On Monday, October 8, 2012 4:44:05 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Hi Andy, thanks for pointing that out. Correct information is now online at http://www.flarm.com/support/manual/..._addendum..txt Best --Gerhard

Gerhard,

Thanks for making the update.

I was able to run some PCAS range tests. I used an outdoor test setup with a clear view of the sky. The only exception to the clear view is that line of sight from the antenna to the airliner arrival route is obstructed by the upper branches of a orange tree until the airliners have approached to within about 2-3 miles. I doubt the signal attenuation is significant.

I tested with baseline settings on Sunday morning and with MTLAC and MTLS set to 300 on Monday morning. It became obvious that attempting to photograph the display when a target was first detected was unreliable, so I set up continuous video recording.

I have not yet reviewed the video from this mornings testing but it was obvious that PCAS performance was not satisfactory. Three airliners flew within about 1 mile, and at about 5000ft, and were never displayed. However, in a few cases the detection seemed to be earlier than with the default settings.

I did notice that the altitude was incorrectly reported for at least 2 of the passing airliners. That makes me wonder if the problem is not sensitivity but incorrect decode of the altitude squawk. If their altitude is incorrectly decoded, and the altitude exceeds the set maximum altitude, then the traffic would not be displayed.

One airliner was ADS-B Out equipped and was displayed continuously for about 12 miles.

I'd like to share the video with you but have no experience with uploading video files. Perhaps you, or someone else, could suggest how I can share .MOV files that are up to 250MByte.

This evening I'll review the video and record the range and altitudes for first detections.

Please let me know if there is another configuration you would like me to evaluate.

Andy