PilotAware
British Forum => General Discussion => Topic started by: DavidC on September 29, 2015, 01:05:12 pm
-
I've read of a few people who are thinking of installing Pilotaware on the ground, say at a club base or even in the tower, for situational awareness.
It would need a Pilotaware box, mains power supply, iPad/Nexus tablet and SkyDemon/other charting app.
The standard build broadcasts position messages all the time but I would think that's unnecessary and even misleading for known static receivers.
So one possibility is that the system only broadcasts position when actually moving. Like some Mode-S transponders which only go active after takeoff (detecting speed from the GPS). Clubhouses would not then be see as potential collision risks as you come in on short final :)
The downside of that is that if you build a unit and want to test that it's transmitting, you have to fly. You can't check it onboard before take-off or in the clubhouse first.
So at the risk of being cheeky, I'd propose a good solution might be to make this configurable between "Always on" and "Only when moving" (default = always on). It still means that people could use one in their cars and cause potential false alarms if they chose to, but less of a risk.
Another simpler option is to set it to a code that is ignored (eg all zeros)
Perhaps not the most urgent feature to implement, but hopefully not in the too distant future.
What do others think?
-
Agree with all of that I think, including the "not the most urgent" part ;)
-
I plan to add this in the aircraft selection type (on a TODO)
so a drop down menu in the web interface list consisting of things such as ...
- Glider
- Powered Aircraft
- Flexwing
...
- Groundstation (RX Only)
- Groundstation (Beacon)
I may send a poll around for a sensible list of entries
-
Parachutist ;)