Potential new station

[John Parker]

Hi all

Now I'm back on the committee at Fenland I'm looking to persuade the purchase of a paw/ogn unit to mount on the tower. Would Fenland position benefit the network being close to Crowland? Is it reliable when setup (being an early paw user I'm not phased by any initial niggles now ) . How is everyone else getting on with it. Can the tower have access to a screen display from the unit via tablet or pc? we have about a 3.5mb pipe 24/7 is this enough?

Thanks

John

[Admin]

Hi John

I will point Keith at your posting, but just to say :-

Is it reliable when setup (being an early paw user I'm not phased by any initial niggles now )

There is a self guided installation, which is very easy to setup, in addition to an expert installation for an existing OGN
Seems in your case as a new installation - it would be the former.

How is everyone else getting on with it

Take a look here for the current coverage
http://ognrange.onglide.com/#PW%,max,all,52.314106_-0.836421,8,#00990000:#009900ff,circles;

Can the tower have access to a screen display from the unit via tablet or pc?

Not currently, but we have some good ideas about this.

we have about a 3.5mb pipe 24/7 is this enough?

The data requirements are very small - this is way more than is needed, so no problem

Thx
Lee

[Keithvinning]

Hi John

Brilliant I have sent you a PM

The network is growing fantastically now. We will have 50 up by the end of the year. The more the better. Please keep the offers coming in 200 target for next year then we really will have brilliant coverage for all us PAW-ites.

[bnmont]

Hi John,
Please see these for an indication of what my station (PWEverton) has achieved. Standard antenna supplied by Keith and standard P3i (pilotaware) antenna.
I recon the coverage is pretty good. My antenna is about 8m above ground level so nothing special.

[bnmont]

UP-OGN on Skydemon from my ground station PWEverton

[John Parker]

I now have the go ahead for one at Fenland 

[Keithvinning]

John
A great result
In the immortal words of John Finnimore of Cabin Pressure Fame "BRILLIANT"
Expect lots of support from PilotAware.

For info in the last week we have had interest and agreement from
Tatenhill
Fenland
Saxondale
Darlton Gliding Club
Kirton Gliding Club.
East Fortune
Bexhill

The plan is still to get 50 installed by the end of the year and 100 by next season

We are on a Roll and making history

Anyone else who wants to be BRILLIANT?

ogn@pilotaware.com

or post here

Great News Fenland

You will also benefit from our PilotAware Tower virtual RADAR or is that another secret I have let out? DOH!

[Moffrestorer]

Please see these for an indication of what my station (PWEverton) has achieved. Standard antenna supplied by Keith and standard P3i (pilotaware) antenna.
I recon the coverage is pretty good. My antenna is about 8m above ground level so nothing special.

How did you obtain the second screenshot of "OGN Reception", please? Using the Onglide Range site, I only seem to be able to obtain the PAW coverage for my station PW Kingstone.

Thx,

Chris

[exfirepro]

Hi Chris,

Kingstone is showing on ognrange.onglide.com. The 'Pin/Balloon' on the map switches between the PW and OGN version of the station (presumably related to which last updated the OGN servers), so it's often easier to select the station you want to see by typing its name in the header box then select 'Goto', though annoyingly you still then need to physically move the map to the right part of the country.

How long has Kingstone been up and running? I guess about a month as extending the 'When' tab beyond 30 days doesn't show any significant additional coverage.

Looking at the other stations in the area, it looks like you are on the edge of several high gliding activity areas but possibly fairly low down. Is this correct? If so, you just need to wait 'til your coverage map builds up. Mine (Balerno / PWBalerno) took quite a while as I am quite far away from the main gliding activity, with Edinburgh TMA in between and with my antennas still inside my loft. If, however, you are in a high gliding area which has been active recently, you might need to reassess your installation if the coverage doesn't build up.

For comparison, look at OldGore near Ross on Wye, which though in a similar situation to yours near gliding areas shows no activity whatsoever over the last 60 days, though extending out to 'Since 31/03/2015' brings 'limited range' contacts into view. The Pin is green and the station still active, so I did a little digging...

Another site you might find useful for monitoring your station performance is 'Grafana', though be aware it only updates every 24 hours, sometime after 1am and the data it provides is 'limited' to technical data re the station itself.

http://grafana.glidernet.org/dashboard/db/receivers?orgId=1&from=now-60d&to=now&var-receiver=Kingstone

Your traces on Grafana look pretty 'normal', whereas changing 'Receiver' at top left to 'OldGore' (start to type in the name and it will come to the top of the dropdown) and extending the time range (top right) out to 1 year shows a sudden drop in RF Input noise at OldGore back in February, which seems consistent with no data since then and most probably indicates a problem. Just using this as an example, though. Don't get too hung up on minor variations on the Grafana site.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Peter

[Moffrestorer]

Hi Peter,

Yes I've been up/running getting on for a month and coverage is "filling in" nicely. I'm between 2 restricted areas to the north and south so as Keith points out these areas will be a "desert" regarding contacts unless Hereford's Finest start using PAW or Flarm, but I think they prefer to remain undetected!

My question is really how to interpret the coverage data? I assumed that only PAW contact's tracks were filling in the pixels, but then thought it must be a combination of PAW/Flarm/OGN tracker, by observing aircraft "live" using glidertracker.org, which is really good. Then when Bnmont (Brian?) posted the two screengrabs above it seemed likely that you could separate out the contacts to observe the coverage appropriate to the two antenna receiving systems. I thought it must be in the name, check coverage based on "Kingstone" for Flarm/OGN, and "PWKingstone" for PAW, but when I tried that, just now, I didn't appear to get any coverage by typing in "Kingstone". Maybe I needed to wait longer for something to appear on screen! Maybe Brian can confirm his method please?

Also, the green pixels seem to vary in density, in this lower traffic area (compared to the midlands). Do we know whether any of this is related to altitude of the contact or is it purely where tracks have crossed, they become a denser green?

I really like the glidertracker.org presentation (I'm getting quite nerdy) and often see our shareoplane when a colleague is flying, courtesy of PAW but owing to terrain shielding I can't quite get coverage of the Shobdon (EGBS) overhead. This is confirmed using the very useful coverage prediction tool posted in another thread. Does anyone understand the symbology used when you click on a contact in glidertracker to get the info box? There is a flarm logo if its a flarm contact, a PAW prefix to the hex code if PAW, but what is the little blue speed hump symbol - does this indicate OGN tracker??

It's been discussed and I feel Shobdon will go ahead and install an OGN-R station also. I've sent one of the club members details etc and hope they will contact Keith soon in this regard.

Thx,

Chris

[exfirepro]

Hi Chris,

You say...

Yes I've been up/running getting on for a month and coverage is "filling in" nicely. I'm between 2 restricted areas to the north and south so as Keith points out these areas will be a "desert" regarding contacts unless Hereford's Finest start using PAW or Flarm, but I think they prefer to remain undetected!

My question is really how to interpret the coverage data? I assumed that only PAW contact's tracks were filling in the pixels, but then thought it must be a combination of PAW/Flarm/OGN tracker, by observing aircraft "live" using glidertracker.org, which is really good. Then when Bnmont (Brian?) posted the two screengrabs above it seemed likely that you could separate out the contacts to observe the coverage appropriate to the two antenna receiving systems. I thought it must be in the name, check coverage based on "Kingstone" for Flarm/OGN, and "PWKingstone" for PAW, but when I tried that, just now, I didn't appear to get any coverage by typing in "Kingstone".

Correct so far. Ognrange reports the two stations separately. The name field has a maximum of 9 letters so Kingstone (for OGN) and PWKingsto (for PAW).

Maybe I needed to wait longer for something to appear on screen! Maybe Brian can confirm his method please?

Also, the green pixels seem to vary in density, in this lower traffic area (compared to the midlands). Do we know whether any of this is related to altitude of the contact or is it purely where tracks have crossed, they become a denser green?

All working fine right now on my laptop, but I sometimes need to wait a while on my iPad for some reason. Brian will be using the same method, except that he has changed the display colours (in the ognrange 'Options' tab) to make the screenshot clearer. The density of the pixels indicates a combination of signal strength and density of traffic, so generally gets darker as traffic 'history' builds up.

I really like the glidertracker.org presentation (I'm getting quite nerdy) and often see our shareoplane when a colleague is flying, courtesy of PAW but owing to terrain shielding I can't quite get coverage of the Shobdon (EGBS) overhead. This is confirmed using the very useful coverage prediction tool posted in another thread. Does anyone understand the symbology used when you click on a contact in glidertracker to get the info box? There is a flarm logo if its a flarm contact, a PAW prefix to the hex code if PAW, but what is the little blue speed hump symbol - does this indicate OGN tracker??

I also prefer glidertracker for live tracking as it shows both OGN and PAW contacts and uses different symbols for different aircraft types (though not always accurately). I also like the fact that it can be zoomed in to a much larger scale than 'spot the gliders'. Sorry I can't remember off the top of my head what the blue symbol is, though I've just seen two 'Grob' trainers showing it locally. I'm sure I have seen a symbol sheet somewhere, but can't seem to lay my hands on it and am being hassled to go to grandson's birthday party. I will have another look later.

It's been discussed and I feel Shobdon will go ahead and install an OGN-R station also. I've sent one of the club members details etc and hope they will contact Keith soon in this regard.

Thx,

Chris

Great News. Keep up the good work.

Regards

Peter