Messages

76

Technical Support / PAW occasionally loses GPS signal

« on: May 25, 2018, 11:37:53 pm »

I've been using PAW for just over a year now,  firstly with the inbuilt radar display and more recently with EasyVFR basic.

When using it with EVFR I noticed that occasionally the GPS lost signal.   My PAW was using the standard USB GPS and is mounted under the base bar of my flexwing, rear of the transponder.   Most of the time it got a good signal but occasionally it would lose and regain it - I guess because my legs shielded from time to time.

Mentioning this to Peter at Popham he suggested a separate GPS dongle which I bought and connected to PAW, placing it above the dashboard, just under the windscreen.

My next series of flights was a tour into Germany and for the first time I tried using SkyDemon.

All was good and I enjoyed the extra visibility of planes on the navigation display (although I think the antennae or filtering was off because I only saw relatively close targets).

But my problem was that on about 4 or 5 occasions I lost GPS connectivity on PAW.   On each occasion I got a message on SD something like "lost GPS signal, 9 satellites found" (which makes no sense to me),  and the only way to fix the issue seemed to be to reboot my PAW.

I tried leaving the PAW for a minute or so to see if it reconnected, but it never did,  and powering off the power brick my PAW is connected to and turning it on again to force a PAW reboot was the only solution.

No obvious pattern to the loss of GPS signal, it happened once 30 seconds after takeoff,  on other occasions it happened whilst in steady flight after an extended period of time.

As PAW lost the GPS this stopped SD navigation and also the GPS coming through to my Trig TT21.

On one occasion I was able to look at the PAW config on my phone.  It showed green for all bar the GPS which was red.  GPS showed "DGPS fix" mode=3D and Satellites=9

Any ideas?  This was the first time I'd used the external GPS dongle so it could have had an intermittent fault or the plastic of the screen be shielding the GPS,  but for almost all of the 25 hours of flying I did it worked perfectly and the screen and the SD error message still showed that it had a decent number of satellite fixes so I don't think that was it.

77

Technical Support / Re: Videos

« on: March 31, 2018, 09:49:21 pm »

It seems to me that certain topics often get repeated. Sometimes it's a result of laziness and a seeming inability to use the search function, other times it's just the result stemming from a different problem. We regularly see Peter telling people how to update things, or re-install such-and-such and I just wondered if it was worth a few videos being made of how to do these things. I don't know about others but if I am shown how to do something I'll grasp the idea straight away. That's not really the case with reading instructions (but that may have more to do with my X + Y).

If this is considered a worthy idea and, more importantly, something that could easily be done by the lovely people of PAW, do you think it would be worth us listing what videos we think would be worthwhile?

Just kicking off from other threads, I would like to see the two methods of updating PAW shown and how to do a complete re-install. These videos could emphasise things like not renaming files, making sure old ones aren't on the USB, installing on the root directory etc.

What is the opinion of our august company 

Good idea.  The more ways of guiding people through the process the better.  Its sad to read of people who get disheartened by the update or configuration processes, some videos may make this easier

78

General Discussion / Re: Altitude filter

« on: March 06, 2018, 05:59:23 pm »

Hi Geoffrey

If you are into freebee Navigation aids don't forget AirMate

http://www.airmate.aero/?page_id=250

Keith

And
EasyVFR Basic, on Android and iOS

Thx
Lee

I've been looking at Airmate for a while,  have only used it for route planning (and tracked one BA flight I took into Newcastle!).   It looks quite comprehensive.  I see it introduced external ADS-B integration a couple of versions ago so I wondered if it worked with PilotAware - has this been tried and is it in the instructions?

EasyVFR I tried a year ago and couldn't get on with the user interface but it seems to have been improved now and is much easier to use.  Doesn't look like the free version allows you to define routes in the app (unless you import them as GPX), but is worth a second look.

Thanks, Geoffrey

79

General Discussion / Re: Altitude filter

« on: February 24, 2018, 11:44:59 am »

Display filters will be in the next release for Vertical and Horizontal separation
Thx
Lee

Thanks Lee.  I gave up with xcsoar because of the lack of altitude filters and have been using the Radar display for the last year - which works fine.   Be good to try xcsoar again with PAW altitude filter combo.

Cheers

80

Technical Support / Re: Storing distance and altitude defaults in Radar Screen

« on: February 12, 2018, 10:37:56 pm »

However, the Radar "mode", TCS1 or FLM isn't remembered 

I will take a look

Thx
Lee

(update: fixed)

Thanks Lee, looking forward to seeing it in the next release.

Geoffrey

81

Technical Support / Re: Raspberry Pi Monitor

« on: February 12, 2018, 03:11:22 pm »

Damn Cheek Rog! (Only joking!) My weightshift has Full ADS-B Out via Mode S-ES, Direct Flarm In and Out and Pilotaware all combined and displayed on an iPad Mini.  Either Impresses or Confuses the hell out of ATC, when they advise me of traffic and I reply, 'Roger, I have it on my Traffic Display'....

Joking apart, Jon's device could certainly be a useful display for aircraft with limited (or no) panel space, such as Sub 70Kg, Hang or Para Gliders, Paramotors, etc.

Out of interest, where do you mount your iPad Mini Peter?

I have a Quantum,  an Airbox Aware on a mount on my knee with mapboard below.   I found there was limited space for a separate pilot aware display.    I tried with an iPad mini and a 9" Android tablet, and both would obscure one or more dials or the compass.
I ended up with a Moto G Android mobile, mounted on an 'extension' panel to the left of the front strut.  It fits inside the windscreen OK and is fine for Pilot Aware Radar.   

Maybe a single all-in display would be the way forward, probably have to bite the bullet and get Skydemon,  but I do quite like Airbox Aware as it does the job perfectly.

Geoffrey

82

Technical Support / Re: Storing distance and altitude defaults in Radar Screen

« on: February 09, 2018, 11:30:59 am »

Hi,

I am using the radar screen on an android tablet as a backup to SD and I have saved the browser page link, however everytime I open it it defaults to +/- 50,000 ft and long range.

I would love to be able to start the app up without then having to "zoom in" range and height, as I use +/- 2000' and 15/30 km

Any way of saving these settings as a default so the page launches with the previous zoom settings?

Which software version do you have? There was a release this week that should resolve that issue.

Appreciate this is an old topic.   The changes introduced to the June 2017 release were great,  PAW now remembers the vertical and horizontal zoom settings that I last used - brilliant.   

However, the Radar "mode", TCS1 or FLM isn't remembered 

I always use FLM mode as I like the little aircraft symbols and so have to change mode every time I go into the Radar display.

Any chance this could be fixed in a future version (unless of course was fixed in the Jan 2018 release which I've not tried yet)?

Cheers, Geoffrey

83

Technical Support / Re: Raspberry Pi Monitor

« on: February 09, 2018, 11:02:36 am »

Cool, I like the video,  and in particular the simplicity of the way it presents.

Be interested to see how this develops.

Geoffrey

84

Technical Support / Re: Software Update 20180129

« on: February 09, 2018, 09:52:19 am »

Roger

Its on Page 38 of the operating instructions

Software Upgrade by USB Memory Stick.

To make software upgrade easy, from release 20160820, new software will be available to upgrade PilotAware by USB memory stick. To do this download the new upgrade file (pilotaware.pgp) from the pilotaware.lode.co.uk website onto a clean USB memory stick formatted to FAT32 and with no other files on it, as these may get corrupted in certain configurations.

Hi Keith & Lee,

I followed the link in the email I received to announcement of the new download version,  and many thanks for including in the release announcement a link to the download instruction - I'm bound to have forgotten how to follow it since last time!

One minor observation, following the instructions http://www.pilotaware.com/wp-content/uploads/Latest-Operating-Instructions-.pdf on p38, the link to the pilotaware download is incorrect.   The document has  http://www.pilotaware.com/wp-content/uploads/pilotaware.lode.co.uk whereas it should of course be https://pilotaware.lode.co.uk/

Looking forward to trying it out.  I hear mention that the audio alerts are quicker which would be a good thing.

Cheers, Geoffrey

85

Technical Support / Re: Links to the latest software

« on: July 16, 2017, 09:30:36 pm »

Along with providing the link to pilotaware.lode.co.uk to download the update when new updates are announced, can I also make a request for (1) a brief 1 sentence summary of the automatic update (USB/cable) update method, and/or (2) a link to the two manual pages for USB and network cable update methods.

Its not all that often we need to update the software and so today when I tried the USB update method,  of course I got it wrong, thinking that I needed to plug the USB stick in before booting and it would happen automatically.   When I came back 10 minutes later I was surprised to find it was still running the old software .
My fault of course,  and a google search and I found the right installation instructions (well actually I found the network cable ones first,  and then I found the USB instructions).  Needed to install the USB stick after booting, go to Update tab,  and click install update.

Once done it worked perfectly and I'm starting to play with the new features.  The voice filter looks especially useful and am going to try it at 3/5km range.

As I said at the beginning,  not having to update all that frequently means the old grey cells can't remember the sequence of tasks.   Of course Lee you could always push out monthly updates and I'd be sure to get the hang of it then .....   

Geoffrey

86

General Discussion / Re: Enhancement Requests

« on: May 15, 2017, 01:26:50 pm »

Hi Geoffrey

This may not be an issue with the version of Android, but with the web browser being used.

Are you using the same web browser in both cases ?
and are both browsers the same version ?

We did notice an issue in chrome when enabling 'graphics hardware acceleration'

Thx
Lee

Hi Lee,

In both cases I was using a full-screen browser (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.isolator.fullscreenbrowser2&hl=en_GB - see my other post on this topic).  It doesn't say,  but I would assume that its using the underlying System WebView that is being used by this browser - this was definitely up to date and fully patched.

I couldn't see how to turn on or off hardware graphics acceleration on the phone.

Cheers

87

General Discussion / Full screen PAW Radar display on Android

« on: May 15, 2017, 11:36:40 am »

When using PAW Radar view with the stock Chrome browser on my Motorola Moto G/E phone's I couldn't find a way of hiding the address bar - so in landscape mode approx 1/5th of the screen is unusable.

Full screen mode is a configurable option on Android but relies upon the application to "request" it, but Chrome doesn't do this and from Google searches it seems not be able to turn it on.

I have found a free very useful "Full screen browser" that solves this issue perfectly,   https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.isolator.fullscreenbrowser2&hl=en_GB

Geoffrey

88

General Discussion / Re: Enhancement Requests

« on: May 15, 2017, 11:01:03 am »

Having been using the Radar feature all the time today I have two suggestions to improve it;
1.  Different colour screen.   When flying towards the sun it was quite hard to see white on black text.  So in addition to the current screen styles is it possible to have black on white?
2.  An auto save for the filter settings on the Radar screen.   Each time I go into the Radar I have to change the height and range filters from the default 50km, 50,000' settings.   Would be good if the settings I chose 'autosaved' so they were preserved next time I went into the Radar

I've noticed an intermittent problem with PAW Radar.

With Radar running on my Motorola Moto G phone (Android 4.4.4), the Radar screen was rock solid and worked perfectly.  However since I started using a Motorola Moto E phone (Android 5.1), Radar works 95% of the time,  but occasionally and for no obvious reason, the screen sometimes inverts, turns white and the black aeroplane and traffic plots all turn yellow. 

Needless to say yellow text on a white background isn't readable !   After maybe 15-30 seconds the screen then reverts back to normal.

This only seems to occur on Android 5.1, not had the issue with 4.4.4.

Geoffrey

89

General Discussion / Re: PAW and no nav software?

« on: May 15, 2017, 10:45:34 am »

I'm not averse to Apple products, my desktops are Macs, but I rather balk at the price of an iPad mini 4 just for PAW. Not saying if I had one that's all I would use it for but so far I have not felt the need to own a tablet. I do see the advantage of the 4x3 format over the what, 9x6? Interesting that PAW works on the iPod Touch, though.

To add my penny-worth to the debate,  I think it firstly depends on how much space you have in your cockpit for a secondary display.

I was planning on using a cheap 9" Android tablet that I managed to "liberate" off my son,  but having tried it,  I found that it just wouldn't fit without obscuring other equipment in my flexwing.
So I've been using a spare smartphone for my PAW display,  firstly a Motorola Moto G and then a Moto E, both of which are just 5" across and can fit on the top of my dash on a bracket I've fixed next to the front strut compass.

I've successfully run XCsoar, Radar3D and PAW's own Radar display on these phones and they've all been usable.   I've more or less settled on PAW Radar as the XCSoar is quite cluttered (there's no ability to filter out jets above me at 30,000') and I sometimes find it hard to read Radar3D,  but you take your choice.

Looking just now on eBay you can buy a Moto G or a cheap Android tablet for circa £40-50,  so certainly there's no need to buy into Apple. 

90

Technical Support / Re: Hex ID / Flight ID

« on: May 14, 2017, 09:32:04 am »

Hi Geoffrey

90 cm is probably swamping the receiver.

What is the hex id for
Pilotaware
Transponder

Thx
Lee

Hi Lee

When I first installed the transponder I thought I would use PAW to check that the transonder was working so I changed the PAW hex id and callsign to something different from the correct values.
Having done this I couldn't "see" the transponder at all from PAW so I just took it flying instead and Luton confirmed it was working OK.

Back on the ground I have now set the hex id the same on PAW and the transponder but I was wondering whether I would still see the transponder in the PAW traffic list?

Unfortunately the PAW is semi-fixed in the aircraft so taking it and its aerials out to move it a distance away from the transponder to verify the transponder operation isn't all that easy.  So hence wondering if it is normal to not see the transponder on PAW if the transmitters are too close together.   Do you think I need to extend the PAW transponder aerial to be further away to stop any risk of interference?

Cheers, Geoffrey