Racing

Gregg,

Cool find. It's amazing how far ahead hang and paragliding is than sailplanes. This is acactly what we need. I'll look into it. Of course the display website is key. I'll look into this too.

On Saturday, August 13, 2016 at 9:13:20 AM UTC-4, Sean wrote:
Dan send me something on what to buy/test, etc.

wilco.

On Saturday, 13 August 2016 07:13:20 UTC-6, Sean wrote:
Dan send me something on what to buy/test, etc.

Sean, I sent you a private email a week or so ago about www.airtribune.com

Uses standard phones.

Ron

The beauty of solution Dan is advocating is the gliders are already fitted with the required transmitters - Flarm.

Flarm to Flarm range is reduced by:
- small antennas
- moving antennas

By making the OGN receivers fixed installation and using large antennas tuned to Flarms frequencies they can use very weak signals resulting in great range.

More info: http://wiki.glidernet.org

To watch the system in operation (predominately Europe): http://live.glidernet.org/#c=54.14305,10.73583&z=4

Our club is looking at installing receivers around our "playground" for tracking club and visiting gliders. Asset tracking, safety monitoring, race following!

At 17:14 13 August 2016, wrote:
The beauty of solution Dan is advocating is the gliders are already
fitted
with the required transmitters - Flarm.

Flarm to Flarm range is reduced by:
- small antennas
- moving antennas

By making the OGN receivers fixed installation and using large antennas
tuned to Flarms frequencies they can use very weak signals resulting in
great range.

More info: http://wiki.glidernet.org

To watch the system in operation (predominately Europe):
http://live.glidernet.org/#c=54.14305,10.73583&z=4

Our club is looking at installing receivers around our "playground" for
tracking club and visiting gliders. Asset tracking, safety monitoring,
race
following!

At the recent Lasham Glide competition there were 66 competitors and all
bar one carried Flarm. Flarm will become universal in time and it is easy
to use as a live tracker.

Recently watched Olympic Dressage. The commentators were able to reveal the
scores as the tests were actually being ridden. This greatly increased the
interest in that rather boring sport.

The SGP that was run in France had great live commentary that complimented
the real time tracks well. By bringing the low cost Flarm tracking together
with informed commentary we could actually make our wonderful sport
interesting to a wider audience.

Check out http://bicester.onglide.com it's fully tracked via Flarm.

I'm going to work on opensourcing the software this winter - tracking bit is easy but the rest of the competition management is a bit harder. As to adding commentary it's not difficult except perhaps finding somebody to do it!

Mel

Well I for my part will be damned if I wer visible on OGN. I have the "no track" option on my Flarm, and once I see it disregarded, I'll switch it off..

I carry a SPOT to be localized after a crash, but that tells your position on a map without altitude every 10 minutes.

OGN has you tracked every couple of seconds with altitude, and that's Big Brother.... Where I fly, people have been fined for entering national parks based on OGN (and there are some national parks which you can't avoid to enter if you want to do serious x-country).

For a localized event, it sure is a nice thing, but I just wouldn't trust these OGN folks (who exactly are they?) to tale me off after the contest.

Bert
Ventus cM "TW"

Home made, raspberry pi stuff makes me a little leery at this point. That said the lag involved in (especially spot) sat trackers is a concern when doing live commentary. I imagine a Flarm based solution would have the least lag as it is direct (not relying on a server to calculate & display relative position). That said, the quality and range of Flarm antenna installations especially at long range gives me some concern.

I like a multi-channel approach at this point. I would probably require mobile, InReach (most reliable I have seen to date) and of course Flarm. I do not care about requiring the competitors to own InReach. They should anyway as Spot is almost worthless and most crashes that would injure you will like disable the spot device, meaning your location is up to 10 minutes old (this could be ten miles away from your last position). With InReach that position is only 30 seconds or less old. In addition the benefits for the sport and the viewing with more reliable tracking is proceless, especially in a Grand Prix.

As reliability changes this policy would change, but for now InReach is the only truly reliable solution.

Sean

OGN allows you to opt out for tracking; you can still do a SAR request if someone who has registered doesn't come back (positions are only kept for 24 hrs). You can also get a range analysis to see if your FLARM range is acceptable to you.

If you have put no-track in your flarmcfg.txt file, you won't be visible on OGN.

The point, however, is that there is a desire to expose more of the public to the thrill of the race, particularly at Sailplane Grand Prix, in a way that can be followed. OGN is an option. When you register, you select whether you wish to be tracked, and the ID used; this can be changed.

InReach is quite expensive in some countries outside the US, which is a problem (so is SPOT).

I have 4 GPS in my glider - phone, oudie, CNv, FLARM. I don't think I have cross-talk, but I don't want another put in at a contest where I'd be distracted if it messed up a functioning cockpit.

I'm an OGN fan. Keeps the crew informed; can be used for SAR; cheap; not impossible for a techno-bozo (me).

If you don't want it, don't use it.

Dan

Dan-

You suggested 2 OGN receivers "N and S of the task area." What sort of reception range are you anticipating? Most of the SGP races I have seen (excepting Ionia) are in the (many) hundreds of kilometers, often in the mountains or other inhospitable terrain. Could be a problem in the western US.