Colour coding in SkyDemon

[Stuart444]

Please can you give me a list of colour markings to look out for when shown in SkyDemon using PilotAware? I gather they are not SkyDemon-generated
So far I've seen...
A red circle which was round my aircraft
A green circle which was round my aircraft
A red dot which was away from my aircraft but on my planned route
Thanks

[exfirepro]

Hi Stuart,

The circles around your aircraft are how SkyDemon shows Bearingless Aircraft - i.e. pure Mode C or Mode S transponder equipped Aircraft for which we have no horizontal position information.

The size and colour of the circle denotes ‘degree of risk’. They do not denote a ‘safe zone’ as the diameter of the circle is based solely on strength of the received signal - dependent on selected Mode CS ‘Range’ in ‘PilotAware / Configure’, NOT distance. The circle will have the relative altitude of the aircraft in the 12 o’clock position plus - unless you have left it deselected (the default) in SkyDemon / Navigation Options - the aircraft Reg for Mode S, or a simple ‘C’ for Mode C (as we get no Hex ID from Mode C so can’t determine the Reg).

I can’t remember what the red dot denotes, but pretty sure it’s SkyDemon, not PAW generated. I don’t suppose you have a screenshot?

Regards

Peter

[Stuart444]

Hi Peter,
Thanks for your reply.
I rang SkyDemon first and described what I'd seen, and they just said that it must be PilotAware doing it. The red dot was on a turning point which I'd deliberately ignored, so maybe it was by SkyDemon. Sorry, it happened in flight and I got no screen shot. I searched the PilotAware but didn't find an explanation, so many thanks for that information.
Stuart

[mariko]

Stuart,
you can replay the entire fly stored in the PAW memory, so you can see again the red dot, if it was generated by Pilotaware.

[Stuart444]

Hi Peter,
I didn't know you can that. Haven't a clue how to do it! I know SkyDemon stores your flight path, but didn't know PAW can as well. I'm not going to my aircraft for a couple of weeks if I need to bring back a memory card from PAW.  I can see my flight on the SkyDemon log on my phone here, but it doesn't have the red dot (or the circles but I guess that's understandable).

[exfirepro]

Hi Stuart,

PAW stores flight logs and lists them in the ‘Tracks’ Screen - see tab at RHS of PAW Main screens via login to 192.168.1.1.

Each track log is stored by date and time ‘in reverse’ e.g. 20190716:10.23. They can be replayed using your normal display app (e.g. SkyDemon) by disconnecting the PAW antennas * (to prevent interference from live data) then connecting your normal tablet to PAW ready to start SkyDemon as normal via ‘Go Flying’. To make things easier connect a second device such as a phone to PAW on 192.168.1.1 and navigate to the tracks page. You can then use the phone to control the flight replay via the playback controls on the tracks page, while keeping SD running on your main tablet. This will rerun the flight on your Nav app as if it was live, but unfortunately (with SD at least) won’t show Bearingless target rings.

* See advice below re temporarily reconfiguring PAW to ‘Base Station Rx’ before disconnecting the P3i antenna.

The other option is to download the desired track to a USB stick using the controls on the replay screen, then upload and replay it via a PC on the 3rd party ‘Aircrew’ app - see https://www.aircrew.co.uk/playback which can show bearingless targets.

Let us know how you get on.

Best Regards

Peter

[SGS66]

Peter,

I may be wrong on this but to me Aircrew playback does not  differentiate between mode C and mode S bearingless targets, but Skydemon does show the differences in actual flight ie in real time  it will give a circle AND the accompanying reg from bearingless mode S data. The new PAW software of course will pass to SkyDemon position on mode S if it comes from uplinked MLAT data. I notice Aircrew now has a new version, but the above still applies.

Phil

[Stuart444]

OK, I'll give it a try when I bring the kit back from my aircraft to update the software.

[mariko]

They can be replayed using your normal display app (e.g. SkyDemon) by disconnecting the PAW antennas (to prevent interference from live data)

Disconnetting the trasmitting antenna may be dangerous for the trasmitter, i guess

[exfirepro]

They can be replayed using your normal display app (e.g. SkyDemon) by disconnecting the PAW antennas (to prevent interference from live data)

Disconnetting the trasmitting antenna may be dangerous for the trasmitter, i guess

Hi mariko,

The reason we remove the antennas is to prevent live data corrupting the track replay, as SkyDemon will show all data being passed to it from PAW including any data currently being received ‘live’ during the playback. To be fair this is more likely to be a problem with higher power 1090MHz data, unless you are running PAW Track replay at the airfield surrounded by active PAW units.

You are however of course correct - it’s technically not good practice to disconnect the antenna from an active transmitter, though as the PAW Tx is very low power this is unlikely to be an issue. A better option would of course be to temporarily reset the ‘Aircraft Type’ in PAW Config to ‘Base Station Rx’ (which shuts down the PAW transmitter) and then remove the antennas.

Regards

Peter

[exfirepro]

Peter,

I may be wrong on this but to me Aircrew playback does not  differentiate between mode C and mode S bearingless targets, but Skydemon does show the differences in actual flight ie in real time  it will give a circle AND the accompanying reg from bearingless mode S data. The new PAW software of course will pass to SkyDemon position on mode S if it comes from uplinked MLAT data. I notice Aircrew now has a new version, but the above still applies.

Phil

Hi Phil,

Pretty sure you are right, but still better for Bearingless targets than the original PAW Track Replay which IIRC doesn’t (at least on SD) show Bearingless targets at all.

Regards

Peter

[Paul_Sengupta]

If you remove the GPS, the PAW shouldn't transmit as it has nothing to transmit.