It's not guaranteed you will be 'seen' by a ground station at low altitude, especially out in the boonies or in the mountains. This site supposedly shows coverage by altitude interactively:

https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/programs/adsb/ICM/

Take it with a grain of salt - I saw "0 towers" in central WI last year on the way to Oshkosh at 3000' AGL.

I'm curious what people flying with ADS-B in NV or UT see for ground station coverage.


On Tuesday, February 14, 2017 at 9:30:57 PM UTC-6, Paul Villinski wrote:
Wondering if ADS-B equipped aircraft have any advantage should they need search and rescue, given that they broadcast their ID and coordinates. Is positional information logged by the ground stations, and retained for any period of time, or is it "real-time" only? If retained, it seems that ADS-B could supply search and rescue with a last known fix and trajectory if needed.

Of course, used in a glider, this might create some consternation if an ADS-B breadcrumb trail shows a glider making an off-airport landing....

Debating whether to add the new Trig TN72 GPS unit and TA70 antenna to the Trig TT22 transponder in my Experimental glider, for a legal TSO-C199 "TABS" ADS-B system. Can't quite get a handle on the value of ADS-B out vis-a-vis traffic avoidance, versus simply using the Mode S transponder as is. However, if ADS-B out could provide useful tracking in the event of an emergency, that added value would be significant.