Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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By exfirepro
#1845316
@johnm

Although PAW’s air-to-air range is pretty good ‘out of the box’ *, I definitely get improved range and reliability (even in my flexwing) since changing the P3i (869.5MHz) side to a bottom mounted external antenna. The same applies (to a lesser extent) to the 1090MHz receive antenna. Although this is much less of an issue for ‘full-fat’ ADS-B or Modes C/S, it can also significantly improve receive range from SE2s

* depending on positioning within the aircraft

The improvements will be even more significant in a typical metal ‘spamcan’, though for those who may still be unable or unwilling to fit external antennas, mounting the unit (PAW or SkyEcho) on the coaming generally provides the maximum benefit, though perhaps less so to the rear.

@Miscellaneous

You are correct, PAW has near zero chance at best of ‘seeing’ a solely FLARM equipped aircraft up your neck of the woods, though the ATOM / GRID position is improving, with a new one now operational at Glenforsa (admittedly a bit far away from you still) and I’m still hopeful of getting back to upgrade Oban from basic OGN over the Summer (if we ever get one :( ). We are in the process of adding a station near Lauder, which will help with glider cover west of Cheviot, and I’m working on another in Fife and of course getting Balado back operational as soon as I can get it on one of their new hangars. I’m open to suggestions for options up your way - ‘Broadford’, ‘Plockton’, ‘Glendoe’?

@gaznav

Yes Gaz, it’s a pity uAvionix dropped the idea of PAW Rx. That would have considerably improved compatibility amd might go a long way to reducing the ‘trench warfare’ on here. I can understand them dropping Mode C/S, though with somewhere in the region of 50% of GA still being ‘Bearingless’, I am firmly in the ‘YES’ camp on the use of Bearingless Target Detection at least for the foreseeable.

Regards to All

Peter
(PAW Development Team)
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By Miscellaneous
#1845322
@exfirepro
Plockton & Broadford are both owned by Highland Council, Glendoe privately owned. There”s no power or internet at Glendoe and no internet at Broadford,. PDG helicopters run Plockton although I think their use of it has been run down with no staff there.

HTH :thumright:
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By exfirepro
#1845335
Miscellaneous wrote:@exfirepro
Plockton & Broadford are both owned by Highland Council, Glendoe privately owned. There”s no power or internet at Glendoe and no internet at Broadford,. PDG helicopters run Plockton although I think their use of it has been run down with no staff there.

HTH :thumright:


Thanks Misc,

That’s useful info. I have flown into Plockton (and spent a night in the hangar with the local rats - which was ‘interesting’ !) but have never been to Broadford or Glendoe yet - at least not by air. Hopefully over the ‘Summer’ :wink:

Peter
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By Crash one
#1845343
malcolmfrost wrote:Can someone please get their soldering iron out and take the battery and gubbins from SE2 and stick it into a PAW Rosetta so it is a free standing package :D


Never mind the battery, but “the gubbins” might be useful if it consisted of the ADSB out gubbins.
By malcolmfrost
#1845352
Crash one wrote:
malcolmfrost wrote:Can someone please get their soldering iron out and take the battery and gubbins from SE2 and stick it into a PAW Rosetta so it is a free standing package :D


Never mind the battery, but “the gubbins” might be useful if it consisted of the ADSB out gubbins.

The battery is the big sell for me, the less cables dangling around the better.
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By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1845390
Well knowing that I can completely blank our VHF radio with our wing (unable to talk to Prestwick Tower when on the ground near the tower when facing a certain direction), and it is a lower frequency, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest that you could entirely blank the send / receive of a SE2 by objects (such as meat sacks, engines or fuselages). There is a reason that airlines have dual transponder antenna top & bottom of the airframe.

To me, the highest risk aircraft are the ones you can't see, even if you tried, so those behind you, hidden by a wing or under your nose. If an SE2 is in the cockpit, there is a chance that it is blanked just as much as the mark 1 eyeball.

Hence why we installed the PAW external antenna on the bottom of our aircraft.
By Crash one
#1845394
malcolmfrost wrote:
Crash one wrote:
malcolmfrost wrote:Can someone please get their soldering iron out and take the battery and gubbins from SE2 and stick it into a PAW Rosetta so it is a free standing package :D


Never mind the battery, but “the gubbins” might be useful if it consisted of the ADSB out gubbins.

The battery is the big sell for me, the less cables dangling around the better.



With the luxury of sole ownership mine is screwed to a bracket on the rear bulkhead, all wires go through the parcel shelf and hidden. Unplug and dismount as required. All done with cable splitters to both headset sockets and the cig lighter. The long antenna goes through the roof into a Delrin sleeve glued on top.
Tried an Anker power pack blu tacked the to the underside which worked just as well but needed recharged. Whatever you do you will need cables to the headset for audio alerts.
All very well unless you need to carry it on and off various different aircraft of course.
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By Crash one
#1845395
riverrock wrote:Well knowing that I can completely blank our VHF radio with our wing (unable to talk to Prestwick Tower when on the ground near the tower when facing a certain direction), and it is a lower frequency, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest that you could entirely blank the send / receive of a SE2 by objects (such as meat sacks, engines or fuselages). There is a reason that airlines have dual transponder antenna top & bottom of the airframe.

To me, the highest risk aircraft are the ones you can't see, even if you tried, so those behind you, hidden by a wing or under your nose. If an SE2 is in the cockpit, there is a chance that it is blanked just as much as the mark 1 eyeball.

Hence why we installed the PAW external antenna on the bottom of our aircraft.


I’ve forgotten whether or not an antenna splitter would work, (top and bottom)?
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By exfirepro
#1845410
‘Might’ work for the 1090 Rx-only side (though just as likely to show no improvement). The P3i Tx/Rx however is a whole other ballgame - very complicated (for which read ‘expensive’) to get this to work, especially at lower power levels due to losses in the ‘splitter/combiner’, hence why it’s normally only done on CAT.

Peter
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By kanga
#1845431
riverrock wrote:.. I can completely blank our VHF radio with our wing (unable to talk to Prestwick Tower when on the ground near the tower when facing a certain direction), ..


<as I may have posted before :oops: >

In Northern Canada in winter, the snowploughs would blow the snow into tall piles between runways and taxiways. The effect was that at the Holding Point furthest from the tower, ATCO could see the top of the fin of the tailwheel C140, but could not hear the speech from the (ancient) VHF with single antenna under fuselage; presumably the snowbanks blocked the Line of Sight. Procedure was to get provisional clearance to takeoff before starting to taxi from the FC (close to tower), take the long taxi to that HP but hold well clear, and turn into wind for checks. When checks were complete turn back and move closer to the HP stop line. If/when there was nothing approaching ATCO would switch stop line lights from red to green, which meant clear to lineup and take off. Audibility was restored almost as soon as tail was up at start of roll. :)
By reubeno
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1845898
A long thread that I've dipped into and out of, so I thought I'd share some practical results of using both PilotAware and SkyEcho.

We have mode-S / ADS-B out via certified transponder (fitted at great expense), so I'm really looking for the best solution to complement this on the receive side.

I had planned to try SkyEcho and PilotAware together on two seperate devices last weekend, but unfortunately when I got the Rosetta out of the bag, the 869.5MHz antenna had broken off from the SMA connector. It was quite a busy flight, so it would have been a good test.

So today, with a new antenna in hand I tried again.

A very unscientific study and there wasn't a lot of traffic this morning as I headed over to Beccles (which was lovely), but the PAW device picked up traffic earlier and picked up some traffic that the SkyEcho didn't. I also found traffic appearing and disappearing more frequently with the SkyEcho.

The only other difference I noticed were the icons, for example with SkyEcho G-HZRD showed as a helicopter, but as a aeroplane with PAW. It's possible that could have something to do with my settings between the two devices, I didn't investigate.

My preference up until now has been the SkyEcho, primarily because of the form factor, including the built in battery. I have an original PAW unit and I've broken that on multiple occasions. The Rosetta is definitely more robust than the original PAW units and I suspect the external antennas explain some of the improvements in reception over the SkyEcho, but it's still more fragile.

Going forwards, I'll probably switch from SkyEcho being my primary EC device to PAW.

All said, there was still a lot of traffic on the radio not showing on either in addition to traffic spotted with the Mk I eyeball, so best bet is to keep looking out the window and enjoying the view whatever EC solution you go for :D

Fingers crossed France opens up again for the summer.
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By lobstaboy
#1845904
A quick fag packet sum says to me that the 870MHz antenna on PAW is about a full size quarter wave. The internal antenna in SE is smaller and cannot be as effective therefore.
We've talked a lot about positioning of the device and using external antennas, but in terms of receive I'd expect PAW to be better as @reubeno says.
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By gaznav
#1845918
@lobstaboy

The antennae in SkyEcho are much more complex than the simple end-fed monopole PAW antenna for ADS-B (the shorter one of the 2) - hence the SkyEcho can fit their’s inside the small case. They use a meander line inverted F design from what I can see inside my SkyEcho:

Image

So it may not be quite as cut and dry as you describe :thumleft:
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