Flarm & PilotAware Reception Today - EGBKE

[Kevin W]

Hi

So, from starting out thinking my OGN-R was deaf, today was pretty good.  My first full day with the PilotAware aerial in a short conduit pole above the ridge line and the 9dbi Flarm aerial just 90% above the roof line and I am pretty pleased with the results.

Quoting absolute maximums is never the best, but getting FLARM reception at 70+ miles and PilotAware reception at 40 miles feels pretty good going.

PilotAware I can raise a little more, and getting more metal in the sky (without of course raising the Transmit gain to much) will help there.


Flarm, well, getting a peak of 24 aircraft received, and a SNR of +18 to +19 dB @ 10km doesn't need much work:

APRS <- EGBKE>APRS:>115138h v0.2.6.RPI-GPU CPU:2.3 RAM:290.0/970.5MB NTP:1.5ms/+0.0ppm +60.5C 24/24Acfts[1h] RF:+0+0.7ppm/-0.11dB/+18.0dB@10km[11422]/+19.0dB@10km[14/27]

Getting similar data to the above from PilotAware would be great.

Cheers
Kev

[exfirepro]

Hi Kev,

That’s pretty respectable coverage. Remember we are restricted to using a standard gain antenna for the PAW side so as not to exceed the maximum allowable power (500mWatts ERP) for the band, so this restricts range to a degree on the PAW side, whereas in theory we can use as high a gain antenna as we like for the OGN receive side.

Although we can generally ‘see’ Flarm Traffic at 70 or 80 miles or in some cases more, in practical terms the important thing is to get reliable rebroadcast coverage over a range of somewhere around 30miles or so.

The range maps will of course ‘fill in’ and probably expand over time. Good to see positive results.

Regards

Peter

[Ian Melville]

Some people fly very straight lines, mine are like a drunk on the way home 

[Kevin W]

So, just for the record really, my updated screen shots after 20 days or so stable operation.

[Keithvinning]

Great coverage Kev links up nicely with Fenlands

[exfirepro]

Looking Good Now Kev, 

Regards

Peter

[Deker]

Looking at the Grafana charts,  CPU load and temp are self explanatory, but what are the RF noise and RF sensitivity traces showing?

ATB
Deker

[Kevin W]

Hi Deker

Others (or the OGN forum) may be able to add more, but my understanding is...

Noise is the background noise level recieved by the OGN antenna, ie I live quite close to a town so see quite a bit of noise (although I couldnt really understand the timing of the peaks and troughs).

Sensitivity is how well  (how 'loudly') I recieve actual aircraft transmissions, so is measure of how good my antenna and antenna positioning is.

Cheers
Kev