Messages

2266

General Discussion / Re: FL*RM Integration - Beta Testers

« on: September 03, 2016, 02:57:15 am »

Hi All,

Working the stand at the LAA rally this weekend with Lee. Lots of interest in this aspect from users/ potential users who fly from/near gliding sites - all very interested in 'legal' solution(s). We will keep you informed.

Regards

Peter

2267

Technical Support / Re: Testing PilotAware setup in plane

« on: September 03, 2016, 02:48:57 am »

As you say, I don't think you'll have any magnetic problems from the back seat Rob. As Tony says, always worth checking though. I remember when I fitted my first 'gps' a Memory Map simple moving map with no alerts whatever running on a car Road Angel unit. All was fine until I turned on the external power and saw my compass turn through about 50 degrees!!

Regards

Peter

2268

Technical Support / Re: Testing PilotAware setup in plane

« on: September 02, 2016, 02:48:33 am »

Good point Tony. There are several posts suggesting removing the magnet (fairly easily done by carefully peeling off the stuck on foil) and using sticky Velcro instead. You could at the same time carefully shorten the antenna coax if you need to - method also described here somewhere.

Regards

Peter

2269

General Discussion / Re: Mode-C sporadic results

« on: September 02, 2016, 02:45:21 am »

Hi Chris,

I flew down to the LAA Rally yesterday from Scotland using a beta version of SD, which seems to have resolved the relative altitude anomaly. I am helping out on the PAW stand over the weekend so will speak to Lee about this and your 'ghost' mode C aircraft. As Lee says, mode C is still under development but was released early as so many people were desperate to get Mode C cover. 4WIW I was fairly happy with how it was working during my flight down yesterday.

Regards

Peter

2270

General Discussion / Re: FL*RM Integration - Beta Testers

« on: September 02, 2016, 02:37:44 am »

The point about using the flarmMouse is that you own the device which you have legally bought from FLARM or one of its licensed developers as a fully licensed FLARM unit and are therefore legally decoding received FLARM signals and merely using PilotAware as a 'conduit' to  present them to your nav device - in the same way FLARM themselves advocate by using a 'Butterfly' (now marketted as 'Air Connect') RS232 to WiFi converter.

As you have bought the decoding licence from FLARM (albeit through a 3rd party developer), they would be hard pushed to prosecute you for using it in the way it is intended. Just my opinion of course.

WRT using an OGN feed in the plane, I would view this in the same way I do FR24 - connection difficulties, time delays and positional innacuracies make this a definite 'No No' for me! I want my traffic notifications to be 100% reliable!

Regards

Peter

2271

Technical Support / Re: Testing PilotAware setup in plane

« on: August 31, 2016, 01:06:41 pm »

Hi Rob,

Yes, we have quite a few people operating PAWs as Ground Stations, so you need to take care to check the relative altitude. Thankfully you should see them from a fair distance away, so gives you plenty of time to assess the situation.

Regards

Peter

2272

Technical Support / Re: Testing PilotAware setup in plane

« on: August 31, 2016, 11:43:44 am »

Yes, upside down will make no difference. Just try to keep them as near vertical as possible. IIRC from my ham radio, transmit and receive antennas 90 degrees out of alignment theoretically halves the received signal strength - which could have a serious effect on the Mode C/S  danger alert thresholds. The location of the PAW itself isn't significant. I have mine mounted up inside my flexwing pod, but use remote antennas (including a remote GPS). WRT the ADSB being more important, remember 1090MHz transponders / ADSB is transmitted at relatively high power, but PilotAware P3i only transmits at 1/2 a watt, so good P3i antenna placement is very important if you want to see and be seen by other PAWs.

Regards

Peter

2273

General Discussion / Re: Successful Introduction to Pilot Aware and ADS-B

« on: August 31, 2016, 11:32:02 am »

Hi Martin,

Are you based at Insch? There are now several Paw users based down at East Fortune, including two of us who have been heavily involved in the Mode S and Mode C development testing. We are happy to assist with any issues, though by the sound of it you are doing great on your own.

Glad to hear you are finding your PAW experience so positive. I am currently running ADSB out from a Trig TT21 together with PAW and am just awaiting delivery of a flarmMouse to complete the package. Lee just finished the support for FLARM in this release so no reports yet from other users. I will report back once I get it installed. If you do go down the same route, I would certainly echo Ian's recommendation to try to keep the P3i and FLARM antennas apart as they are almost on the same frequency, but both operating relatively low power, so not anticipating problems.

Regards

Peter

2274

Technical Support / Re: Testing PilotAware setup in plane

« on: August 31, 2016, 11:07:57 am »

Rob,

Yes, it is the thinner/ shorter ADSB antenna that does all the 1090 MHz stuff including Modes C and S. It can be shortened (carefully) to about half its length and the PAW made into a more compact package which will fit on most coamings. See here...

http://forum.pilotaware.com/index.php/topic,438.msg5661.html#msg5661

...though there are other alternative threads on this subject.

Have you read the antenna guide here.....

http://forum.pilotaware.com/index.php/topic,400.0.html

Good background for antenna selection and location. Try to keep the antennas as vertical as possible (except the gps which should lie flat with as a good a view of the sky as possible - the coaming is good). There are lots of other good options, e.g using suckers to hold one of PilotAware Hardware's 'Horn Dipoles' onto your glazing for the P3i side of things, which allows this antenna to be easily moved between planes.

Worth a read round to help find your perfect solution.

Regards

Peter

2275

Technical Support / Re: Traffic page auto-refresh

« on: August 30, 2016, 08:43:40 am »

Hi again Mike/Graham

As I say, I do appreciate the position. I live just south of Edinburgh Airport, so do get a fair number on the list when testing from home, but haven't found this to be a problem in flight. You need to be aware that the traffic screen is principally provided to allow us to see what is going on in the background under 'relaxed' conditions - not when we should be looking outside for a contact. We wouldn't expect pilots to be swapping back and forward between screens in flight (though we do have to do so quite a bit during testing).The way the system works is that PAW receives and decodes all available traffic signals and uses the traffic screen as a sort of 'holding pen' before filtering them and presenting ADSB and P3i within your selected altitude filter range, together with the 'strongest' / highest risk only of the bearingless Mode C/S contacts to your Nav system. So a fair proportion of the traffic at the bottom of the table is effectively irrelevant as far as the Nav system and pilot is concerned.

Remember also that on this occasion, Lee has released a Beta Development Version early so you can all benefit from Mode C detection while we continue to test and further refine the software. Your comments will of course be taken into account in this development. Meantime, please try not to get too hung up on the traffic table.

Hope this helps relieve your concerns

Regards

Peter

2276

General Discussion / Re: LAA Rally

« on: August 30, 2016, 07:39:51 am »

I for one am hoping to 'bump into' as many of you as possible - though only in the 'Social' meaning of the phrase.

Regards
Peter

2277

General Discussion / Re: PilotAware Get Together

« on: August 29, 2016, 10:52:29 pm »

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the great feedback. It's really good to hear from people who appreciate the benefits of PilotAware. Personally I think it's amazing. Your reciprocal contact really proves the worth of electronic conspicuity - especially in bad weather conditions where you can't see the other aircraft. It doesn't of course remove the need for good lookout, but means less aircraft that you don't know are there. I also love the sound of stunned silence when you tell ATC that you can see the 'traffic' they are reporting on your cockpit display. You can almost hear them thinking - 'What...in a microlight?' I know it has already made a major difference to my flying safety and certainly gives increased confidence when flying in busy areas.
 
We must have arrived at Sherburn just after you as my log closed at 1.09 local. We were met by Alan's son and his family who live in Yorkshire and were just about to order lunch in the Flying Club when the power went down, so they took us for lunch in Selby instead. Unfortunately by the time we got back, most of those who had arrived in the interim had dispersed or were out putting up tents and we had to push off back north and try to get home before dark, so didn't get much time to talk to people. It took a fair bit of juggling and quite a few deviations to the west and up the west side of the Pennines before we eventually found a way back through just south of Newcastle and finally into clear skies as we approached East Fortune. Flying is such great fun isn't it - especially in an open cockpit flexwing!!

Glad to hear most of you managed further north. As you say VERY well done to all. Unfortunately I couldn't manage to fly yesterday or today as I'm building brownie points for this weekend, or I would have tried to meet up with the group either at Perth or Carlisle. Hopefully we will get another chance to do so soon.

Best Regards once again

Peter

2278

General Discussion / Re: PilotAware Get Together

« on: August 29, 2016, 04:35:20 pm »

Good to meet up with you there Ray,

Just a pity we didn't have more time. I'm intending to fly down to the LAA Rally this weekend at Sywell, so hopefully catch up with more of our 'gang' there.

Regards

Peter

2279

Technical Support / Re: Traffic page auto-refresh

« on: August 29, 2016, 04:31:34 pm »

Hi Graham,

How far off the screen is it going? I very rarely get that long a list. Don't be too bothered about the stuff down at the bottom. Generally most of the stuff you need to worry about is the higher signal strength contacts further up the table. All relevant ADSB/P3i contacts will be presented on screen in any case and the higher strength Mode C/S contacts will generally be further up the table - unless you are getting so much CAT traffic that it's pushing everything else off. If that is the case your better option would be to reduce your traffic notification altitudes (in SD or equivalent) to say +/- 2000ft and reduce your Mode C/S detect range to Medium or even Short Range.

This will help reduce the 'clutter' and leave the stuff you really need to see visible.

Regards

Peter

2280

Technical Support / Re: Internet

« on: August 28, 2016, 10:46:29 pm »

Unfortunately Bluetooth isn't an option.

I've an Apple iPad and an Android phone. Apple won't talk to Android phones over Bluetooth.

Hi Colm,

I use an iPad Mini 3 and Android phone and until today was labouring under the same misunderstanding until after following the other thread currently on here re Bluetooth Connection For SkyDemon Internet Access...

http://forum.pilotaware.com/index.php/topic,606.0.html

... After reading how Ian Melville connected his iPad to the Internet via a Bluetooth link to his iPhone, I tried it myself this afternoon with my iPad Mini and Android Galaxy S5 and as reported in the other thread can confirm that it works great - see my posts on that thread, which also cover why the PAW WiFi can't be configured as a client. Unfortunate, but there it is.

Regards

Peter