the delimiter to comma or semicolon.
3. If numbers come out as text, choose Transform Data, select the columns and use Change Type → Using Locale.

Numbers keep every digit the source reported. Format the cells in Excel if you want fewer decimals.

Reading It in a Program

The file is UTF-8 with a byte order mark. In Python, open it with encoding="utf-8-sig". Lines end in CRLF and times end in Z (UTC). Numbers have full precision and no thousands separators. The header always has the same 15 columns.

If You Get a Zip File

When alt_msl or alt_agl came from terrain data that must be credited, the CSV arrives in a zip with ATTRIBUTION.txt. Keep the two files together. See Terrain Data and Attribution.