PowerFLARM updates and installation notes

Ok, that's sound better, having only part of the antenna sticking out. But it is kind of contradicting what I read in Dave's link. And I understand that since focusing on infinity it is less of a problem, but still annoying and unaesthetic to have the hole dipol antenna in front of your eyes all the time.
I would like to see more photos of brick antenna and remote display installations.
Also, what about external antennas near the gear similar to transponder antennas?

Ramy

You guys are kidding, right? An antenna that size on your instrument panel is invisible when you are focused at infinity, where you have to be to see anything out the window!

Try holding up your finger (your choice of finger, I've got a suggestion...) at arm's length in front of your face, then look at something in the distance. If your finger blocks your vision, you are an alien!

Seriously, get the PF and mount the antennas as cleanly as you can (so it looks cool, of course) and I bet you won't even notice it inflight.

Kirk
66

Hi All - I've added more installation info:
http://powerflarm.us/powerflarm-installation-notes/

Also, a few pilots have posted notes about their
PowerFLARM experiences (and we encourage you to
do likewise) he
http://powerflarm.us/2012/05/powerfl...and-elswehere/

Hope you find these helpful,
Best Regards, Dave "YO electric"

On Jun 3, 1:53*pm, Dave Nadler wrote:
Hi All - I've added more installation info:http://powerflarm.us/powerflarm-installation-notes/

Also, a few pilots have posted notes about their
PowerFLARM experiences (and we encourage you to
do likewise) hehttp://powerflarm.us/2012/05/powerfl...fflin-and-elsw...

Hope you find these helpful,
Best Regards, Dave "YO electric"

Quoting from Dave's website:

Suggestion for Glare-Shields that Jettison with Canopy [i.e.
Schleicher -JC]

Make an antenna mount with a large base shaped to match glare-shield
(hint: lay up a fiberglass base on top of the glare-shield). Cut a
small hole through the glare-shield for the antenna and cable. Fasten
the base of the mount to the underside of the glare-shield with a
small amount of velcro. This makes it easy to remove the canopy/glare-
shield, and safe in a bail-out.

Comment: C'mon Dave. This is supposed to be a consumer product ready
for release to the glider market. And you really are suggesting that
half this market needs to go lay up fiberglass to install it? That's
beyond half-baked.

We really need to see one decent Shleicher install picture!

Again -- the world is full of dipole antennas with physical and
electrical connectors at the base. Why oh why are you not using such
an antenna in this most obvious place for it?

John Cochrane

On Mon, 4 Jun 2012 09:53:48 -0700 (PDT), John Cochrane
wrote:

.... text deleted
Again -- the world is full of dipole antennas with physical and
electrical connectors at the base. Why oh why are you not using such
an antenna in this most obvious place for it?

John Cochrane

Per T8's suggestion, I looked at the VDP series 1/2 wave dipole
antennas from Linx;
http://www.linxtechnologies.com/prod...ipole-antenna/

comparing with what appears to be the standard PowerFlarm brick
dipole;
http://www.linxtechnologies.com/prod...ipole-antenna/

the VDP is about 0.7 inch longer, and maybe 10% worse VSWR. Otherwise
the datasheet specs look identical. Both cost under $10.

The big plus is that the very thin flat antenna (with a bottom mount
coax) will be much easier to integrate into our ships. And it will
look much more attractive.

I cut out a cardboard facsimile and was able to fit it to the front
cowling of both a Ventus 2cx and a Ventus C. Not much clearance in the
Ventus 2, but it cleared the canopy by mayb 1/2 inch..

I notice on the Butterfly site that they have a bottom fed antenna
that is cited to have "high performance" with the PowerFlarm.
http://www.butterfly-store.de/en/Ext...FLARM ,i7.htm
Unfortunately, no indication of how tall this antenna is.

To echo John's comment, there has to be a better solution than the
current fat dipole with the center feed coax.

We've come too far and fought too hard to get Flarm into the US
sailplane fleet to let this antenna issue stall widespread acceptance.
If PowerFlarm is to really impact collision statistics, we need to get
nearly 100% fleet penetration. I fear this will not happen with the
fat center-fed dipole. It may work the best, but if it looks ugly or
is difficult to install, we will not get wide fleet penetration.

This is an important issue for the full acceptance of PowerFlarm in
the US !

Bob

Looking on this site (http://www.butterfly-store.de/en/Col...LARM/Antennas/) it appears there are a lot of antenna options available. In particular, I like the high-performance external antenna - I could see mounting it on the top of the fuselage aft of the canopy, where it should have a really good field of view and not clutter up the cockpit - and I really don't care about the drag (probably about the same as a transponder antenna).

Sure would be cool if someone came up with a faired streamlined external antenna - for both the ads-b and flarm - that could be externally mounted.

For Dave Nadler: Will this antenna work with a US PF brick?: http://www.butterfly-store.de/en/Ext...ce+FLARM .htm

Kirk
66

Folks,

I am glad there are those who want to slog thru the teething problems of a newly introduced electronic device...frankly, I know I'm just not one of them. Honestly with the type of glider flying I do, my risk of mid-air is exceedingly low and is much more likely due to some kind of powered traffic than another glider (a threat which a currently installed PF unit would still do me absolutely no good and which I've decided to address with the PCAS)

But c'mon now...for those of us who don't like to spend our time off upside down in our cockpits chasing wires, fussing with antennas, seeing if maybe the re-programming took "this" time or wondering if I just "smoked" my new gizmo in an install error ...if the list of problems I ticked off had come from a product issued by someone like say Microsoft (it did sound amazingly similar to my complaints about the buggy Windows ME platform) the howling by users about a product brought a little too early in development to market would have been long and loud and justified.

Kudos to all who are trying to sort through all the teething problems and help find a system that's easy to install, use and maintain, especially Mr. Nadler.

Still, Mr. Nadler cannot make housecalls to all of us who won't trek to a contest and/or are probably less technologically savvy types than many early adapters. So...those of us like me will patiently wait for the "B" model of PF to show up that will bear the fruit of what to me on the outside appears to be having current users doing too much "in the field" operational testing and evaluation on.

Now, to the bawling spouse...I agree, one of those is too many!! But interestingly, in my flying career (encompassing 35+ years of GA, military and airline) I have lost a number of friends and peers in accidents over the years. Mid-airs have been on the very low side of where those losses occurred....Pilot error and mechanical failure has been a much, much greater threat...but if PF someday helps drive down the few that happen in glider flying (and primarily in the even smaller segment flying contests)...Great! Then maybe the community can turn its attention to the other very-worthy-of-attention-reasons that flying a glider has a 1 in 2000 chance of killing you...vs. only a 1 in 6000 chance of it happening on the drive to the airport. Not just focusing on stopping the mid-airs.

http://www.streckenflug.at/news/tom_knauff_a_ten.pdf

PowerFlarm someday in all it's glory will be a great product if it delivers all that's promised...and when it does, I'll likely purchase and install one. But for now, for me, in it's current incarnation...it's a "pass".

Regards to all,

RAS56

On Sunday, June 3, 2012 6:51:34 PM UTC-7, RAS56 wrote:
Folks,

I am glad there are those who want to slog thru the teething problems of a newly introduced electronic device...frankly, I know I'm just not one of them. Honestly with the type of glider flying I do, my risk of mid-air is exceedingly low and is much more likely due to some kind of powered traffic than another glider (a threat which a currently installed PF unit would still do me absolutely no good and which I've decided to address with the PCAS)

Its perfectly fine to prefer not to want to adopt new technology, even if I think you were inflating the concerns/issues, and of course its great to make decisions based on your own risk assessments, and you have have more experience than many pilots and therefore likely knowledgeable on doing that. But its another thing to make these decisions that may be clouded by technical confusion, and there seems some confusion here, of maybe you can clarify/explain what you meant about PCAS.

PowerFLARM does PCAS today -- so your claim that a "a threat which a currently installed PF unit would still do me absolutely no good" does not make sense--a PowerFLARM would perform the same PCAS functions as whatever PCAS only unit you have decided to install instead. And you get all the other benefits (or in an extreme case of early adopter concern you could even decide to ignore/disable Flarm now, which I'd not recommend, and just use it as PCAS (with another benefit of 1090ES data-in also working today so you get high-precision directional information about 1090ES data-out adopters like many airliners (and PowerFLARM deduplicates that so you also don't get a non-directional PCAS threat for the same target).

Darryl

On 6/3/2012 6:51 PM, RAS56 wrote:
But c'mon now...for those of us who don't like to spend our time off
upside down in our cockpits chasing wires, fussing with antennas,
seeing if maybe the re-programming took "this" time or wondering if I
just "smoked" my new gizmo in an install error .

But c'mon now ... the stuff you mention, and what I've seen in Dave's
pictures and in person, comes from not following the simple directions
for placement of the portable PowerFlarm, which basically are "put it on
top of the glare shield". There is only one cable (power) - how hard is
that?

My portable PF would not quite fit directly on top of the glare shield,
so I built a simple bracket out of aluminum that holds it just aft of
the glare shield, and 1/2" lower. The PCAS works as well as my Zaon PCAS
did, I get the airliners' ADS-B, and an hour long encounter with another
PF equipped glider convinced me it enough range for collision avoidance
(about 1 NM), about 2 NM of range for "buddy flying" purposes
(intermittent loss of the other glider, but still easy to track), and
about 3 NM range if we within 1000' vertically. He also had a PF mounted
on the top of the glares shield.

I expect all those ranges to improve with ongoing changes; until then,
I'm hoping _everyone_ I thermal with has one, because it was a very
comfortable, stress-free experience compared to the usual neck-craning
and radio chit-chat, trying to keep tabs on each other in thermals and
when flying close to each other.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

On Jun 3, 6:51*pm, RAS56 wrote:
But c'mon now...for those of us who don't like to spend our time off upside down in our cockpits chasing wires, fussing with antennas

RAS56 - Sounds like you're worrying about alot without even
investigating things. You want to keep it simple?

STEP 1: Buy a Portable PowerFLARM
STEP 2: Stick it on top of your glareshield
STEP 3: Make sure the antennas are pointed straight up.
STEP 4: (Optional?) Run a wire from your power-bus/battery to the
PowerFLARM.

How hard is that?

--Noel