On 11/19/20 3:06 PM, Moshe Braner wrote:
On 11/19/2020 1:21 PM, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Moshe Braner wrote on 11/19/2020 9:31 AM:
On 11/19/2020 11:12 AM, Dan Marotta wrote:
On 11/18/20 4:41 PM, Richard Pfiffner wrote:
According to Flarm the New Fusion transmits and receives on both A
and B Flarm Antennas.

http://www.craggyaero.com/fusion.htm



Richard
www.craggyaero.com


That looks to me like you can buy a license to activate the "B"
antenna. Â*Â*Isn't that like buying a license to active the passenger
side seat belt in a car?Â* Or the rear brakes?


Maybe if you pay extra they'll sell you the feature where it keeps on
working after the firmware "expires"?Â* (As long as the data packets
are still compatible.)

Dan: We have no choice about seat belts and brakes, which are mandated
by law. Do you want to go there with PowerFlarm? :^(

Dan: Buying a license for an optional feature (also known as "buying
an optional feature") is like buying the "primo" optional interior for
your new car, except you can do it anytime, even years after the
purchase, unlike that fancy interior. Would you rather they included
everything that is now optional, and charged you for it, instead
letting you pay for only what you need?


Moshe: They give me the updates FREE anytime I want one. I'm not going
to whine about the 10 minutes it takes me to read the update
instructions and load it into the glider. The present system seems
like a good compromise: all units are no more than 1 year behind in
capability, at no $ cost, and very little time and effort. As pilots,
we are required to "update" our gliders every year with an inspection,
to "update" the pilot every two years with a flight review, to keep
our charts and database current yearly or less, to "update" our
parachute every 180 days - I think we should expect a pilot to also
handle updating Flarm!


I have no problem with the updates, I do them, and certainly recommend
everybody do them.Â* My problem is with it stopping to operate if for
whatever reason somebody didn't do the update yet, even if in fact the
data exchanged still allows interoperability.Â* That is an unnecessary
hit to safety, for everybody around.Â* And it may have contributed to the
recent collision we were discussing.Â* There are better ways to nudge
people to update the firmware.

I just updated to firmware version 7.02 today. According to my computer
files, the date on the previous firmware was December 2019, so I guess I
was in no danger of a loss of function. I went back to my glider's
logbook and added this update to the end of the last annual inspection
writeup. Next year, at annual, my IA will remind me that I need to
update the Flarm.

--
Dan
5J