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

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 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

On Oct 2, 10:10*am, FLARM wrote:

2 - Poor flarm performance in portables, but not bricks.
* * Most bricks I know of getting 2-3 miles which is plenty enough
* * for collision avoidance if you pay attention immediately.

US portables will be recalled to make FLARM hardware equivalent to Bricks (which have more than sufficient range for collision avoidance)

My recollection is that all Portables were intended to be modified by
the addiition of rf filtering that reduced out of band interference.
After that modification the portables were claimed to have good range
performance. We were also told that this modification had been made
in all fielded portables.

Now we are being told that, although there are multiple reports of
inadequate range for the brick, that the portable will be modifed to
have hardware equivalent to the brick.

I am the only one that finds this somewhat inconsistent?

Would FLARM please explain how the units are different in term of RF
design and performance. Would FLARM also please clarify whether the
recall is intended to increase the performance of the portable, or to
degrade it to that of the brick.


GY

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 Monday, October 1, 2012 11:49:32 AM UTC-5, kirk.stant wrote:
Mark, how is your config file setup?



Kirk

Kirk,

The new config file which I intend to load before flying this coming weekend includes the following. I believe this would give me a 5 mile lateral range and a 3000 foot vertical range for transponder and ADSB. Take a look. Are there any settings for Flarm to Flarm range in the config options????

# Set vertical ADS-B range in meters.
# For gliders, a vertical range of +-1000m is recommended
$pflac,s,adsbvrange,1000
$PFLAC,S,ADSBRANGE,9000
#
# Transponder Range Variables in meters horz above vert
$PFLAC,S,PCASRANGE,9000
$PFLAC,S,PCASVRANGE,1000

Mark

On Tuesday, October 2, 2012 4:41:53 PM UTC-7, Andy wrote:
US portables will be recalled to make FLARM hardware equivalent to Bricks (which have more than sufficient range for collision avoidance)


My recollection is that all Portables were intended to be modified by
the addiition of rf filtering that reduced out of band interference.
After that modification the portables were claimed to have good range
performance. We were also told that this modification had been made
in all fielded portables.

Now we are being told that, although there are multiple reports of
inadequate range for the brick, that the portable will be modifed to
have hardware equivalent to the brick.

I am the only one that finds this somewhat inconsistent?

There are two completely independent circuits in PowerFLARM:

FLARM RF transceiver:
'Bricks' have a bandpass filter to reduce 'out of band' signals.
All 'Bricks' report a more than adequate range for FLARM signals.

'Portables' do not have that filter and will be recalled to add it.
They will then have a FLARM RF circuit equivalent to the one on the 'Bricks'


PCAS/ADS-B receiver:
Both 'Portable' and 'Brick' seem to show a reduced range in some installations.
This is not a circuit issue as the same circuit is capable of receiving ADS-B signals from 20+ miles away, even in the installations that currently show PCAS range issues.
Processing PCAS (especially Mode C transponder signals) is pretty tricky. You will find many threads about this on R.A.S and elsewhere (not by us).
We will continue to improve PCAS performance and this can and will be done in software. These performance updates are, of course, free.

FLARM

On Wednesday, October 3, 2012 9:11:50 AM UTC-4, FLARM wrote:

PCAS/ADS-B receiver:

Both 'Portable' and 'Brick' seem to show a reduced range in some installations.

This is not a circuit issue as the same circuit is capable of receiving ADS-B signals from 20+ miles away, even in the installations that currently show PCAS range issues.

Processing PCAS (especially Mode C transponder signals) is pretty tricky. You will find many threads about this on R.A.S and elsewhere (not by us).

We will continue to improve PCAS performance and this can and will be done in software. These performance updates are, of course, free.


Nice to see you here...

The other thing that has really got to be addressed is the PCAS display. I use the 57mm Butterfly. The flarm collision alert screen/audio is acceptable. The PCAS display/audio is terrible. I can't read the differential altitude (too small) and the circle is hard to interpret. While I do not have the display at center/top of my panel (which would help), that's where my ASI and vario go and that's where they stay. I'd rather have estimated range as a number (NM, SM, KM selectable), but whatever it is, it needs to be *much* easier to read.

Thanks for reading...

Evan Ludeman / T8

The other thing that has really got to be addressed is the PCAS display. I use the 57mm Butterfly. The flarm collision alert screen/audio is acceptable. The PCAS display/audio is terrible. I can't read the differential altitude (too small) and the circle is hard to interpret. While I do not have the display at center/top of my panel (which would help), that's where my ASI and vario go and that's where they stay. I'd rather have estimated range as a number (NM, SM, KM selectable), but whatever it is, it needs to be *much* easier to read.



Thanks for reading...



Evan Ludeman / T8

I Agree with the above, Also would like to see it display the transponder code that is being transmitted as well so I can tell if it the other glider squawking 1202, or a VFR aircraft squawking 1200 or and airliner squawking 0214 that I am seeing on the display. Otherwise I might assume I am seeing the other glider that I know where he is instead of the Airline passing through.

Brian

On Wednesday, October 3, 2012 9:29:26 AM UTC-4, Evan Ludeman wrote:
On Wednesday, October 3, 2012 9:11:50 AM UTC-4, FLARM wrote: PCAS/ADS-B receiver: Both 'Portable' and 'Brick' seem to show a reduced range in some installations. This is not a circuit issue as the same circuit is capable of receiving ADS-B signals from 20+ miles away, even in the installations that currently show PCAS range issues. Processing PCAS (especially Mode C transponder signals) is pretty tricky. You will find many threads about this on R.A.S and elsewhere (not by us). We will continue to improve PCAS performance and this can and will be done in software. These performance updates are, of course, free. Nice to see you here... The other thing that has really got to be addressed is the PCAS display. I use the 57mm Butterfly. The flarm collision alert screen/audio is acceptable. The PCAS display/audio is terrible. I can't read the differential altitude (too small) and the circle is hard to interpret. While I do not have the display at center/top of my panel (which would help), that's where my ASI and vario go and that's where they stay. I'd rather have estimated range as a number (NM, SM, KM selectable), but whatever it is, it needs to be *much* easier to read. Thanks for reading... Evan Ludeman / T8

I guess I'll gang up here a bit. I removed the 57mm display abd out it on the shelf because the information numerically displayed is too small for my 60+ year old eyes. The display on ClearNav of this information is much more usable to me.
Another voice heard from.
UH