A aviation & planes forum. AviationBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » AviationBanter forum » rec.aviation newsgroups » Soaring
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

SSA Sailplane Tracker



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #21  
Old September 24th 20, 03:32 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Dan Marotta
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,601
Default SSA Sailplane Tracker

I'm trying to understand this:

Spot and InReach are both tracked by satellites, right?Â* So how is it an
improvement to have OGN, which relies on local receivers and antennae,
to receive those two trackers?Â* There will certainly not be OGN nodes
set up across the Great Basin in sufficient quantity to keep track of
gliders operating there.Â* Heck, even around Moriarty, one must fly in
covered areas to be assured of being tracked by OGN assuming he's got
Flarm installed.Â* There are enough gliders here without Flarm to assume
that they're carrying one of the tracking devices...

On 9/24/2020 5:58 AM, John Godfrey (QT) wrote:
On Sunday, September 20, 2020 at 1:31:51 PM UTC-4, Nick Kennedy wrote:
Ramy
What is the advantage of OGN if you have a InReach or Spot Tracker thats tied into Glideport and whoever else you want to link to?
Nick
T

I have been told by an informed and reliable source that OGN is on the cusp of releasing an upgrade that will enable SPOT and InReach data to be tracked. Unsure of exact timeframe but this could solve a lot of issues.


--
Dan, 5J
  #22  
Old September 24th 20, 04:09 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Steve Koerner
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 430
Default SSA Sailplane Tracker

The beauty of ADS-B and OGN coverage is the high bandwidth coverage compared to the 10 minute or so intervals employed by Spot and InReach. I do hope that the OGN folks follow through with that unified coverage plan. Importantly, I hope they also will incorporate ADS-b in that plan. I had a recent long flight over some very remote areas of northern Arizona and New Mexico and had continuous ADS-b highly detailed coverage the entire day excepting while low on initial climb out at Springerville and while low coming back to land at St Johns airport. That ADS-b coverage is now already there - there's no need to dot the wilderness with OGN receivers. ADS-b out in gliders is the new norm now; it's a pretty powerful safety feature. The long transmit intervals associated with satellite trackers are great to complement the low altitude drop-outs that happen with any ground antenna based OGN and ADS-b system. An integrated system with all modes working together is really highly desirable.
  #23  
Old September 24th 20, 05:14 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Dan Marotta
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,601
Default SSA Sailplane Tracker

Great answer, thanks!

All of my aircraft have ADS-B Out and In.Â* I can look at the flight
tracks of any of them on flightaware or flightradar24.

On 9/24/2020 9:09 AM, Steve Koerner wrote:
The beauty of ADS-B and OGN coverage is the high bandwidth coverage compared to the 10 minute or so intervals employed by Spot and InReach. I do hope that the OGN folks follow through with that unified coverage plan. Importantly, I hope they also will incorporate ADS-b in that plan. I had a recent long flight over some very remote areas of northern Arizona and New Mexico and had continuous ADS-b highly detailed coverage the entire day excepting while low on initial climb out at Springerville and while low coming back to land at St Johns airport. That ADS-b coverage is now already there - there's no need to dot the wilderness with OGN receivers. ADS-b out in gliders is the new norm now; it's a pretty powerful safety feature. The long transmit intervals associated with satellite trackers are great to complement the low altitude drop-outs that happen with any ground antenna based OGN and ADS-b system. An integrated system with all modes working together is really highly desirable.


--
Dan, 5J

  #24  
Old September 24th 20, 05:49 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Steve Koerner
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 430
Default SSA Sailplane Tracker

Rereading what I wrote, the second to last sentence doesn't say what I really meant. I should have said:

It's the low altitude reliability of satellite trackers that makes them the perfect compliment to the high bandwidth of OGN and ADS-b which will drop out at low altitude and when landed.

There is also one more mode of tracking that can also work at high bandwidth - phone tracking. Like other ground based systems it suffers dropouts (more so than ADS-b in my experience with it). The beauty of the phone tracking app is that it doesn't require expensive avionics. The phone tracking system seems to have lost favor. I'm not sure if it's still supported.
  #25  
Old September 24th 20, 08:17 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Martin Gregorie[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 699
Default SSA Sailplane Tracker

On Thu, 24 Sep 2020 09:49:32 -0700, Steve Koerner wrote:

There is also one more mode of tracking that can also work at high
bandwidth - phone tracking. Like other ground based systems it suffers
dropouts (more so than ADS-b in my experience with it). The beauty of
the phone tracking app is that it doesn't require expensive avionics.
The phone tracking system seems to have lost favor. I'm not sure if
it's still supported.

Phones don't necessarily provide good coverage everywhe I've sat over
the middle of Huntingdon, a market town 15 miles NW of Cambradge, at
3000-3200 ft and had exactly zero phone signal: The British telcos keep
coverage as near-pancake-shaped as possible because that reduces the
transmitter power bills and anyway they don't seem to think anybody needs
to use a phone above 500ft or so.

I expect its the same in Holland, Belgium and much of France.

Is this also the case in the flatter parts of the USA?


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

  #26  
Old September 24th 20, 09:34 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 465
Default SSA Sailplane Tracker

On Thursday, September 24, 2020 at 3:17:58 PM UTC-4, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Thu, 24 Sep 2020 09:49:32 -0700, Steve Koerner wrote:

There is also one more mode of tracking that can also work at high
bandwidth - phone tracking. Like other ground based systems it suffers
dropouts (more so than ADS-b in my experience with it). The beauty of
the phone tracking app is that it doesn't require expensive avionics.
The phone tracking system seems to have lost favor. I'm not sure if
it's still supported.

Phones don't necessarily provide good coverage everywhe I've sat over
the middle of Huntingdon, a market town 15 miles NW of Cambradge, at
3000-3200 ft and had exactly zero phone signal: The British telcos keep
coverage as near-pancake-shaped as possible because that reduces the
transmitter power bills and anyway they don't seem to think anybody needs
to use a phone above 500ft or so.

I expect its the same in Holland, Belgium and much of France.

Is this also the case in the flatter parts of the USA?


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org


My recent experience is that yes the phone app (IGCdroid) still works, and reasonably well. If you look later at the flight log as received by Glideport.aero you will usually see the whole flight in detail, same as looking at the IGC file collected within the phone.

What is invisible (unless you watch the flight in real time on Glideport) is that the cell reception drops in and out. The acummulated data is sent once reception is restored. To see the dropouts I have used a macro text editor on the IGC files to leave only the last B record before each "LPLT::SND" line which denotes the app sending a data packet. The resulting IGC-like file can be looked at in software such as SeeYou and then you can see which areas did not have cell coverage in the air. I find that they are approximately repeated if you fly the same route again. And they differ when you fly in opposite directions along the same route (may be related to pilot's body blocking the signal in a certain direction).

Generally the dropouts are on the order of 10-15 minutes, but sometimes longer, up to an hour, in our area (VT-NH, wooded, hilly, somewhat populated relative to Nevada, with the population often complaining about spotty cell coverage). It's possible I'd get better coverage if I'd put the cellphone in a better location in the cockpit, I've had it several inches behind my back. (No carbon fiber in my glider.)

It's a lot of fun for spectating, and costs almost nothing, only requires a phone with data plan, not FLARM nor a transponder nor satellite-based devices (other than the phone's GPS reception). But for search and rescue the utility would be limited, since the last data packet may be sent many minutes, even an hour, before the crash or landout, as cell service is fairly likely to be lost once on the ground. I also carry a PLB, but would need to be able to activate it after the crash. Thus an OGN network, logging FLARM signals, if it were set up in our area (there is none so far), would be a useful complement.
  #27  
Old September 25th 20, 08:03 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Jeff[_12_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 15
Default SSA Sailplane Tracker

How to find an iPhone app similar to the app for Android phones, to work with Gliderport.aero?
  #28  
Old September 25th 20, 01:32 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
John Godfrey (QT)[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 321
Default SSA Sailplane Tracker

On Thursday, September 24, 2020 at 10:32:58 AM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
I'm trying to understand this:

Spot and InReach are both tracked by satellites, right?Â* So how is it an
improvement to have OGN, which relies on local receivers and antennae,
to receive those two trackers?Â* There will certainly not be OGN nodes
set up across the Great Basin in sufficient quantity to keep track of
gliders operating there.Â* Heck, even around Moriarty, one must fly in
covered areas to be assured of being tracked by OGN assuming he's got
Flarm installed.Â* There are enough gliders here without Flarm to assume
that they're carrying one of the tracking devices...

On 9/24/2020 5:58 AM, John Godfrey (QT) wrote:
On Sunday, September 20, 2020 at 1:31:51 PM UTC-4, Nick Kennedy wrote:
Ramy
What is the advantage of OGN if you have a InReach or Spot Tracker thats tied into Glideport and whoever else you want to link to?
Nick
T

I have been told by an informed and reliable source that OGN is on the cusp of releasing an upgrade that will enable SPOT and InReach data to be tracked. Unsure of exact timeframe but this could solve a lot of issues.


--
Dan, 5J


Dan,
That is not how it will work. Just as the SSA tracker gets it data through feeds from the Garmin and Spot websites, so will OGN. There is no concept of needing a ground station that listens to the raw Spot, Garmin or Iridium transmissions.
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
SSA Sailplane Tracker Nick Kennedy Soaring 2 August 17th 14 12:46 AM
GliderPort/Sailplane Tracker instructions (for contest staff)? noel.wade Soaring 1 July 1st 13 03:20 AM
Sailplane Tracker oddness/bug (15-m and Open Nats) noel.wade Soaring 10 June 27th 13 10:57 PM
SSA Sailplane Tracker problem Grider Pirate Soaring 7 April 11th 10 02:22 PM
SSA Creates National Sailplane Tracker List - Free to SSA Members Frank[_12_] Soaring 16 October 11th 09 05:42 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 11:46 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 AviationBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.