On Jul 24, 6:47*am, cfinn wrote:
I agree the NavWorx is a good indicator of things to come. There's
another product that's out as an ADSB IN only UAT reciever that's
small and ties into an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. The receiver is
$1,200. The software is free for 30 days and $39/year. True, it's not
a soaring package, but it looks like a good aviation package. Here's a
link:http://www.skyscope.net/skyscope-rec...-overview.html.
I don't know anything about it except what I've read.

One way to interface the UAT In information to the current soaring
devices may be to write a device driver to translate the ADSB data
stream to the Flarm data stream. I've written several device drivers
for PC's nd several Windows CE/Mobile programs. However, I've never
written drivers for Windows Mobile. Maybe it's not as easy as I think.

Charlie

The SkyRadar receiver requires an ADS-B transmitter for its UAT
receiver to work properly for traffic (e.g. to receive TIS-B and ADS-
R). It is one of the venodors which started emphasizing more the
weather reception capability over FIS-B (which does not require you
have a ADS-B transmitter). The SkyRadar is one of the more interesting
of several UAT receivers for GA applications. I like the iPAD
integration for FIS-B for example. I'm aware of an author for a GA
aviation magazine evaluating the SkyRadar and I'm interested in how he
will find the unit and hope he does a write up on it.

To do some actual comparisons for use in gliders...

This SkyRadar receiver lists at $1,200 but has a current promotion
running that reduces that $120. It specs at drawing about 0.4 A. You
need to add an iPhone/iPod Touch or iPad or a Mountain Scope display
today. As there is no current stand-along UAT transmitter the likely
path to having this in a usable traffic display systems would be
something like a Trig TT-21 with 1090ES data-out. I expect many glider
pilots would prefer the more expensive but more glider-oriented
PowerFLARM at ($1,495 into price in the USA and $1,695 list).

So for comparison with what the SkyRadar does not offer: PowerFLARM
has a buit-in display, offers serial FLARM protocol support for
display on PDAs etc., glider tuned collision warnings, FLARM-to-FLARM
radio protocol, built-in audible traffic warnins, PCAS transponder
detection, IGC logger up through diamond badge, the option to power
off internal batteries. However the PowerFLARM will not receive FIS-B,
and won't have TIS-B support until a software update. So that all is
not intended to bash the SkyRadar but to show a comparison to products
for use in the glider cockpit.

The comment of doing a protocol translating device driver could be
capable of addressing some of this display compatibility issue. But in
some cases there still needs to be a NMEA stream to drive the PDA
soaring software or flight computer etc.

The commonly used Garmin TIS serial port display protocol does not
know anything about GPS data since the old Mode S TIS at its core just
transmits relative positions from your aircraft to the threat
aircraft. Many devices use the Garmin TIS protocol or a variant for
traffic data, but some may be quite different.

There may be an issue of running out of serial ports in some PDA/PNA
installations if you require separate serial ports for traffic data
and NMEA. You could build an outboard hardware box that combines the
functions of serial port merging and protocol translation (and I am
aware of one person who may well be playing with building their own
such box for a similar application). The other issue is the way FLARM
works is the the Flarm or PowerFLARM box does the threat assesment and
uses glider-optimized algorithms to detect possible collisions and
issue warnings. That's likely critically important in avoding a large
number of false positive warnings in gaggles and other situations. So
just to point out there is likely more work required to do this well
than just adding a traffic display.

Darryl