Pilotaware undertest

[the_top_pilot]

Today our testing started for real.
So far loving the results. We would like to see more PAW's out there so get buying and building.
The Mode C and S are important to us and are the main subject of our testing. I have enclosed an image of my PAW placed on to our mission rack in a PA31 reg BPYR.
You may note that I to have gone for one of the recommended Maplin Hammond Cases. I have removed the end panel and have replaced it with a 3mm hole mesh to let air circulate. You can now see the lights on the Pi2 and the Bridge unit through the mesh.

With the Yellow antenna I made using a piece of wire and a right angle SMA was indicating in the traffic window that we were picking up in excess of 170 sources at a range of up to 165kms.

The one PAW we did see had a hex code of 405091 at a range of 16.1km

Steve

[Admin]

Hi Steve

Very interested to know how you are getting on with the new Mode-C functionality ?
Especially how the filtering is managing to ignore your own transponder.

Thx
Lee

[the_top_pilot]

Lee,

I am continuing with the testing. Interestingly in either of the 2 mode C set ups I was not seeing our aircraft but were being warned of other mode C traffic that we were visual with or had information by the traffic service we were receiving. Today we have a 5 hour plus flight where Pilotaware will be running again.

I will keep you updated.

Steve

[Admin]

Hi Steve,

I know its always busy inflight, but the check would be to go to the web traffic page and see if there is a reference to SELF.

This would indicate that your own transponder is detected and ignored.
This is what I have spent quite a lot of time trying to perfect, to stop false reporting.

Thx
Lee

[the_top_pilot]

Lee,

I took screen shots of the traffic page yesterday, looking back I do not see the word SELF. I will look again today.

We are full ADSB equipped and I had put in the hex code to Pilotaware.

Steve

[Paul_Sengupta]

I'm hopefully flying today so I'll see what happens.

[the_top_pilot]

My flight is delayed till Saturday

[exfirepro]

Lee,

I took screen shots of the traffic page yesterday, looking back I do not see the word SELF. I will look again today.

We are full ADSB equipped and I had put in the hex code to Pilotaware.

Steve

Steve,

As you are ADSB out equipped (presumably via a Mode S Transponder) you should ideally be running Mode-C/S Select on the 'Mode-CS(Beta)' setting as you do not need the Mode-C filter. In this setting your Mode-S and ADSB are both filtered by your Hex ID. This means the 'SELF' label will not display in the traffic table, but your aircraft should appear at or near the top of the table in the 'ADSB' logs.

Regards

Peter
Mode S Development Tester

[Admin]

Hi Peter

Is that true, if you have a mode s transponder, it does not respond to a mode a or c interrogation ?
My understanding was that these responses are independent of each other

Could you confirm with your trig contacts ?

Thx
Lee

[exfirepro]

Hi Lee,

That's certainly how it has worked with me using the engineering software, though I might be wrong. I will speak to trig in the morning.

Regards

Peter

Postscript Having spoken to Trig, the answer to Lee's question is that my TT21 does 'respond' to Mode 'A' or 'C' interrogations as well as Mode 'S' ones, but the response is controlled by the pulses within the specific interrogations. In any case I do not get 'SELF' appearing in the traffic table (though I am as I say still flying with the 'Engineering' Test software not the latest Beta release).

[the_top_pilot]

Some observations from my flight yesterday.

With the PAW set with the aircrafts hex code and mode C/S filter.

In an area where there were no other aircraft in the valleys of Scotland if we decended of climbed with gusto a mode C warning was given?

Self was only displayed in traffic window a very few times during a 6.5 hour flight.

Otherwise all seemed to work perfectly.

I will report more soon.

[Admin]

In an area where there were no other aircraft in the valleys of Scotland if we decended of climbed with gusto a mode C warning was given?

Thats interesting 🤔
Part of the filtering is comparing the mode c alt, to the paw baro sensor.
As you say rapid ascent/descent could indeed fool the filter to display your own transponder due to possible latencies
Did you note the relative altitude reported, or the audio warning ?

Thx
Lee

[Ian Melville]

Thankfully my aircraft doesn't know the meaning of gusto 

[exfirepro]

I don't know Ian, mine was getting bounced up and down quickly enough yesterday on our trip back through the weather front from Sherburn to East Fortune. Didn't see Steve though - mind you I didn't see much at all apart from rain and clouds  Roll on Summer

Peter

[the_top_pilot]

Lee,

Sadly I only made occasional looks at the SkyDemon screen because I had to work..... I did not have audio connected on this flight

I did note at the end of the flight I had received 15 PAW contacts over the period between 09:30 local and 18:00 local.

I will conduct further tests this coming week.

Steve