Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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#1848555
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS, THEN YOU PROBABLY NEED TO READ THE LAST POST, FIRST.

I thought I would share my experiences with SoftRF, which gives either a FLARM, OGN Tracker, FANET or PAW transmit/receive capability (you can only select one at a time) for less than £50. You have to order the bits yourself, but it’s been relatively straightforward to but together and update the software. Details are here: https://github.com/lyusupov/SoftRF

I put together the Prime Mk II as it looked the easiest of all. Here it is next to my SkyEcho2 to give you an idea of size.

Image

I used the TTGO T-Beam V1.0 circuit board (£25 on eBay) and replaced the 1.5dB antenna that came with it for a 3dB helicoil antenna (£9 on EBay) - it screws on and off the SMA connector easy enough. I bought an 18650 rechargeable battery for £5 (local shop), which seems to give it 6hrs+ on a single charge, and I bought a 3D printed box through Treatstock.co.uk (£8). Total cost was £47 all in.

The TTGO T-Beam circuit boards ship with the SoftRF software onboard, so there is no need to load anything if you don’t want. My V1.0 board was old stock and had RC8 firmware, and I saw that RC9 released recently - so I decided I should try the firmware upgrade. Again, it was relatively straightforward and I now run the latest RC9.

I’ll add my findings in the next post... :thumright:
Last edited by gaznav on Wed May 26, 2021 11:10 pm, edited 3 times in total.
#1848557
So, all the bits finally arrived on Wednesday, but as the weather was honking, all I could do was hook it up to the iPad to try it. It outputs GDL90 on WiFi (the Bluetooth doesn’t work with iPad as it isn’t do ‘Apple-friendly Bluetooth’ - thanks Steve Jobs! :roll: ). But the WiFi works fine with iPad/iPhone.

Here it is running on SkyDemon on Wednesday:
Image

“Grand” I thought, and I couldn’t wait to see some PAW, FANET, FLARM or OGN traffic on it once the wind has died down. However, I was wrong. Between Wednesday and Friday night, my SkyDemon software auto-updated to a new software drop 3.15.2.302(??) and now I can’t get the GDL90 to connect.

FIXED - here: viewtopic.php?p=1848602#p1848602

Tim Dawson, if you read this, then I have emailed your team to tell them about this. After much gnashing of teeth, and resetting software and reinstalling SkyDemon, I couldn’t get it to work again. However, I thought I would try it with the 2 other GDL90 EFBs I have access to - Aero App and EasyVFR Basic - both are working fine as follows:

Easy VFR
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And Aero App was also connecting and feeding through GDL90
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However, try as I might, SkyDemon would not work with SoftRF after the latest SkyDemon software drop. All I got was:
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So, that was a setback that I hope will be resolved in due course as I much prefer the functionality of SkyDemon over Aero App and EasyVFR.

Next, I’ll share some info on the SoftRF device’s performance.
Last edited by gaznav on Sat May 22, 2021 10:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
By Tim Dawson
SkyDemon developer
#1848561
You probably need to give SkyDemon permission to talk to devices on your network. Somewhere in iOS settings.
gaznav liked this
#1848567
gaznav wrote:I thought I would share my experiences with SoftRF, which is gives either a FLARM, OGN Tracker, FANET or PAW transmit/receive capability (you can only select one at a time)


Struggling a little here.

Does that mean you can receive/transmit on only one of the protocols at any one time, or that you can select all of them, but have to choose between transmission or reception?


Rob P
gaznav liked this
#1848569
Rob P wrote:
gaznav wrote:I thought I would share my experiences with SoftRF, which is gives either a FLARM, OGN Tracker, FANET or PAW transmit/receive capability (you can only select one at a time)


Struggling a little here.

Does that mean you can receive/transmit on only one of the protocols at any one time, or that you can select all of them, but have to choose between transmission or reception?


Rob P


Yes, you have to decide which one you want to transmit. As Pilot Aware uses a different frequency to FLARM/OGN/FANET then you have to choose as far as I can see.
#1848576
OK, so continuing with today, then as I live between Turweston and Hinton-in-the-Hedges, then it’s a fairly GA rich environment on a weekend.

I set up my SkyEcho with SkyDemon (with FLARM subscription) and ran EasyVFR with SoftRF in Legacy (FLARM Air V6) mode to see if they saw the same things. With plenty of FLARM gliders being launched around today’s bumblies around Hinton, then there were plenty of things to detect 2-4 miles away. The SkyEcho was marginally better than the SoftRF when it came to range - as I say, the SoftRF antenna is 3dB on 868MHz, so either the SkyEcho has a better receiver gain or antenna gain or both. However, the results were pretty good for SoftRF - considering it is displaying basic FLARM info for free and without any ground station requirement.

This is the SoftRF with EasyVFR showing a FLARM equipped glider “4045DB” - the “FL” shows that EasyVFR detects this as FLARM.
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This is SkyEcho at the same time (a bit of time lag as I jump between the 2 devices to get the screenshot).
Image

As I say, direct detection ranges were about 2-3 miles for the SoftRF and about 3-4 miles for the SkyEcho. However, the price difference is significant!

PART POST DELETED
Last edited by gaznav on Wed May 26, 2021 11:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
#1848577
Rob P wrote:
gaznav wrote:
Yes, you have to decide which one you want to transmit.


And receive?

Rob P


Not sure Rob. I only ever detected 1 Pilot Aware aircraft all day, and that was not when I was seeing the many FLARM aircraft. I’ll post back here if I see both on receive. As I say, PAW’s P3i is on 868.525MHz and FLARM, OGN and FANET are on 868.2MHz in the UK, so I suspect that you will have to make the choice. :thumleft:
#1848580
Image
CONCLUSION
So what do I think? Well for less than £50 this was a pretty good experiment and you get quite a bit for your money. The big snag is that you cannot currently connect to more than one GDL90 EC receiver via WiFi to SkyDemon, ForeFlight, EasyVFR. So, personally, I will still use my SkyEcho2 to receive ADS-B, FIS-B and FLARM - the software tweaks to work with SkyEcho through SkyDemon means that it really is a great set up.

So, if that is the case, I will use my £47 device to make me more visible to others that can’t see my ADS-B output from the SkyEcho. So that means I probably won’t use it to transmit PAWs P3i as the Pilot Aware will see my ADS-B. If I use OGN Tracker Protocol (OGN TP) then many airborne receivers won’t see that either. So that leaves FANET or Legacy FLARM Air V6. FANET is very niche, and not that common compared to others. The problem with the Legacy FLARM Air V6 is that it only emits position and GNSS/GPS altitude, so you appear as a stationary object that moves on each update. It will alert FLARM and PowerFLARM devices. So as FLARM is the most popular GNSS/GPS-tagged EC standard outside of ADS-B, then it probably makes sense to emit that using the standalone SoftRF unit. That way I will see FLARM and they will now see me. Also, as I don’t seem to be able to enter my ICAO address in SoftRF, then the fact that my SkyEcho/SkyDemon combination doesn’t detect my device means that I won’t detect my SoftRF as a potential threat.

An interesting experiment... :D

UPDATE: See my last posts, until told otherwise, I will only ever use this device on receive only
Last edited by gaznav on Thu May 27, 2021 12:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
#1848585
FIXED - here: viewtopic.php?p=1848602#p1848602

@Tim Dawson

Thanks for the tip. I tried “forget this network” then reconnected by re-entering the WPA key. Still no luck.

The thing is, it was working fine on Wednesday with SkyDemon, then on Friday it stopped when I opened SkyDemon and it informed me of a new software update. Then it no longer works. However, it can’t be an iOS thing as the same SoftRF works fine connected on the same iPad using GDL90 WiFi but with Aero App or EasyVFR. So I can only assume that something has changed in the new software drop. As I am not planning to use SoftRF as a receiver (I guess only ever as a back up for my SkyEcho if it malfunctioned), then it is not an immediate issue for me. But for other SoftRF users it might be causing a few issues if they use it as their primary device. If I may, I’ll leave it to your team to look at next week via the email I dropped yesterday? :thumleft:

Thanks again for the prompt idea.
Last edited by gaznav on Sat May 22, 2021 9:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
#1848589
Wow that's a lot of erm, speculative nonsense backed up with MANY pretty pictures.
It seems it was all done ON THE GROUND. Given it's reliance on mobile phone tech and that mobile phones are only designed to work on the ground:
Isn't this massively misleading, obfuscating and unhelpful? Asking for a friend

It appears 9 9! of the posts on this page are @gaznav (so far), [e]is the idea to drowned out other voices and opinions? [/e]
Last edited by HansGruber on Sat May 22, 2021 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By Tim Dawson
SkyDemon developer
#1848591
No Gaz, it’s nothing to do with the WiFi settings, it’s a privacy thing. You need to explicitly say which apps are allowed to access devices on your network. Sometimes iOS seems to forget.
gaznav liked this
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