Mike,

At lunch someone made me aware of a $1500 UAT, the ADS600 made by
NavWorx ( http://www.navworx.com/ads600.html ). It's still a current
hog (570 mA) and big (6" x 6" x 2"), and it isn't TSOed, but the price
is getting right.

If I remember correctly, the Mitre unit is still in the demo stage. I
agree that the cost, size and battery friendly nature of Mitre unit
are great, better than the NavWorx.

I also agree that Flarm missed the boat. They worried about the
potential of US lawsuits so long that Zaon and manufacturers of Modes
S transponders with built-in altitude encoders and extended squitters
have made them irrelevant to the US market.

-John

On Jul 23, 12:42 pm, "Mike Schumann" mike-nos...@traditions-
nospam.com wrote:
The only ADS-B UAT box currently on the market is the Garmin unit, which is
10 year old technology. This is clearly not appropriate or cost effective
for gliders.

You need to look at the low cost units that have been developed by MITRE.
The parts cost of their transceiver is ~$400. It's basically the same
hardware as what is in FLARM, but ADS-B compatible. The unit is about the
size of a cigarette pack, and runs for 5-6 hours on a built-in LI-ION
battery. Their ADS-B out only transmitter runs on 4 AA batteries for 24 hrs
and has a parts cost of ~$150. The power consumption of both of these units
is much lower than modern Mode C transponders. The big challenge is to get
these units certified by the FAA so they can be commercialized. I am
confident that this will happen.

As far as FLARM compatibility, in the US this is completely irrelevant.
FLARM does not exist here. I find it highly questionable that anyone who
has looked at this issue closely will make an investment in this technology
here.