Enhancement Requests

[Admin]

How about this ....

[brinzlee]

Thats great Lee.......At least it gives us some idea of whats going on for accuracy...

[brinzlee]

Just another thought.....If there was a known error from the sensor to a referenced QNH.....then maybe a way of entering in an offset.....I'm not sure how accurate the little beasts are !!

[Admin]

Just another thought.....If there was a known error from the sensor to a referenced QNH.....then maybe a way of entering in an offset.....I'm not sure how accurate the little beasts are !!

they are VERY accurate, as you can see from the report in my posting.
the reported QNH (I calculate by comparing GPS Alt versus Pressure Alt) is 1038, XC weather is reporting 1037

[dougblair]

Hi Lee,
apologies if this is elsewhere !   I have just put a Open Glider Network Receiver together as I live high ish up on the eastern edge of Snowdonia.
Can or in the future could the two systems see each other ? Not sure how Flarm with encoding might fit into this. Your system would greatly enhance OGN by being able to see gliders in cockpit.
Doug

[Admin]

Hi Lee,
apologies if this is elsewhere !   I have just put a Open Glider Network Receiver together as I live high ish up on the eastern edge of Snowdonia.
Can or in the future could the two systems see each other ? Not sure how Flarm with encoding might fit into this. Your system would greatly enhance OGN by being able to see gliders in cockpit.
Doug

Hi Doug,
I am in contact with the OGN developers, but there is nothing to report more than we are in communication.
I agree it would be great to have the systems able to see each other
Thx

[flyingalan]

Hi, just got my system fired up and working, very happy thanks.
As a future software enhancement would it be possible to receive non ads-b transponders and display a coloured ring around my aircraft whose diameter is proportional to received signal strength.
Whilst this does not given any actual position information it does alert pilot that another aircraft is somewhere close, the smaller the ring the closer it is !!!
This is implemented on "PowerFlarm" interface to SkyDemon and I find it very useful, it really make me look out with great attention when I get a ring around my current position. Not as good as ADS-B position I agree but better than no alert at all.
Great work from you, thanks,
regards
Alan
p.s. you might want to put in construction document the SkyDemon Flarm code 6000, it took me a while to find why my box wouldn't connect. Also in SkyDemon, there is an altitude window for traffic alerts in "set up" - "navigation options" that took me a while to find. Might be worth mentioning in build document. 

[Admin]

Hi Alan,

Hi, just got my system fired up and working, very happy thanks.
As a future software enhancement would it be possible to receive non ads-b transponders and display a coloured ring around my aircraft whose diameter is proportional to received signal strength.
Whilst this does not given any actual position information it does alert pilot that another aircraft is somewhere close, the smaller the ring the closer it is !!!
This is implemented on "PowerFlarm" interface to SkyDemon and I find it very useful, it really make me look out with great attention when I get a ring around my current position. Not as good as ADS-B position I agree but better than no alert at all.

The problem here is equating strength to distance 
There was a post by Andy Fell an RF engineer who comments about the massive innacuracy in this approach,
but I could certainly try this, not sure of the value right now.

Great work from you, thanks,
regards
Alan
p.s. you might want to put in construction document the SkyDemon Flarm code 6000, it took me a while to find why my box wouldn't connect. Also in SkyDemon, there is an altitude window for traffic alerts in "set up" - "navigation options" that took me a while to find. Might be worth mentioning in build document. 

this information has been pushed down a list, but was documented here ....
http://forum.pilotaware.com/index.php/topic,13.msg16.html#msg16

[flyingalan]

Hi Lee, thanks for reply, yes it is correct that it is almost impossible to get any accurate real distance measurement from the received strength, however the issue is that it alerts you that someone is close with a transponder going in the absence of ADS-B information, and at present there are many more non ADS-B transponders than active ones on GA aircraft.
It makes you look out twice as hard when you see that (in my case) green ring !
It doesn't need to respond to small signals that are far away, as far as I can see (I'm guessing) it seems a trigger level is set that makes the ring appear and it then gets smaller around my aircraft symbol the stronger the signal. It really gets your attention when you see a ring getting smaller around you, i.e. closer !
Probably requires some experimentation to get the scaling sensible but I have found it a helpful display. Happy to be of any help I can if you decide to pursue this idea.
regards
Alan

[onkelmuetze]

As the strength of the received signal may vary with placement/quality/... of you're antennas, etc, it might be a good idea to implement a user setting "gain" of the Mode-C signals. So everybody could adjust the range for Mode-C-listening, or set it to "0" to fully discard Mode-C-signals.

[N6010Y]

I raised this in an earlier post - I would definitely support a Mode C function.

[rg]

would this use an existing antenna or mean a 3rd?

[scsirob]

This one is in the 'dream out loud' category..

If you add support for a temperature/humidity sensor (such as the HTU21D https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/6/a/8/e/f/525778d4757b7f50398b4567.pdf ) then you have all information available to calculate density altitude. This will allow you to calculate relative engine performance.

Applications such as EasyVFR and SkyDemon already have plane performance information built in. They also know where you are and the airfield/runway you are taxiing to. If you taxi to a short runway, how cool would it be to get a big warning that the performance isn't enough to perform a safe take-off from that runway??

This would probably take some programming in PAW (support for sensor, and a new P3I message), and then support from EasyVFR and the likes.

[Admin]

I have a very cunning plan for mode C, specifically to mitigate the receiver sensitivity vs distance innacuracies
I shall attempt some experiments next week

Thx
Lee

[scsirob]

I have a very cunning plan for mode C, specifically to mitigate the receiver sensitivity vs distance innacuracies
I shall attempt some experiments next week

Thx
Lee

Let me guess.. If you have multiple PAW users in an area and they could share eachother's data, you could use some kind of triangulation??