My Attempt at a $115 ADS-B Receiver Build for Foreflight

denverpilot said:
You need to be in range of a 978 MHz tower for weather. Quite often on the ground, you won't be. The traffic you're seeing is also likely Mode-S transponders on the other band and doesn't include rebroadcasted traffic on 978 either if you aren't line of sight to a tower.

The symbols are different for different EFB applications. You using ForeFlight or WingX or what? Each has their own documentation for what the traffic displays show. You should read through the docs for your specific EFB app.

Usually the symbols change with differences in altitude to your current GPS altitude.

You've probably also seen this here, but familiarize yourself with the concept of the "hockey puck". You'll never see ALL traffic and might see NONE without ADS-B out. It's a decision by FAA that makes the system inherently LESS safe, and it's dumb.

Also make sure you've correctly configured your EFB app for your "ownship" tail number so you're not attacked in flight by your own target. :) (And if flying different aircraft, make sure it configures it correctly to the correct tail number if you switch aircraft by adding it to your EFB "Preflight".
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Yeah, I figured there was no weather due to something like that.

I'm using FF. It had all arrow heads for traffic and then a diamond popped. Didn't really have time to figure out the difference. All the traffic I saw though I believe was airline. Don't think I saw any GA. Well come to think of it maybe I did. I do recall a couple of N numbers as opposed to flight numbers. But they were still pretty high altitude.

Not sure exactly what you mean by 'hockey puck' though even with the explanation.

So how do you configure the iPad for 'ownership' tail number? I've never heard of doing that.
 
denverpilot said:
You need to be in range of a 978 MHz tower for weather. Quite often on the ground, you won't be. The traffic you're seeing is also likely Mode-S transponders on the other band and doesn't include rebroadcasted traffic on 978 either if you aren't line of sight to a tower.

The symbols are different for different EFB applications. You using ForeFlight or WingX or what? Each has their own documentation for what the traffic displays show. You should read through the docs for your specific EFB app.

Usually the symbols change with differences in altitude to your current GPS altitude.

You've probably also seen this here, but familiarize yourself with the concept of the "hockey puck". You'll never see ALL traffic and might see NONE without ADS-B out. It's a decision by FAA that makes the system inherently LESS safe, and it's dumb.

Also make sure you've correctly configured your EFB app for your "ownship" tail number so you're not attacked in flight by your own target. :) (And if flying different aircraft, make sure it configures it correctly to the correct tail number if you switch aircraft by adding it to your EFB "Preflight".
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Foreflight has extensive documentation in the user manual. Unfortunately, I can't find equivalent info for WingX. Anyone got a link?
 
murphey said:
Foreflight has extensive documentation in the user manual. Unfortunately, I can't find equivalent info for WingX. Anyone got a link?
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They have not seen fit to create a proper user manual, AFAIK. About all they have that's official is online videos. Most of those are pretty moldy, but do seem to cover the specifics of new features as they were added.

Someone posted his open-source WingX user manual here a while back. Lots of people seem to like it. It'd take too much flipping apps to find that on my phone, but there's a thread on it. Search should find it.

I think the author of the unofficial manual mentioned once that he'd been approached by Hilton to make it into something more official, but I never saw any follow up to that. I might be imagining that.

You know, modern software development and all... who needs a properly written manual? ;) It's all just "intuitive" now. :) :) :)
 
BrianNC said:
Not sure exactly what you mean by 'hockey puck' though even with the explanation.
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Here is one of several sites that explain it. This is the first google hit I found.

Note the three scenarios. It is important you understand this, and ask again if you don't, since you will only be experiencing scenario 1 and 2 with ADS-B in. Both 1 and 2 will have traffic that will not be visible to you on your device. Thank the FAA for intentionally crippling a safety system to force conversion to ADS-B out.

http://cincinnatiavionics.com/understanding-ads-b-traffic/
 
Hi.
I am not sure that any of the above mentioned / external power back up batteries will do the job. I have one that was / rated / overrated at 50000mAh and it's only good for about 5hrs.
With 2 SDRs/ DVBTs and just the Pi3B board you are looking at about 800-1000mAh power draw. The best way to do it for long trips is to plug it into the cigarette lighter, or use a large external battery under the seat. One note of caution, if you use a USB adapter into your cig. lighter make sure it's rated for at least 1Amp, most are 500mA, also some birds / Cessnas have 24VDC systems.
 
BrianNC said:
Also, what is the difference in an arrow head symbol for traffic and a diamond. I did see one diamond for a few seconds.
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I inadvertently came across the answer to this watching a Youtube video on the Lynx L3. Diamond shape is TAS traffic and the arrowhead is ADS-B traffic.
 
BrianNC said:
I inadvertently came across the answer to this watching a Youtube video on the Lynx L3. Diamond shape is TAS traffic and the arrowhead is ADS-B traffic.
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True TAS only, or just anything received on the Mode-S frequency side? (TAS means it can interrogate other transponders, which is the basis for TCAS...)
 
denverpilot said:
True TAS only, or just anything received on the Mode-S frequency side? (TAS means it can interrogate other transponders, which is the basis for TCAS...)
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Not sure. Not long after he said what I quoted up there, he then said this:

"...it's an open diamond and that's active traffic. We're not receiving him [unintelligible] B, or ADS-B because he's not equipped, but we're surveilling him with the active traffic system."

I don't really know what that means since I'm not really familiar with this.
 
BrianNC said:
Not sure. Not long after he said what I quoted up there, he then said this:

"...it's an open diamond and that's active traffic. We're not receiving him [unintelligible] B, or ADS-B because he's not equipped, but we're surveilling him with the active traffic system."

I don't really know what that means since I'm not really familiar with this.
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LOL. It's kinda gobbledegook. At least by the real acronyms. (And those are a pile of gobbledegook too. Haha.)
 
Jim Blankenship said:
I was able to use the Stratux unit in the airplane. I was able to get traffic and weather. It works great. A wonderful cockpit resource. I find that using it with my phone works ok, but the screen is just too small to be practical. I switched to an 8-inch Android tablet and that works wonderfully.

Being able to get winds aloft, METARs, TAFs, and a "radar picture" of the weather in-flight is *great*.

Looking at the screen that lists all the ground towers it connects to, there are dozens!

I'm using the Avare app.
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For anyone using Avare and Stratux, is the weather just imported as it is received by the stratux or do you have to 'get' the weather as you do with an internet connection?
 
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