PowerFlarm BRICK range issues - are we alone????

No expert, but the Navy gave us enough antenna design/installation info so we usually wouldn't sink ships. That said:

The pictures show the center fed dipole with the coax feed coming from the front. Would be better with it coming from aft so the coax will have less of an effect on the radiation pattern. Also, better if the coax remained perpendicular for a bit more distance, maybe 3-4 inches, before heading down.

Given that the forward hemisphere is of most concern, then tandem mounting looks to be least desirable as one antenna interfers with the other. A side-by-side arrangement is better, assuming there is room to still keep them separated by roughly 6 or more inches.

Assume the black brackets shown in one picture are non-metalic and not filled with lots of carbon black for color?

Some improvement may be had by shortening the excess coax lead. The antenna base will disassemle and with requisite soldering skill the leads can be shortened instead of folded up behind the panel.

I borrowed Rex's idea, as used on 3U and shown he http://www.valleysoaring.net/?page_id=1487

Makes for a cleaner install than with antennas over the glareshield. It will also allow for some experimentation with moving the antennas fore and aft changing there separation to see how that effects range.

bumper

On Oct 2, 5:17*am, wrote:
Thanks for the reply. *This is exactly what I was looking for. *There are some people that are getting 6nm range on their units. *That's a lot better than 1.5nm if you're trying to catch up with a buddy. *The question is how do I get to that kind of range?

OK, the scenario you are explaining is almost the worst possible, for
range. If your FLARM antenna is in the nose of your ship (and you
don't have a DG with a long canopy like mine), your antenna is
probably partially obstructed in the forward direction. Your buddy's
FLARM antenna is probably in his nose, too. So when he's directly in
front of you his body, his wing-center-section (including all those
control-rods & pins), and his tailcone are all blocking the signal to
the rear. 1.5 to 3nm range is not bad, in that scenario.

I can usually see head-on and traffic converging from my 9-o'clock
through 3-o'clock at 6 to 8 nm out. I see traffic from my 4-o'clock
to 8-o'clock at a range of about 4-6nm. I find that I lose lock on
circling gliders when they're beyond about 3-4nm, especially if
they're above me (regardless of their position relative to my
glider). I think this has more to do with interference from the other
glider's antenna placement and equipment (between their FLARM and
mine) as they circle.

In all cases, I see traffic from more than enough range to provide
collision alerting and do a bit of leeching/catchup. I have the
rectangular display on a gooseneck in front of my panel (along with my
moving-map PDA/PNA), and find the volume to be more than loud enough.

I have the dipole antenna 8" in front of my compass, at or above the
glareshield level, with the coax running out of the antenna to the
rear and the vertically down the all-plastic (*not metal*) support
that the antenna is mounted on. You can see my (MacGyver'ed) mount
he http://www.flickr.com/photos/noel_wa...in/photostream

--Noel
P.S. I like the product; but I *do* think the manuals could stand
some improvement. And a simple GUI tool for setting up a good config
file should be easy to make, and avoid a lot of people's configuration
problems/bugs.

Noel,

I think you interpreted my "catch up" comment a bit too literally. Perhaps "meet up" would be a better term though. If I had even sporadic range to the tune of 4-6nm as some people are getting then it would be a lot easier to head in the right direction to meet up before starting a task. 2 weekends ago I was able to see the other glider thermalling out in front of me before it showed up on the display.

I'm going to do more testing, but 1.5 miles range nominally is pretty disappointing when the unit has a 6nm range screen.

Mark

Regarding PCAS performance on the PF Brick, my suspicions are that it is not alerting soon enough. Also, the Butterfly display speaker is too feeble to get my attention at times.

Last Sun 09/30/2012 while flying a 500km OLC flight out of Cal City I was in a near mid-air with a Mooney at 8500msl. I was cruising WSW bound and the Mooney was NW bound. First saw the aircraft approximately 5-10 seconds before a potential collision. At the same time, I heard a weak chirp from the PF Bufferfly and a circle on the screen at plus/minus 100feet. It passed by me 500feet horizontally.

My impression is that the PCAS sensitivity for an audible alarm needs to be increased. A louder speaker is a necessity. Perhaps one could set two sensitivity levels for audible alertss.

The unit was upgraded to fw 2.40 on 09/29. Here's the antenna installation:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/463771/MyGl...a_SideView.JPG

Forward dipole is the ADS-B; rear one is FLARM

Regarding FLARM range... I haven't flown with any other FLARM equipped glider yet. Phil Gaisford flew my Discus 2A "WX" at the NATS in Montague and he reported that the range and detection was ok.

Walt Rogers, WX

On Monday, October 1, 2012 10:52:54 PM UTC-7, WaltWX wrote:
Regarding PCAS performance on the PF Brick, my suspicions are that it is not alerting soon enough. Also, the Butterfly display speaker is too feeble to get my attention at times.



Last Sun 09/30/2012 while flying a 500km OLC flight out of Cal City I was in a near mid-air with a Mooney at 8500msl. I was cruising WSW bound and the Mooney was NW bound. First saw the aircraft approximately 5-10 seconds before a potential collision. At the same time, I heard a weak chirp from the PF Bufferfly and a circle on the screen at plus/minus 100feet. It passed by me 500feet horizontally.



My impression is that the PCAS sensitivity for an audible alarm needs to be increased. A louder speaker is a necessity. Perhaps one could set two sensitivity levels for audible alertss.



The unit was upgraded to fw 2.40 on 09/29. Here's the antenna installation:



https://dl.dropbox.com/u/463771/MyGl...a_SideView.JPG



Forward dipole is the ADS-B; rear one is FLARM



Regarding FLARM range... I haven't flown with any other FLARM equipped glider yet. Phil Gaisford flew my Discus 2A "WX" at the NATS in Montague and he reported that the range and detection was ok.



Walt Rogers, WX

The butterfly panel display is noticeably louder than the rectangular display.

Ramy

On Tuesday, October 2, 2012 12:15:24 AM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
On Monday, October 1, 2012 10:52:54 PM UTC-7, WaltWX wrote:

Regarding PCAS performance on the PF Brick, my suspicions are that it is not alerting soon enough. Also, the Butterfly display speaker is too feeble to get my attention at times.

My impression is that the PCAS sensitivity for an audible alarm needs to be increased. A louder speaker is a necessity. Perhaps one could set two sensitivity levels for audible alertss.


The unit was upgraded to fw 2.40 on 09/29. Here's the antenna installation:

Regarding FLARM range... I haven't flown with any other FLARM equipped glider yet. Phil Gaisford flew my Discus 2A "WX" at the NATS in Montague and he reported that the range and detection was ok.







Walt Rogers, WX



The butterfly panel display is noticeably louder than the rectangular display.



Ramy

Ref "WX"... I'm using the Butterfly rectangular display. Speaker is not loud enough.

Walt Rogers

On Monday, October 1, 2012 11:56:14 AM UTC-4, Mark wrote:
Three members at my club (self included) have installed PowerFlarm bricks recently. We carefully read and have complied with the antenna separation requirements in the manual. As is stands currently, the maximum xperienced communication range (Flarm to Flarm) is about 2.2 miles and it frequently drops out around 1.3-1.5 miles. Regarding PCAS operation, the only alert I have received using the PowerFlarm Brick has been the towplane at a distance of about 1000-1500 feet lateraly, same altitude. At the same time my Zaon PCAS alerted to the same towplane at a range of 2+ miles and 1000 feet below.



The three gliders are a Ventus 1, Discus 2, and a PIK. All three seem to be experiencing the same issues with very poor range. Emails to FLARM have seemed to fall on deaf ears. We're curious if we're the only ones or if others are also seeing the same issues with BRICKS. We've heard plenty from portable users who are reporting 6+ miles Flarm to Flarm and PCAS alerts approaching 5 miles. If changes to the installation will fix this, great! We just need to know what to change. The US dealer has seen pics of our installation and says the antenna installations look good. They are all on the top of the glare shields so should be excellent visibility. We'd like this to work, but if there is no option to improve the performance then sending the stuff back is certainly on the table. More testing this weekend, but at the moment it's not looking good.

I am not buying the Flarm until all these issues are resolved. I refused shipment of my ordered unit because all of these issues are not resolved. I think if people refused to purchase the unit until these issues are resolved, the factory would have the issues resolved. All I hear is the factory saying yeah we have fixed the problems and the customers coming back and stating, no, all of the problems are not fixed. Rest my case.

On Oct 3, 3:47*am, Robert Fidler wrote:
I am not buying the Flarm until all these issues are resolved. I refused shipment of my ordered unit because all of these issues are not resolved. I think if people refused to purchase the unit until these issues are resolved, the factory would have the issues resolved. All I hear is the factory saying yeah we have fixed the problems and the customers coming back and stating, no, all of the problems are not fixed. Rest my case.

Come on now, this is a ridiculous attitude to have. How do you go
through life? Do you refuse to buy a car model if *any* one ever sold
has broken down? Do you refuse to buy *any* computer or software, if
it has ever had a single bug? Do you refuse to go into *any*
restaurant that's ever had even one bad review or complaint online?

The PowerFLARM system isn't perfect, and I (like many) are still
waiting for the IGC logging capability and some of the other tweaks).
But the system works perfectly fine as it is right now! Here are some
things to keep in mind:

1) FLARM is based on two-way radio signals. So the range and
performance is strongly affected by both _your_ installation _and_
your buddies' installation. In this thread here, we've heard some
details about one person's installation, but we haven't gotten
complete details on the people he's been flying with. His
installation could be _great_ but if his buddies haven't done a good
job then they'll all have "poor" performance.

Making judgements about the PowerFLARM when you only know details of
one unit/installation is like complaining about someone driving past
you at double your speed, while failing to mention that you're driving
a 3-cylinder Yugo at 45mph on a 70mph freeway. You're making
judgements while leaving out key parts of the context of the
situation!

2) FLARM IS ***NOT*** A RADAR SYSTEM. IT IS AN __ANTI-COLLISION__
SYSTEM. Sorry for shouting, but I think people's expectations here
have gotten wayyyy out of whack. You need to remember that first and
foremost, the mission of a FLARM is to protect you against a midair.
If it is performing well-enough to prevent a midair, then it is doing
its job. Yes, I'll admit that its really cool when you _can_ see
every piece of traffic at 6-8nm and make tactical decisions or find
your friends from a long ways off. But that is *not* the device's
intended function - that is a "bonus".

Now, what is acceptable mid-air collision avoidance? Your opinion may
be different from mine, but let's run the numbers on the "bad" 1.5nm
range. Let's take a worst-case-scenario of two gliders approaching
each other head-on just under cloudbase (so its realllly hard to
visually spot the other glider, and closing speed is maximized).
Let's say they're bombing along under a cloudstreet at 100mph, so the
closing-speed is 200mph. 200mph is 1 mile every 18 seconds. So at
1.5nm range you have over 25 seconds to react to a threat. STOP
reading this right now, stare at a wall, and count out 25 seconds.
I'll wait. Wow, when you count it out that's a pretty good chunk of
time, isn't it? Even IF you spend the first 5-10 seconds looking
around for the oncoming glider before you make a decision to change
your course, you'd still have enough time to make that evasive
maneuver.

Since most people are seeing traffic at least twice that distance
(~3-4nm), I'd argue the system is working acceptably and DOING ITS
JOB.

If you visually pick up on a glider before the FLARM does,
congratulations on your visual scan! This does not mean the FLARM has
failed you. FLARM is there to protect you against the gliders you
*don't* see - not the ones you do. Accident records show us that
gliders come close to one another a lot, without either pilot seeing
the other aircraft. THAT is the fundamental safety issue that FLARM
addresses.

And lastly: Not to be critical of the original poster, but why do you
need FLARM to tell you where your buddies are? Can't you call them on
the radio and ask them to report their location & altitude? Glider
pilots have been doing that for decades! Again, I'm not trying to
give the original poster a hard time; but for those who see this as a
"failure" of the FLARM system, I want to point out the fallacy of that
line of thinking.

FLARM *can* do some pretty cool things. But don't judge the system by
its "bonus" capabilities, judge it by its core mission and whether it
is succeeding at that. And from everything I've seen (including the
Standard Class Nationals that I flew in this year), it is delivering
on the promise of collision detection and alerting.

--Noel

On Wednesday, October 3, 2012 9:16:11 AM UTC-7, noel.wade wrote:
On Oct 3, 3:47*am, Robert Fidler wrote:



(clip of important stuff) . . . And from everything I've seen (including the

Standard Class Nationals that I flew in this year), it is delivering

on the promise of collision detection and alerting.



--Noel

That pretty much says it. Good post.

In deciding whether to buy a PF, I asked myself how much my butt is worth. (I tend to consistently place an exhorbitantly high value on my butt - - valuing it much more than others might.) I bought two PF's, glider and Husky.

bumper

I agree with Noel. FLARM is collision warning system, and there
is no alternative for it at the moment.

When you connect FLARM with a PNA or smartphone running a
nice tactical flight computer, you can get a lot features utilizing
FLARM traffic information. What I like a lot is a possibility to
name other FLARM users. You know, some people, uh, need
mode airspace between him and me than some others ;^)
Our European FLARM systems only have one FLARM antenna.
You have two, another for additional FLARM receiver. That can
improve collision avoidance significantly, when two gliders are
flying near each others, and fuselage blocks the radio signal.

I am sure, that FLARM engineers are working full time improving
this product. This product is result of their vision, innovations
and guts to start a new business. I think what they have done is
respectable.

Before the FLARM range analysis works for you, it is difficult to
judge the real performance. One possibility might be, that you
use XCSoar and log the incoming NMEA stream from FLARM. You
can then simulate your flight to see what happened. You can
also filter the FLARM traffic signals from this text file, and see
what have been the distances when traffic has been detected.



FLARM *can* do some pretty cool things. But don't judge the
system by
its "bonus" capabilities, judge it by its core mission and
whether it
is succeeding at that. And from everything I've seen (including
the
Standard Class Nationals that I flew in this year), it is
delivering
on the promise of collision detection and alerting.

--Noel