On Saturday, September 15, 2012 11:44:25 PM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
After flying for few month with Powerflarm brick, I can say that while the flarm functionality works great, the PCAS performance is poor. I have yet to see an ADS-B target so cant comment on that. I am flying with both my trusty old Zaon MRX and Powerflarm and can say that the MRX consistently outperform the Powerflarm PCAS by a big margin. They both perform equally well at distance of up to 1 mile. However Powerflarm hardly ever recognize traffic more than 1 mile away, while the MRX consistantly detects up to 5 miles away. Today for example I flew the whole day with a group of 5 gliders relatively close together. My MRX gave me warning almost all the time, while my Powerflarm PCAS was quiet most of the time. It basically only gave alerts when we were circling together, in other words, it does not give alert on time to avoid head on traffic. I usually see the traffic way before I get an alert from Powerflarm. At this point I consider the PCAS functionality as completely inadequate. And yes, I already tried 3 different antenna locations with similar results, so I doubt it is my antenna location. Perhaps my unit has a defect. As such, I would like to hear from other pilots who fly with both MRX and Powerflarm what is their impression of the PCAS functionality. Also am hoping to hear from Powerflarm USA if they are aware of this issue and plan to address it, otherwise I would recommend pilots to use both MRX and Powerflarm if they want Mode C protection.



Ramy

My powerflarm is configured for max range both for PCAS and ADS-B. I am pretty sure it is not an issue with antenna location since both antennas are in the same area in the nose (1 feet appart, no carbon) and the flarm reception is excellent. From replies so far it seems like some have range problems and some not. Perhaps it is an issue of brick vs portable? Or an issue with some units?
Below is a snippet from my config:

# Set vertical ADS-B range in meters.
# For gliders, a vertical range of +-1000m is recommended
$pflac,s,adsbvrange,1000
$pflac,s,adsbrange,9000

################################################## ######################
# Set PCAS horizontal and vertical range in meters.
# horizontal range: max: 9000m For gliders recommended: 9000m
# vertical range: For gliders recommended: 500m
################################################## ######################
$pflac,s,pcasrange,9000
$pflac,s,pcasvrange,1000


Ramy