PF Portable PCAS performance

[Andy[_1_]]

I'd like to hear other people's experience of PCAS performance for the
portable unit. I'm particularly interested in side by side comparison
with ZAON MRX.

Yesterday I flew my PA28-180 with both the ZAON MRX and the portable
on the glareshield. Several times I saw traffic reported by the MRX
and nothing shown on PFP. In one case the MRX detected traffic 900ft
lower and 5 miles. It tracked the target as the range reduced to less
than 1.5 miles and -900 ft. I had acquired the traffic visually and
confirmed that the MRX indication was reasonable. The Power FLARM
Portable never displayed this traffic, while the MRX tracked it from
first detection at 5 miles until it had passed me and gone out to 5
miles.

There were a couple of times when PFP and MRX agreed on traffic
(similar range and same altitude) but these were the exception rather
than the rule. There were several times that PFP reported traffic
that MRX did not report and which was not seen. I suspect that these
targets resulted from confusion between the mode A and mode C
replies. FLARM has acknowledged that this is a problem, however ZAON
seem to have worked out how to resolve this ambiguity (see user manual
discussion).


Andy GY

[Ramy]

I have the exact same experience as you describe with my PF brick. This was already discussed heavily in another thread and the PF folks are working on a software fix for this.

Ramy

[bumper[_4_]]

Andy,

The Portable PF actually worked reasonably well. I also did a side-by-side test with the portable and with a ProxAlert R5 PCAS. The R5 worked WAY better, that is until I turned off the R5 right after it acquired a target that the PF had not seen. Then the PF acquired too and at about the same range. Seems the R-5 was interfereing with the PF when co-located just a few inches away on my Husky's glareshield.

The brick's PCAS range is another issue. I've flown with mine several times but not a lot of other traffic. Still, range doesn't "seem" to be as good as on the portable. Flarm range looks to be better than the portable, but that could well be due to the more effecient dipole antennas and their location in my ASH26E's note (copied Rex Mayes' install).

bumper

[Tony[_5_]]

On Sunday, October 28, 2012 2:41:51 PM UTC-5, Andy wrote:
> I'd like to hear other people's experience of PCAS performance for the
>
> portable unit. I'm particularly interested in side by side comparison
>
> with ZAON MRX.
>
>
>
> Yesterday I flew my PA28-180 with both the ZAON MRX and the portable
>
> on the glareshield. Several times I saw traffic reported by the MRX
>
> and nothing shown on PFP. In one case the MRX detected traffic 900ft
>
> lower and 5 miles. It tracked the target as the range reduced to less
>
> than 1.5 miles and -900 ft. I had acquired the traffic visually and
>
> confirmed that the MRX indication was reasonable. The Power FLARM
>
> Portable never displayed this traffic, while the MRX tracked it from
>
> first detection at 5 miles until it had passed me and gone out to 5
>
> miles.
>
>
>
> There were a couple of times when PFP and MRX agreed on traffic
>
> (similar range and same altitude) but these were the exception rather
>
> than the rule. There were several times that PFP reported traffic
>
> that MRX did not report and which was not seen. I suspect that these
>
> targets resulted from confusion between the mode A and mode C
>
> replies. FLARM has acknowledged that this is a problem, however ZAON
>
> seem to have worked out how to resolve this ambiguity (see user manual
>
> discussion).
>
>
>
>
>
> Andy GY

The portable that I bought this year has alerted me to traffic that was about to fly into my thermal at least 2 times this season. It has also shown me many planes flying in my vicinity. This has usually been with wall-of-shame installations with the antennas angled over and in contact with the canopy. After reading RAS i've been quite happy that I got the portable and not the brick.