Messages

376

Technical Support / Re: Radio inteference

« on: May 26, 2016, 11:30:40 pm »

Seems Charge 2/4 is the solution BUT most items are out of stock with no clue as to when next availability is. A cost of nearly ½ that of the PAW also seems that to have an effective PAW then everyone should be adding 50% to their cost installation. Are there alternatives?

Yes the Charge2 is currently out of stock, there will be more available early next week, they sold out earlier this week.  The website is setup to only permit sales for items in stock, it is easier to do this than to delay charging a card until the order ships.

Yes that are not the cheapest solution out there, although I believe they are the cheapest designed to meet the aviation standards.

377

Technical Support / Re: Radio inteference

« on: May 26, 2016, 06:02:10 pm »

My suspicion is the USB power supply 2.1 A which is now hard wired into the aircraft. Does anyone know of a tested for RF non cigar lighter USB source or is a ferrite core a possible solution and if so what would be the optimum location within the cable. I.e. On the 12V power or USB output power.

As others have said the in car chargers can be just terrible, especially when used near or at their rated current value.

A ferrite could potentially help with conducted emissions back down the cable, it won't do anything for radiated emissions of the charger itself.

378

Technical Support / Re: Pi 2 Wifi problems with a Nexus 7

« on: May 21, 2016, 08:56:33 pm »

That's looks like software then. I was referring to aeons ago during the beta, Lee had the power of the WiFi right down but turned it up a bit to fix dropout issues. No idea about the current releases.

I really must get round to getting hold of a current setup. So far I've used a borrowed one to test against my chargers (work great) and do some basic testing.

379

Technical Support / Re: Pi 2 Wifi problems with a Nexus 7

« on: May 21, 2016, 07:20:41 pm »

Have both tablets been associated with multiple access points?

From memory Lee had turned the power down on the WiFi dongle, so is your tablet flitting between the PilotAware AP and another one it has been associated to previously? Depending on OS devices will simply use the one from the list of previously associated APs with the best signal.  Easy test is to leave the tablet sitting near the PilotAware and see if it still happens?

380

General Discussion / Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available(was battery startup issue) - SOLVED!

« on: May 20, 2016, 11:12:43 am »

With my DVB-T antenna placed in my upstairs east facing window here in Guildford, I get ADS-B from as far away as Belgium, and everything in between, including over London.

When I first experimented with ADS-B reception on a DVB-T dongle, I made a coax collinear. Just having it in my bedroom it managed to bring in over 100 aircraft at one time.

The problem is my office/lab is pretty well shielded, even the glazing has a coating that is a pretty good attenuator.  What is handy is the metal roof, so I just use a mag mount and pop an aerial up when I need to, it makes a great ground plane.  Just not had the time to sort anything out as yet.

381

General Discussion / Re: Compass checks after installation

« on: May 19, 2016, 10:35:30 pm »

Having ordered my "Classic" I thought I should give some consideration to where to place the antenna.

Has anyone done any compass checks after installation of the earlier versions to see if there is any deviation while the unit is transmitting? 

Any advice or suggestions as to best (internal) antenna locations on a PA28 would be most welcome.

This came up on another thread too, relating to the dongle GPS units.

There is a small magnet in the base of the ADSB (TV Dongle) antenna, while this isn't that strong in terms of holding it to anything it is easily strong enough to disrupt a compass.

As most aircraft are generally either composite or aluminium then these magnets won't stick anyway, but try them on a bit of steel or waft them near the compass to check.

382

General Discussion / Re: GPS mouse added to the store...

« on: May 19, 2016, 10:30:15 pm »

 

But Dave,

You've taken off the landing grease I was going to order!!!!!!   

Disappointed
Alan

I'd have some prop wash but they don't list the rotary versions, you need two types as the main and tail rotors require a different formula.

383

General Discussion / Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available - SOLVED!

« on: May 19, 2016, 06:01:53 pm »

Hi Jeremy,

If you're on the ground anywhere near an airport the inbounds will trigger the audio alerts.

Interesting power data. Looking forward to getting my C4 wired in so I can get back onto 'plane power'

Regards

Peter

Well Cambridge airport is 1.6nm from me, but I'll need to sort out an external aerial to be able to do decent testing. 
Let me know how your C4 install goes, always happy to have comments and pics of installations on the website 

384

General Discussion / Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available - SOLVED!

« on: May 19, 2016, 12:11:35 pm »

Jeremy, thats a great analysis and pretty much what I expected to see, can I ask
was this recorded with only the following peripherals

1. USB - GPS
2. USB - SDR
3. USB - WiFi

in other words this excludes an HDMI conected monitor, and an RJ45 ETH0 connection ?

Yes, just the base unit, all 3 USB items attached and nothing else.  In effect it was plugged in with the supplied USB lead and switched on.  This was before the GPS locked on (had to put that outside on an extension) or an iPad connected, so the Bridge wasn't transmitting at that point.

I did take some quick readings with an iPad connected showing 3 ADBS targets on SkyDemon (no signal in the office), peaks were over 1.1A.  It will be interesting to see what happens with lots of ADSB targets etc. to process and a voice alert - not sure how to trigger that on the ground though...

385

General Discussion / Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available - SOLVED!

« on: May 19, 2016, 11:49:06 am »

Hi Pete,

great analysis, I think you have hit on something, because the PAW, boots up using little power and slowly increases its power requirement as more resources are utilised and the CPU starts to get busy.
Maybe the Anker is expecting a constant load, and takes time to shift into a higher gear ?

Indeed it does, this is the current  consumption (in Amps) for the first 100 seconds @ 500 reading per second.  Its a bit rough, just threw the data into excel, but you can see it working away.  I ran out of time with a borrowed unit yesterday to dig into what it does when fully up and running connected to an iPad properly, will have another run at it over the next few weeks.

386

General Discussion / Re: 4 mins for wifi access to become available

« on: May 19, 2016, 12:34:12 am »

update: connecting to a monitor shows cycling flashing screen with no boot up, if some of the usb devices are removed then it boots...is this a power problem from a not new battery?

Could be, do you have an iPad (10w/12w) charger you could try?
Or try each USB item in isolation and see if it only fails with one of them.

387

General Discussion / Re: GPS Ublox7 Dongle connection problems

« on: May 18, 2016, 06:26:39 pm »

It seems bizarre to have 2 faulty ones though, I already have one exactly the same for the original unit I'm building which doesn't seem to work ether.
Taking money out of the equation what is the very best USB Dongle which is compatible? Ideally one which remembers where the satellites are?

It can happen.  Whilst these should have a u-Blox chip inside I've not taken one apart to physically check...

Some modules will keep an almanac for a day or two, but it isn't precise just a kind of primer to speed up acquisition.  Modern GPS receivers will acquire from cold/factory in a couple of minutes or less with a good view if the sky.

Don't go out and buy one until Lee can confirm what USB drivers are within the PAW product itself or it may not work.  Personally I'd go for an external unit on a cable, so it can always be positioned for optional view and stuck down.

Come to think about that for a minute, I would urge anyone putting a PilotAware into a cockpit to have some means of holding things down.  In the event of turbulence, or worse, having bits flying around isn't going to make your day get any better.

388

General Discussion / Re: GPS Ublox7 Dongle connection problems

« on: May 18, 2016, 05:56:15 pm »

I had a friend drop by briefly with his new PAW today, tinkering in the office the dongle would not get a signal although other GPS receivers in there could.  Once the unit was outside the office, facing NW, it acquired in about 45 seconds. 

That does look like an iffy dongle.

389

General Discussion / Re: Bridge antenna / power consumption questions

« on: May 18, 2016, 11:03:27 am »

Certainly,

www.charge4.co.uk

(Jeremy Curtis is a forum member)

Regards

Peter R

*waves hello*

390

General Discussion / Re: GPS Ublox7 Dongle connection problems

« on: May 17, 2016, 11:30:04 pm »

Hi Chris,

The dongle which shipped with the unit would definitely have been working when it was dispatched.
There are a lengthy set of automated installation checks which run checking on all of the interfaces.
If the GPS had not managed to get a good lock, then many other tests would have failed in addition
to the GPS failure

I am not an _expert_ on these matters but if the GPS needs to reload its ephemeris data this can take a while, how long has it been running, and I presume it has a good view of the sky

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_first_fix

Thx
Lee

Assuming the u-blox engine in the dongle is the EVA range they should acquire from a cold start in under 60 seconds. I have dev kit with the NEO8 series and performing a cold start on that today, with an antenna in the window of my office that faces NW, it acquired in 45 seconds.

The ident string from the USB enumeration is the same as that for the EVA, so providing here is a half decent signal they should acquire quite quickly.

They are very sensitive to power, and the dongle itself will have a converter to drop the 5v USB to 3.3v, the EVA can peak at 100ma.  Depending on the spec of that regulator if the power at the USB is too low it will not operate effectively at all.