Surecheck TrafficScope Pirep?

I did fly with one and had one. The Monroy would give traffic alerts
of almost every airliner flying thousands of feet above me, and others
that passed well below me. It was clear to me very quickly that the
claim of "within 1500 feet" was just not the case. It sounds like you
like that unit, but my opinion is that it was just more of an
annoyance than useful because aircraft well above me or below me (or
even some that never existed at all!) would set it off, where as I
have never had that problem with this traffic scope. I think knowing
the altitude of the other plane is the biggest key. As an example, I
was flying 2 days ago when my traffic scope started showing range
decreasing rapidly and his altitude 200 feet above me, at .6 miles I
STILL did not see him so I just descended 300 feet. about 2 seconds
later the Baron passed above me by 500 feet in exact opposite
direction. With the Monroy I would not have known what to do but
panic. I guess it comes down to personal preference and budget,
because there are still some who do prefer the ADF / VOR as opposed to
upgrading to GPS, in fact I was one for 6 years!!


Thomas Borchert wrote in message ...
BHelman,

The
Monroy doesn't account for altitude, so when you have a 737 flying
overhead thousands of feet up the Monroy would be screaming bloody
murder.


Clearly, you haven't flown with the unit. This statement couldn't be
more wrong. The antenna characteristics are such that traffic being
more than 1500 or 2000 feet different in altitude will not be
annunciated. Altitude has NEVER be a problem for us in actual
operation. Whenever you get a warning for traffic close enough to be
visible, when scanning outside in a sensible range, you'll spot that
traffic, on our experience. Thus, I have looked at the vrx with
interest from a gadget freak standpoint, but I don't think the altitude
sensing would be worth that much money to me. I would, however, love to
see the vr in action.

BHelman,

The Monroy would give traffic alerts
of almost every airliner flying thousands of feet above me, and others
that passed well below me.


Hmm. Simply doesn't happen with ours. Do you have the feeling that,
apart from the altitude feature, the general detection is more reliable
with the "new-gen" Surecheck unit? IOW, would you think that even
without the altitude indication, the vr would be a better unit than the
Monroy?

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

(BHelman) wrote in
om:

I did fly with one and had one. The Monroy would give traffic alerts
of almost every airliner flying thousands of feet above me, and others
that passed well below me. It was clear to me very quickly that the
claim of "within 1500 feet" was just not the case. It sounds like you
like that unit, but my opinion is that it was just more of an
annoyance than useful because aircraft well above me or below me (or
even some that never existed at all!) would set it off, ...

There is a lot of confusion about the Monroy unit, part of the confusion
frankly sponsored by the Monroy web site and advertising.

What's in it: Not bloody much. Just a simple RF power detector (a
simple receiver with RSSI output). The rest is literally just bells and
whistles - a simple processor to work the lights and voice and make some
fairly clever decisions.

How it works: The data stream itself isn't even available, much less
looked at. The processor just looks at the received power level and
guesses at the range. What it *does do* that is really kind of clever
is look at the LENGTH of the power burst to determine what the
transmission is. Short is a Mode-A/C. Longer is Mode-S. Too short or
too long is noise.

That's it. Nothing else. The "cylinder or protection" that is shown in
advertising is nothing but the limits of the sensitivity of the
receiver, coupled with the simple physics for the radiation pattern of a
monopole antenna. [Which, as you observed, is highly distorted by many
factors.]

Having said all that, I do fly with mine. Yes, some days it is a royal
pain with almost constant false alarms. But where it *is* useful is in
those parts of Texas where you haven't been within 100 nm of another
plane for the last 3 hours. It's real hard to keep as active an outside
scan under those conditions as you think you do. The Monroy is a good
"wake up" backup system.

False alarms: There are many places within short range of my home
airport that will ALWAYS set the Monroy off. Rows of chicken coops seem
to do it. Lots of little microwave telemetry sites on the ground will
do it - the bigger higher power ones don't seem to. Areas of poor radar
coverage will often cause your own transponder to set it off - not sure
why.

And then sometimes it is just a cause best left to Mulder and Scully.
No known cause. [With practice, you *do* seem to get a little better at
noticing certain false alarm "patterns" that help keep you from getting
so concerned about that "traffic" that you just can't see.]

For the money, it is an amusing little device, and just might actually
save someone some day. It is just sad that the FAA has had ADS-B
capability available for almost 20 years and not promoting it any
harder.

-----------------------------------------------
James M. Knox
TriSoft ph 512-385-0316
1109-A Shady Lane fax 512-366-4331
Austin, Tx 78721
-----------------------------------------------

"Thomas Borchert" wrote in message
...

Clearly, you haven't flown with the unit. This statement couldn't be
more wrong. The antenna characteristics are such that traffic being
more than 1500 or 2000 feet different in altitude will not be
annunciated. Altitude has NEVER be a problem for us in actual
operation.

It *has* to be affected by the limits imposed by positioning in the
particular aircraft, internal antenna vs external, etc.

My experience varies with yours. I get alerts often from flight level
traffic I never see, and I get some alerts from same altitude traffic so
late it worries me.

Marco,

Don't have feedback but i noticed they delayed delivery multiple
times.

A new higher performance system will be available soon at a nearly
same
price of the VRX unit which will display simultaneously 3 threat
aircraft information including the aircraft SQUWAK. This new device
will also integrate an altitude alerter.

Everything is packaged in a small box consuming only 1 watt compared
to 5 watts minimum for the Trafficscope system.

Feel free to contact me should you need more info.

Regards,

Thierry

"Marco Leon" mleon(at)optonline.net wrote in message ...
I cancelled my previous order for their TPAS 100 after I heard the terrible
reviews from the newsgroups and some aviation publications. Through a Google
search I was only able to find one guy's [really short] review which was
positive.

Anyone care to share what they heard or experienced with the TrafficScope?

Marco



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Hello,

A new higher performance unit will be available from end of
October.(R5)

Price will compare to the TrafficScope VRX unit for functionalities
close
to the Ryan 8800 which sells at 6500 USD.

It will display SIMULTANEOUSLY up to 3 threat aircrafts information
including
SQUWAK (not provided by the trafficscope unit), altitude (absolute MSL
or relative to your altitude) and estimated distance.
Horizontal range is programmable up to 10 Nm and vertical up to
Unlimited.

The unit works airborne or on the ground to monitor traffic around.
It's amazing to actually see a commercial jet above and watch its
squawk, altitude and distance displayed on the unit.

Our unit consumes only 1 watt compared to 5 to 12 watts for the other.

We integrated in the same box an altitude alerter to track your cruise
altitude. FREE

To be completely fair you should know that I own the new company who
developped this system.

Those who are interested could contact me at

Regards,

Terry

ProXalert is a trademark.
TrafficScope is a trademark of Surecheck (c)


ps: Have a look at www.proxalert.com (Prototype site under
construction ...)

"Marco Leon" mleon(at)optonline.net wrote in message ...
Thanks. The consensus is that the Monroy was better than the Surecheck TPAS.
I wouls be curious to see if the Monroy still holds up to the Traffic Scope.
Be sure to post a review if you ever get a chance to fly with the new
SureCheck box.

Marco

"Thomas Borchert" wrote in message
...
Marco,

We have the Monroy ATD200 in our Tobago - works great! However, the new
generation Surecheck units (something vr) look interesting.
--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)




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The
Monroy doesn't account for altitude, so when you have a 737 flying
overhead thousands of feet up the Monroy would be screaming bloody
murder. I think they mention altitude on their web, but in talking to
them and using it, they try to rely on somehow the signal being
blocked to give only aircraft within an altitude band. I never saw
this "blockage" take place.

Hi All:

The ATD-200, when working properly, should account for altitude. But we had
this problem too.

We've been flying an ATD-200 since just before 9/11. (Good timing, huh.)

For the first two years, we had the same squawk some in this thread are having
- that the unit showed no altitude discrimination. We fly out of a satellite
airport near Phoenix, and on flights that paralleled Phx approach/departure
corridors, the ATD would continually cry "Wolf" to the point of being virtually
useless. (We set it to alarm in the "Near" mode, so it should only squawk if a
target is within a mile or two.) It would constantly squawk air transports
that were clearly five or six thousand feet higher than us. That fosters a bad
psychological habit. You begin to "tune out" the warning, since you know
you'll never spot the traffic.

It wasn't clear what it was squawking until a flight on a dark night over no
man's land, where only air transports dare to fly and you can more easily see
who's around. I talked to Jose' about this, and he said the unit was supposed
to look for the LSB (Least Significant Bit) info in a target's Mode C altitude
info, and only show threats within 2500' of our Mode C report. Clearly, the
unit wasn't doing this.

So I sent the unit to Jose' for bench checking. Turn around was quick (like,
one day), no charge (except for shipping to him) and when it came back, it was
like a whole different unit. It definitely is discriminating in altitude now,
and when the ATD squawks, you'd better be looking, because there is
***definitely*** someone out there within eyeshot.

For those whose units are alerting on every aircraft out there, you might wish
to call Jose' about having the unit revised to the latest mod level. He has a
generous warranty, and you're probably still covered.

Hope this helps,

Mike Palmer
Excellence in Ergonomics

(MikeremlaP) wrote in
:

The ATD-200, when working properly, should account for altitude. But
we had this problem too....
So I sent the unit to Jose' for bench checking. Turn around was quick
...It definitely is
discriminating in altitude now, and when the ATD squawks, you'd better
be looking, because there is ***definitely*** someone out there within
eyeshot.

There is nothing in the ATD-200 to "account" for altitude. It does not
even have the capability to decode the transponder signal, so it knows
neither your altitude nor that of any other signal it receives.

What was "done" at the shop was to simply turn down the gain, so that it
is no longer as sensitive as it was. Your unit now won't see signals
from as far away, both vertical and horizontal. [Which is why, as you
say, it is less prone to false alarms also.]

Notice sometime that if you turn off Mode-C on your own transponder, it
makes NO DIFFERENCE to the ATD (except in those cases where it is
warning of a reflection of your own signal anyway). It does not know,
or care, about either your altitude or the altitude of any traffic.

Having said all that, please understand that I am NOT recommending
against the unit. It does what it is capable of, fairly well, and at a
moderate price. Yes, it will sometimes warn of things like chicken
coops on the ground, and it will sometimes warn of jets 20K above, and
it will sometimes NOT warn of nearby aircraft until after they have
passed (an external antenna will help with that problem). But it will
also usually warn of the guy you didn't know was there and hence weren't
really looking for.

And as they say, one mid-air collision can ruin your whole day.

jmk

-----------------------------------------------
James M. Knox
TriSoft ph 512-385-0316
1109-A Shady Lane fax 512-366-4331
Austin, Tx 78721
-----------------------------------------------

Howdy:

There is nothing in the ATD-200 to "account" for altitude. It does not
even have the capability to decode the transponder signal, so it knows
neither your altitude nor that of any other signal it receives.

I haven't taken ours apart, but I've heard the same from another guy who took
his apart - no detector, correct?

Nevertheless, here's what Jose' wrote me last year -
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hi Mike

The ATD-200 uses two schemes for altitude discrimination: signal aperture
ratio and Mode C LSB comparison. The signal aperture ratio is the dominant
factor for traffic with no Mode C.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If I understand him correctly (from this and other correspondence) he IS
somehow detecting altitude info and the unit is supposed to ignore hits
above/below 2500' of your altitude.

I noticed after our unit came back from being revised that the SUPR LED often
lights up a lot in the Phoenix area, but no Traffic Alert. I took that to mean
the unit was picking up the Air Transports as it used to, but now "suppressing"
their Traffic Alert since they were out of bounds based on Mode C info.

I can try your test and test my theory by turning off our Mode C and seeing if
suddenly I start getting Traffic Alerts on everyone.

Hope this helps,

Mike Palmer
Excellence in Ergonomics

MikeremlaP,

the SUPR LED often
lights up a lot in the Phoenix area,


Hmm. The SUPR light comes on with signals from your own aircraft. Could
it be that your DME has contact to a ground station in the PHX area and
that's the reason for SUPR? DME and XPDR use similar frequencies, and
the DME will trigger the SUPR light.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)