Boost PowerFLARM Range with Better Antenna?

On Monday, August 1, 2016 at 10:25:31 PM UTC-4, Luke Szczepaniak wrote:
On Friday, 22 July 2016 16:05:10 UTC-4, wrote:
So 2 of us have FLARM CORE - and we put it in Stealth a long time ago and then back to normal - but when we get about 1 or 2 miles apart the other glider disappears - I can see 747's but can't see the other glider? any suggestions?

I've had issues with my FLARM since putting the in stealth mode at the 2015 15m Nationals at Harris Hill. After the contest the range dropped considerably. This morning completely blew away my config by loading a flarmcfg..txt that only contained a single line;

$PFLAR,99


After that I put in a fresh config file generated using the flarm website and my ranges came back to what I was seeing before Elmira.

FWIW
Luke Szczepaniak

Interesting. I seem to be having a similar problem. I thought it might be due to the firmware update. I'll go do a little more digging and compare a couple of log files from before/after using the range analyzer.

It looks like the single sentence just "reinitializes" the unit to default settings?

On Monday, August 1, 2016 at 7:25:31 PM UTC-7, Luke Szczepaniak wrote:
On Friday, 22 July 2016 16:05:10 UTC-4, wrote:
So 2 of us have FLARM CORE - and we put it in Stealth a long time ago and then back to normal - but when we get about 1 or 2 miles apart the other glider disappears - I can see 747's but can't see the other glider? any suggestions?

I've had issues with my FLARM since putting the in stealth mode at the 2015 15m Nationals at Harris Hill. After the contest the range dropped considerably. This morning completely blew away my config by loading a flarmcfg..txt that only contained a single line;

$PFLAR,99


After that I put in a fresh config file generated using the flarm website and my ranges came back to what I was seeing before Elmira.

FWIW
Luke Szczepaniak

WX, Walt Rogers here...

Luke, I've had a similar problem all year (2016 north american season) ever since I installed firmware 6.06.

My PowerFLARM seems to act like it's constantly in stealth mode. When I run the analyzer from FLARM on the Nephi contest for 65 glider over 7 days... my PF shows 0.5-1km range! ... just like it's in stealth mode. The SYSTEM FLARM setting from my Buterfly v3.4 firmware display shows stealth is OFF. Yet over the previous 3 years, my PF consistently detected 5-9 km range.

I've just did a factory reset using $PFLAR,99 this evening. Tomorrow I will fly with another PF buddy, Jim Staniforth JS. Perhaps I have found the fix..

BTW, I'm driving my SN10B from the PF . The PF is also driving a Butterfly v3.4 display. Could this be the cause of the problem... two devices that can talk to PF?

Anyone else out there with the same limited range symptoms who have TWO devices hooked up... a PF display and another flight computer?

Walt Rogers WX

I'm running a center fed dipole off the A connector on my Powerflarm portable. Noticeable improvement in range over the stubby antenna. This is just the $30 or so antenna from Rich at Craggy and definitely works better than the stock antenna, but still lacks the sensitivity I think people get with the Core.

Morgan

On Wednesday, July 20, 2016 at 3:31:11 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Have seen lots of comments about where and how to mount PowerFLARM antennas. Any stories of the effect of changing the TYPE of antenna used: e.g., from (in my case) the short, stubby Portable PowerFLARM rod antenna to, say, the center-fed dipole that comes with the core?

The question is with regard to the FLARM antenna only (not ADS-B or GPS), and specifically on its effect on receive range.

Primarily interested in commercial-off-the-shelf components but have built various antennas in the past and not averse to doing so again. Thx.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"

Thanks! I now have the center-fed dipole for the "B" connector (not the same antenna connector as for the "A" connector for US Portable PowerFLARMs, btw) but haven't flown with it yet. I'm hoping this boosts the range.

I'll also take a look at Luke's method as the range I got on a few test flights last summer before the Elmira stealth contest seemed to be higher than what I've experienced since then.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"