PilotAware
British Forum => OGN-R PilotAware => Topic started by: jp62 on June 25, 2018, 10:20:31 pm
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Further to my email exchange with Lee...
The display of groundstations as threats is distracting and counterproductive for a conspicuity aid. Although, on closer inspection, you can see that they are ground stations, they appear as aircraft on Skydemon.
Lee was concerned that some users might want ground stations displayed. Are there any such votes? For me, I only want threats displayed. Any other displayed symbols that are nugatory or distracting is a significant negative.
Can we please give Lee feedback? Who wants ground stations displayed?
I vote no!
Justin
PS what even are these ground stations, Lee? This is not the same as the OGN-R stations I assume!
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The majority will be OGN-R stations but there are several others where clubs use them as location beacons for remote sites.
Keith
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Unless we get some votes to retain, them, please remove them from the display then. If we get votes to retain, please make them configurable display/remove!
They are a significant distraction and a negative influence on SA if the airspace is busy with traffic.
IMHO!
JP
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If it is possible to not show the ground stations then I would prefer not to see them; instead seeing only 'threats' and reducing clutter on a fairly packed iPad Mini screen.
However, is it possible to remove them? I believe they are, for the most part, basically PAW units and, as such, are seen by the receiving PAW as another PAW. How can you filter out ground station PAWs? Of course, they might have a special 'ground' signal, in which case I would have thought it would be quite easy for the boffins around these parts ;)
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Quite easy to filter. They are all called G/S, so filter that :)
If you set you traffic filters to figure lower than you cruise, you won't see them for most of the flight anyway. I find lots of PAW users have the filters too open, as if they like being bombarded by traffic alerts ;)
They are an indicator that you are in range, and will receive glider alerts. I don't have an issue with them, even on an iPad mini. Perhaps there are other ways this can be indicated, but I cannot think of any without the support of all the nav software providers.
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Perhaps there are other ways this can be indicated, but I cannot think of any without the support of all the nav software providers.
Yes, I thought that might be the case of it not being a simple fix, hence my "if it is possible" comment.
Because I am, unfortunately, still just a PAW lurker I haven't looked at the filters available. Is there a G/S filter or is that something that would need to be added? If it's already there, then case closed but if it's not then it would be an elegant solution.
Mind you, priority for this is obviously lower than Bluetooth audio ;D ;D ;D ;D
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I like seeing the ground stations!
But I do support an option for switching the display of them off.
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The ground stations will 'mostly' be of the OGN-R variety
in FLARM speak these are defined as a STATIC OBJECT
At the moment we have astrange situation whereby filters are applied in 2 places, this is not a great idea to be honest.
If we consider a hose pipe with PilotAware supplying data at the source, and the navigation device (sprinkler) is at the destination, should PilotAware choses what it sends to the navigation device, or should the navigation device choose what it does with the data ?
We have been undergoing a 'feature creep' exercise, whereby more of the filtering is being done at the PilotAware data supply, rather than at the other end of the receiver
A good example of this is the Horizontal/Vertical separation filter
This filter now exists in PilotAware (to serve SkyMap and some other systems without these filters), but EasyVFR and SkyDemon have similar filters for restricting display of targets within X ft horizontal
This is undesirable, because it becomes unclear as to where throughout the pipeline of data, the filters are applied.
So in the case of ground-stations, or static objects of any kind (we have had proposals for Glider Winch etc)
should we restrict the data supplied at the source (PilotAware), or filter the data at the destination (Nav device).
I am reluctant to add more switches wherever possible, one of the criticisms I hear from many non-tech users, is how confusing it is to configure appropriately.
Thx
Lee
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I don’t mind seeing them ( quite like them actually ) but would prefer not to receive an audible threat alert from them, so if this could be filtered from the audio it would be a great help. Visually, they show up as a sort of Tower symbol in EasyVFR, that I use. If Sky Demon depicts them as an aircraft symbol I think I should find that disconcerting!
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Ditto from me on visual but not audible.
It is extremely useful to ‘see’ the Ground Stations as it lets you know they are there and gives reassurance that you will receive any data they are transmitting, but audio alerts from them should be a definite NO and this probably needs to be filtered at our end.
I also feel that the symbol should display as an ‘Antenna’ not an ‘Aircraft’. If EasyVFR is set up to display Ground Stations as ‘Antenna Masts’ this is obviously a Nav System issue and should therefore (presumably) be referred to the Nav Display provider - in this case SkyDemon.
Regards
Peter
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I am reluctant to add more switches wherever possible, one of the criticisms I hear from many non-tech users, is how confusing it is to configure appropriately.
How about moving most of the additional configuration items to another web page under an "Advanced" button or link on the setup page?
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but would prefer not to receive an audible threat alert from them so if this could be filtered from the audio it would be a great help.
this is a good idea, had not considered that TBH
Visually, they show up as a sort of Tower symbol in EasyVFR, that I use.
I did not know that, that is clearly much better, I will take a look
If Sky Demon depicts them as an aircraft symbol I think I should find that disconcerting!
OK, so EasyVFR is using a useful symbol, SkyDemon is using a non-useful symbol.
In which case I probably WOULD like to see this in EasyVFR - but not in SkyDemon.
At the sending end (PilotAware) I cannot determine who is listeneing, EasyVFR or SkyDemon or AN.other
Thx
Lee
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As alluded to by Keith earlier in the discussion, ground stations co-located at hard to spot airstrips can be very useful as a visual aid for locating them without using your Nav program GOTO function. ISTR they may show up on the PAW Radar display so if you don’t have/use a Nav program its extra situational info.
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Visually, they show up as a sort of Tower symbol in EasyVFR, that I use
Can you post a screenshot of this for everyones benefit ?
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Hi Lee, unfortunately I don’t have a screenshot of this but from memory it’s like an upside down “Y”.
I’ve noticed the station at Shobdon shows as having a red ring encircling it, annotated G/S in red also, when on the ground. Height dependent, so once you climb above your filter range the inverted “Y” symbol becomes green and the alert ring disappears.
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Looks like I need to renew my EasyVFR Licence.
Regards
Peter
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Also, when on the ground close to the ground station I probably don’t get an audible alert from it via EasyVFR because that program filters out ground/ground contacts less than 0.1 km distant to reduce audio clutter.
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Hi Chris/Lee,
That (restricting audio alerts from targets within 100metres or so) is also a very useful feature, which we should look at ourselves Lee!
Regards
Peter
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Personally I would vote to remove the G-STN option. At a busy airfield like Dunkeswell it just clutters the screen with an aircraft symbol on SD and the associated data.
Of course, if it were possible to choose to include/exclude, that would be best.
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Actually, the distance between ground targets for EVFR to inhibit Alerts may be 0.1 Nm
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As the OP here after a discussion with Lee, I totally see the benefit of a groundstation symbol for groundstations, but in Skydemon right now the display of groundstations with an a/c symbol is more that an unsatisfactory feature, it is dangerous and would be considered in the test pilot world (my world) 'unnacceptable.'
Flying today under the edge of the London TMA, with large amounts of traffic around, heads in time needs to be minimised. The appearance of a groundstation on Skydemon can only be determined as a groundstation on looking in detail at the screen to see the "registration" of the groundstation - needless heads in time and distraction from other traffic.
At Lee's request I put the issue to Skydemon and this is their reply:
"Our policy is that we display every piece of traffic reported.
PilotAware seems to report a ground station as a piece of (albeit static) traffic, therefore we display it. The developer has always been of the opinion that PilotAware should not report ground stations as traffic, because they are not traffic.
Lee’s suggestion that SkyDemon ignores traffic marked as “static” is something we would be reluctant to consider, because we believe this marker is/was designed for things like static tethered balloons, which SkyDemon definitely needs to take into account when performing traffic warning calculations."
I don't mind too much where this is fixed - by PAW, by Skydemon, but someone should hopefully fix it? It's a safety concern.
Lee, can I really encourage you to grapple with this and maybe talk to Skydemon to come up with a solution?
Thanks!
JP
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You could suggest to Sky Demon Tim that rather than not display "static" targets, he could change the symbol.
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Hi All
You could suggest to Sky Demon Tim that rather than not display "static" targets, he could change the symbol.
tried that :(
So the annoying thing here - I think we (PilotAware) are probably the only ones using these features in the FLARM dataport spec, so I have no idea who is using tethered baloons for flarm traffic reports, or any other report of a static object.
That being said, I recognise there is a problem, although it seems EasyVFR can handle this perfectly well - listening to users is feedback important, so we will need to put this on a flag so that it can be disabled (for use in SkyDemon)
Thx
Lee
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Lee
Screenshot attached of Ground Station symbol from EasyVFR. Taken this morning and shows PWEGBS, PWHereford, and PWKingstone. PWBroadmeadow ( at U/L symbol on map) was down.
When I got to Abergavenny airstrip Frank Cavaccuti was actually in the process of setting up his own OGN- PAW ground station!
Chris
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I noticed this comment from Lee on the Sky Demon Forum:
We have added an option in PilotAware to Enable/Disable the position of ground stations to connected navigation devices.
This will be in the next release.
More excellent customer service from the PAW Team and the type of listening to their users that many other companies would do well to emulate :)
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It would have been better if SkyDemon had complied with the FLARM standard, which they have as a valid protocol.
I don't have an issue with adding options to PAW, however most GA pilots I know just want to turn it on and for it to do it's job of keeping them safe with minimum hassle.