PowerFLarm expected range

So I've got my new PowerFlarm brick installed and I'd guess that it was losing the other PowerFlarm in the area when the distance between us was between 2 to 2.5 miles. Obviously this is good for collision avoidance, but I was kind of hoping for more range. The other pilot reported similar range. Is 2 ish miles what we can expect or are there more secret settings or things that can be done to perhaps see beyond that range?

I was seeing up to 10 miles (more commonly around 6)in Uvalde with my Brick - I suggest you take a look at your antenna placement, you should be getting much better than 2 miles.

Hmmm, that's what I was thinking. I carefully followed the instructions - separation of the antennas and separation from the GPS. My Flarm antenna is very close to the aft edge of the glare shield, vertical, not touching, cable not routed near the dipoles, everything that was mentioned in the antenna supplement. I coiled up the extra antenna cable, maybe that's an issue? Sure would be nice to have some sort of quantitative measurement available so one could tweak without guessing.

you should be getting much better than 2 miles.

One other point: The "other guy" you're testing against also needs to
have a good antenna placement, for you to see him/her from a long ways
off. You might inquire with that person about their setup...

--Noel
(who consistently sees PowerFLARM targets at 4-8 miles, with a
fiberglass-fuselage DG-300 and good antenna placement)

I scanned the manuals but didn't really see what I was looking for (no real shocker there). Perhaps someone else has better answers to a couple of questions.

1. If you have selected the 1 mile range screen is the 1 mile range from the center of the circle to the outer circle or is it 1 mile from the center to the inner circle?

2. If I was on the 1 mile range screen (can't remember now what screen I was on last weekend) and the range to the target I'm looking at is somewhere over 2 miles does the screen revert back to the Butterly page? Perhaps this was the issue... I just needed to go to the 6 mile range screen and perhaps I would have been able to see the other Flarm at a farther distance?

3. Any idea how often the FlarmNet file is updated? I loaded my info about this time last week and when I look at the FlarmNet file the last line in the file begins with 10DEF. It's been this way since I started looking to see if my update might be included. Looking at the file each line should start with an incrementally larger hex value. If this is correct then I wonder when it might get updated.

Thanks...

On Thursday, August 30, 2012 6:43:18 AM UTC-7, (unknown) wrote:

1. If you have selected the 1 mile range screen is the 1 mile range from the center of the circle to the outer circle or is it 1 mile from the center to the inner circle?


Take a look at page 10 of the Butterfly display user manual. The illustrations show 8Y at 5.41 km and paint the target between the inner and outer range rings with range set to 6.

Andy GY

yesterday, I was able to see a buddy's Flarm 5nm away.
I have a brick, my buddy has a portable.
I did not check if he saw me.

I have a carbon fuselage, so even with best possible antenna placement high on the glareshield, I expect dead zones to the low front, below and low back.
3U