[Paul_Sengupta]

What would it cost

£600
https://www.uavionix.com/products/skyecho/

And even that is, I suppose, subsidised by selling lots of them in the US at $1300 each because ADS-B has been made mandatory there and this is one of the cheaper devices.

[Nick]

Exactly.

Hardly a big deal.

Not having it is a bit like driving along the road without your lights on at night. And I am sure everyone on this forum would be quick to critisise me if I were to advocate that.

Nick

[Nick]

Marketed as safety equipment it should be VAT exempt.

HaHaHa

Well effectively that's what you get off your 8.33 radios, so how about it CAA ?

Nick

[peter272]

I note the following.

1. Our community hear/read about an aviation incident sometimes from journalists.
2. They go searching for other reports from journalists, because they want to know who, what, where, when, how.
3. They then turn to forums like this to complain that journalists shouldn't have been sharing that information.
4. Our community mistrusts the media, and refuses to engage with it.
5. Our community then complains that the news reports are padded out with inconsequential information, and comments from people who don't know what they're talking about.

I can see that there's an anti-press attitude in our aviation community, which I don't yet fully understand. Often our aviation industry refuses to talk to the media, help them understand etc.

There was a fatal accident some time ago at an airfield I used to fly from. On that afternoon numerous phone calls, many from journos, were received all claiming to be relatives of the deceased.

Not all journalists are as ethical as you and it certainly left a nasty taste.

[avtur3]

As a result of this I'm leaving my transponder firmly OFF.

Why?

Because otherwise there is an army of nerds watching my every move on FlightRadar24 or some other programme, linking any incident to G-INFO, finding out my name and address, next thing I know pictures of my aircraft and my identity are being bandied about the internet and in the press, possibly even before my next of kin have been informed of any tragedy.

It's all massive abuse of my private and personal data and I will do all I can to prevent it, I say again, by leaving my transponder OFF.

How perverse, you will intentionally switch off your transponder, a tool designed to help you stay clear of the very situation you claim to be concerned about; and what about other people who could become involved as a result of your decision.

I wonder if your next of kin would prefer you to be more proactive in taking steps to avoid that outcome or do they share your concerns about the privacy of your personal data in the event of such a tragic occurrence.

I understand anyone having concerns about their personal data, but are you sure you've got your priorities right on this one?

[PeteSpencer]

[quote="peter272"
There was a fatal accident some time ago at an airfield I used to fly from. On that afternoon numerous phone calls, many from journos, were received all claiming peterto be relatives of the deceased.

Not all journalists are as ethical as you and it certainly left a nasty taste.

On the other hand nearly three years ago a close friend and hangar neighbour died in an accident while performing a routine to help publicise a local airfield's forthcoming Airshow Programme.

The airfield was heaving with journalists and cameramen and I was shocked to see the entire crash video with impact and fireball appear on the local newspaper's website within the hour.

To their credit, when I telephoned them immediately I spotted it to protest at their insensitivity , they immediately apologised and removed the crash part entirely, just showing the video sequence of the routine beforehand.

Peter

[T67M]

What would it cost to develop a stand alone self contained, UAT type of device running on its own battery, transmitting ADS-B out and a single preset squawk code. I would think it could be made small enough to slip into a pocket.

£600
https://www.uavionix.com/products/skyecho/

I believe the SkyEcho is a low-power ADS-B transceiver intended for short-range air-to-air use only, not a transponder intended for air-to-ground over large distances, and thus does not meet the requirement for entry into a TMZ.

[flybymike]

SkyEcho has a respectable 20w transmit power and dependent on output power of other transmitters they claim a detection range of up to 150nm for Traffic.

The glaring problem is having to disable its adsb out function if using your Mode s transponder, and of course you can’t legally switch your transponder off anyway. If everyone did this, then no one could see anyone apart from those with SkyEcho and no transponder to switch off!

[Dave W]

The glaring problem is having to disable its adsb out function if using your Mode s transponder...

Currently.

There is some work going on (reported in these forums) to confirm whether that is technically necessary, and it could change.

[flybymike]

In that event I think that sales would rocket.

[Josh]

Chatting to a journalist friend of mine about this, one thing stood out for me and that is the changing career path into journalism. Specialist journalists used to have some form of professional experience or degree covering their area and a journalism course on top if any.

Now they are more likely to be graduates of a specialist journalism course and so know how to find, source and write stories and how to investigate things through various archives and official records. However, they are generalists without the sector specific knowledge accurately to interpret all the information they receive.

At the AAIB conference a few years ago, the current BBC transport correspondent gave a really interesting talk on this subject. He said when accidents did occur he would tend to get involved in the story after the initial report had been published by a non-specialist and spend a fair bit of time correcting and expanding on their work. He said they were always happy to correct errors where pointed out but conceded that’s the pressure to break news caused a lot of them in the first place.

[Full Metal Jackass]

SkyEcho has a respectable 20w transmit power and dependent on output power of other transmitters they claim a detection range of up to 150nm for Traffic.

Is this claim of 'up to 150NM' referencing the distance from a signal transmitted by traffic that a SkyEcho can receive or the distance from how far away, under optimal conditions, a SkyEcho output signal can be received?

[flybymike]

The former I believe. What they actually say is;

The SkyEcho is both an ADS-B IN (receive) and ADS-B OUT device. Range is a function of transmit power. Depending on the output power of other aircraft, you will be able to SEE other aircraft over 270km (~150 NM) away. SkyEcho has a transmit power of 20W on 1090MHz (1090ES).

But then we’re only really interested in stuff 1.5 miles away......

[flyguy]

"Few experts are willing to take part"....why? The oft-quoted reason is that anything they say is often the victim of distortion, mis-quoting, quoting out of context.

I may have some vague idea around flight safety, but I'm no expert. However, on the day of the unfortunate incident, I received a number of radio, TV and newspaper requests for 'expert comment and insight'.

I'd love to help in some small way to educate the public as a whole about aviation in general and GA in particular. However, that's not what any of the journos actually wanted. Especially in live interviews one is inevitably pushed to talk about (speculate) what 'might' have happened. And one usually knows feck all about what actually happened.

The downside for speaking as an 'expert' on these occasions is huge. The upside is pretty much zero. Who on this Forum would willingly place themselves in this position?

[kanga]

A further issue is that many journalists (and photographers, these days often the same as cameras of adequate quality have become cheaper and lighter) are not employed but freelance. They will be paid only if their submission is used. This in my experience seems to be the norm of almost all in local papers, many in local independent TV and radio, and quite a few used regularly or occasionally by national papers and national independent broadcasting. Their only chance of getting a highly valued paid staff job is to generate a big portfolio of submissions used. This creates a great incentive to sensationalise both content and draft headline (latter may be changed by subeditor, but the requirement is to catch the subeditor's eye in the first place), to include 'exclusive' and sometimes gory details by being the first to get quotes (or make them up, or grossly to distort what was actually said), preferably blaming some identifiable entity, ideally someone in authority or the public eye.

In my experience, the 'newsroom'-trained people at BBC, TV and radio and website, national and local, are largely free of these traits, and their subject matter experts are just that, trying to get things both accurate and fair. This is often not true of the anchors of the flagship programmes, not of the correspondents which the producers and editors of those programmes appoint or use, bypassing the newsroom. It did improve after Hutton, but I sense that standards may be declining again.