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#31
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OK, let's get something straight here -- I am the Jon Spencer (and it's Jon,
not John) who wrote that article. I have talked to almost nobody about that article. In fact the only people with whom I have discussed technical details were two people who called me from SureCheck. If you are one of those people, it would have been more honest to identify yourself as such (if not, then I've never had any conversation with you). Furthermore, if you are one of the people from SureCheck, saying you "know" me is disingenuous at best -- I've spoken to you once. Finally, whoever you are, I never said that the SureCheck performed better. It was my opinion that it was so close that it was really a matter of what features were important to you. Paul and I did the testing together, and he said he felt the Monroy had a very slight edge. As we do with any article, we discussed this. I have been writing for many years and I have no qualms about disagreeing with my editor if that seems to be warranted. After bouncing it back and forth, we decided to go with the Monroy by a hair. Let me emphasize that this was not an editor imposing his opinion, it was a discussion between editor and writer, both of whom participated in the testing (in fact, we swapped seats so for part of the testing he flew and I tested, and for part of the testing I flew and he tested), followed by a joint decision. Oh yeah, the "razor's edge" headline and your implication that there was something unethical about the editor writing that -- the editor writes all headlines. That's part of his job. The writer suggests a head, but rarely expects it to be the final one since the headline is related to the rest of the issue as well as the specific article. Now, technically does the editor get the final say on recommendations? Sure, that's his job. The editor gets final say on everything, pretty much on the basis of job description. But a good editor, and Paul is one of the best I've worked for, makes recommendations in concert with his writers rather than imposing them. As for bias, we answer to nobody on our recommendations except for issues of fact, and we are careful as we can be on that. There is no "final editor" other than Paul, and Paul is one of the most doggedly ethical and outspoken people I know. Knowing Paul through some club (assuming that's even true...) would buy you nothing with him when it comes to reviewing your product. He'd be happy to sit down with you over drinks and tell you your product is a piece of crap if that's what he thinks. Frankly, I sincerely hope you are not associated with SureCheck. Accusing Aviation Consumer's editor of bias based on his membership in a club with another business owner is pretty tacky. Jonathan Spencer Aviation Consumer "Loran" wrote in message om... You know, I actually know John Spencer and when I asked him about this article, he let me know that he said the monro 300 did not perform as well as the surecheck vrx. So I asked him why the "razor edge" headline he said he didn't write that, but it is was a guy named paul bertorelli who did that. But paul is also in a mooney club with the guys from the monro company. I thought that was a pretty interesting discovery, considering they are supposed to be unbiased, I wonder just how unbiased their final editors are. (BHelman) wrote in message . com... Which quote they use is subject to a random sample obviously, because they continue on that quote to explain why for capability they pick the Trafficscope. My point is they mention clearly that the price difference is justified by the added capability of the Trafficscope. Like they said, you get what you pay for. Thomas Borchert wrote in message ... BHelman, Did you know that? The issue editor skims through it and randomly picks something to add to a title. I'm a journalist... In this case, the lead-in was a direct quote from the article, saying "We give the Monroy a razor thin edge". While you obviously differ, it should be possible to concede the article says just that - in the one and only passage directly comparing the units. It doesn't say "The Surecheck is way better" or something in that vein, even if you keep claiming it does. It doesn't say "The Monroy is way better" or anything like that, either. But I never claimed that. |
#32
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Thierry --
We didn't contact Proxalert when we started the article because we had never heard of you. Your website did not turn up in the search engine, no distributors mentioned you, and we never saw any ads. When we finally did find your website there was no phone number listed. There was a distributor listed on the site (Eastern Avionics, the only distributor in the US) and we called them immediately. In fact, since we were in southern Florida at the time, we planned to fly down to Eastern Avionics in Punta Gorda, borrow a unit for the day, and include it in the article. I spoke to Eastern personally. At first they didn't even know what I was talking about. Finally they rummaged around in their database and found you. But not only did they not have any units in stock, they also didn't have a phone number for you! So please, don't imply that all your contact information was in place and we simply didn't do our homework. Jonathan Spencer Aviation Consumer "Thierry" wrote in message m... We (proxalert) contacted Aviation consumer on mid february to offer to send a Proxalert R5 for evaluation. They came back 2 weeks after saying it's too late as they were unable to buy a device from a distributor. Our contact info are available since November 2003 but they never contacted us. If you don't see a follow up very soon on the R5 the conclusion will be evident ... (Loran) wrote in message . com... You know, I actually know John Spencer and when I asked him about this article, he let me know that he said the monro 300 did not perform as well as the surecheck vrx. So I asked him why the "razor edge" headline he said he didn't write that, but it is was a guy named paul bertorelli who did that. But paul is also in a mooney club with the guys from the monro company. I thought that was a pretty interesting discovery, considering they are supposed to be unbiased, I wonder just how unbiased their final editors are. (BHelman) wrote in message . com... Which quote they use is subject to a random sample obviously, because they continue on that quote to explain why for capability they pick the Trafficscope. My point is they mention clearly that the price difference is justified by the added capability of the Trafficscope. Like they said, you get what you pay for. Thomas Borchert wrote in message ... BHelman, Did you know that? The issue editor skims through it and randomly picks something to add to a title. I'm a journalist... In this case, the lead-in was a direct quote from the article, saying "We give the Monroy a razor thin edge". While you obviously differ, it should be possible to concede the article says just that - in the one and only passage directly comparing the units. It doesn't say "The Surecheck is way better" or something in that vein, even if you keep claiming it does. It doesn't say "The Monroy is way better" or anything like that, either. But I never claimed that. |
#33
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Hi! This is really Ronald Reagan, and I fully endorse the new Monroy!
The monroy spam keeps getting better and better. What next? Albert Einstein? Maybe Tom Cruise? "Jon S" wrote in message ... OK, let's get something straight here -- I am the Jon Spencer (and it's Jon, not John) who wrote that article. I have talked to almost nobody about that article. In fact the only people with whom I have discussed technical details were two people who called me from SureCheck. If you are one of those people, it would have been more honest to identify yourself as such (if not, then I've never had any conversation with you). Furthermore, if you are one of the people from SureCheck, saying you "know" me is disingenuous at best -- I've spoken to you once. Finally, whoever you are, I never said that the SureCheck performed better. It was my opinion that it was so close that it was really a matter of what features were important to you. Paul and I did the testing together, and he said he felt the Monroy had a very slight edge. As we do with any article, we discussed this. I have been writing for many years and I have no qualms about disagreeing with my editor if that seems to be warranted. After bouncing it back and forth, we decided to go with the Monroy by a hair. Let me emphasize that this was not an editor imposing his opinion, it was a discussion between editor and writer, both of whom participated in the testing (in fact, we swapped seats so for part of the testing he flew and I tested, and for part of the testing I flew and he tested), followed by a joint decision. Oh yeah, the "razor's edge" headline and your implication that there was something unethical about the editor writing that -- the editor writes all headlines. That's part of his job. The writer suggests a head, but rarely expects it to be the final one since the headline is related to the rest of the issue as well as the specific article. Now, technically does the editor get the final say on recommendations? Sure, that's his job. The editor gets final say on everything, pretty much on the basis of job description. But a good editor, and Paul is one of the best I've worked for, makes recommendations in concert with his writers rather than imposing them. As for bias, we answer to nobody on our recommendations except for issues of fact, and we are careful as we can be on that. There is no "final editor" other than Paul, and Paul is one of the most doggedly ethical and outspoken people I know. Knowing Paul through some club (assuming that's even true...) would buy you nothing with him when it comes to reviewing your product. He'd be happy to sit down with you over drinks and tell you your product is a piece of crap if that's what he thinks. Frankly, I sincerely hope you are not associated with SureCheck. Accusing Aviation Consumer's editor of bias based on his membership in a club with another business owner is pretty tacky. Jonathan Spencer Aviation Consumer "Loran" wrote in message om... You know, I actually know John Spencer and when I asked him about this article, he let me know that he said the monro 300 did not perform as well as the surecheck vrx. So I asked him why the "razor edge" headline he said he didn't write that, but it is was a guy named paul bertorelli who did that. But paul is also in a mooney club with the guys from the monro company. I thought that was a pretty interesting discovery, considering they are supposed to be unbiased, I wonder just how unbiased their final editors are. (BHelman) wrote in message . com... Which quote they use is subject to a random sample obviously, because they continue on that quote to explain why for capability they pick the Trafficscope. My point is they mention clearly that the price difference is justified by the added capability of the Trafficscope. Like they said, you get what you pay for. Thomas Borchert wrote in message ... BHelman, Did you know that? The issue editor skims through it and randomly picks something to add to a title. I'm a journalist... In this case, the lead-in was a direct quote from the article, saying "We give the Monroy a razor thin edge". While you obviously differ, it should be possible to concede the article says just that - in the one and only passage directly comparing the units. It doesn't say "The Surecheck is way better" or something in that vein, even if you keep claiming it does. It doesn't say "The Monroy is way better" or anything like that, either. But I never claimed that. |
#34
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I'm not going to offer my two cent's worth about which unit is best
because I don't have a clue. But, I'm using the Monroy 200 that is mounted in my panel, with a belly antenna. It sometimes indicates traffic that I never see but most of the time I can find it when I look. And it frequently alerts me to planes I probably wouldn't have seen very quickly due to their relative location. To me, one of the aspects I find valuable -- go ahead, call me weird -- is that it is not totally reliable. I don't trust it to find all traffic so I don't blithely rely on it. It doesn't identify direction or altitude, and it doesn't identify mulitiple aircraft. So I keep watching. Maybe I'd do the same if I had a unit that did everything reliably, but since I don't I'm very pleased with this unit. |
#35
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What kind of belly antenna are you using -- is it a DME antenna or a
transponder antenna? We tried both the Monroy and the SureCheck units with a DME antenna (because it was on the plane and not being used) and neither one worked at all. The SureCheck people said DME antennas don't work well, but Monroy said they would, so we weren't sure whether it was this particular antenna or DME antennas in general. JonS wrote in message ... I'm not going to offer my two cent's worth about which unit is best because I don't have a clue. But, I'm using the Monroy 200 that is mounted in my panel, with a belly antenna. It sometimes indicates traffic that I never see but most of the time I can find it when I look. And it frequently alerts me to planes I probably wouldn't have seen very quickly due to their relative location. To me, one of the aspects I find valuable -- go ahead, call me weird -- is that it is not totally reliable. I don't trust it to find all traffic so I don't blithely rely on it. It doesn't identify direction or altitude, and it doesn't identify mulitiple aircraft. So I keep watching. Maybe I'd do the same if I had a unit that did everything reliably, but since I don't I'm very pleased with this unit. |
#36
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On Tue, 6 Apr 2004 17:23:15 -0400, "Jon S"
wrote: What kind of belly antenna are you using -- is it a DME antenna or a transponder antenna? We tried both the Monroy and the SureCheck units with a DME antenna (because it was on the plane and not being used) and neither one worked at all. The SureCheck people said DME antennas don't work well, but Monroy said they would, so we weren't sure whether it was this particular antenna or DME antennas in general. I have a transponder antenna located in center about three feet aft of wheels. |
#37
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Jon,
We tried both the Monroy and the SureCheck units with a DME antenna (because it was on the plane and not being used) and neither one worked at all. There is a difference between DME and Transponder antennas? I was told there isn't. We use ours with a cheapo single-stick transponder antenna on the belly (see http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalo...ransponder.php - it's listed as suitable for DME and transponder). Didn't work at first - which turned out to be faulty antenna wiring. I would suggest your failure to use it with a mounted antenna might be because of problems with the antenna. -- Thomas Borchert (EDDH) |
#38
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Thomas --
Just spoke to Paul about this. Turns out you're right -- there is no difference. Paul checked with his radio person and was told it's exactly the same part number. Interesting because SureCheck was adamant that a DME antenna won't work and a transponder antenna will. JonS "Thomas Borchert" wrote in message ... Jon, We tried both the Monroy and the SureCheck units with a DME antenna (because it was on the plane and not being used) and neither one worked at all. There is a difference between DME and Transponder antennas? I was told there isn't. We use ours with a cheapo single-stick transponder antenna on the belly (see http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalo...ransponder.php - it's listed as suitable for DME and transponder). Didn't work at first - which turned out to be faulty antenna wiring. I would suggest your failure to use it with a mounted antenna might be because of problems with the antenna. -- Thomas Borchert (EDDH) |
#39
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In all fairness I re-read the trafficscope manual, and I think what
they are suggesting is that they only approve of certain antenna models. My thought is they didn't want to give a "blanket approval" for just any antenna on the market. This is understandable, considering transponder-only antennas have smaller bandwidths than the broadband DME antennas. I used to work bench test transponders (in my much younger years) and when I used the broadband antennas the power loss was much higher than in the dedicated transponder antennas. The typical broadband antenna had a VSWR of around 1.5, where the transponder antenna had a 1.2 In Lamens terms, this COULD mean a difference of several dB depending on ground-plane arrangements. I have two of the commant blade antennas installed, one above just rear of my comm, another forward of my transponder antenna, and trafficscope functions flawlessly. One consideration I noticed is that you do need to place the antennas 27 cm apart in a vertical plane. When I asked them about this they explained that it helps their splitter maintain phase balance. In reading their publications, it appears that Surecheck gives more attention to detail. They specify cable type, and antennas. This can mean a major difference in range, especially if you took the monroy advice and just wired up some lossy RG-58 and an unknown DME antenna. At the frequency these guys operate at, a few extra feet of RG-58 could mean a range difference on more than a mile. "Jon S" wrote in message ... Thomas -- Just spoke to Paul about this. Turns out you're right -- there is no difference. Paul checked with his radio person and was told it's exactly the same part number. Interesting because SureCheck was adamant that a DME antenna won't work and a transponder antenna will. JonS "Thomas Borchert" wrote in message ... Jon, We tried both the Monroy and the SureCheck units with a DME antenna (because it was on the plane and not being used) and neither one worked at all. There is a difference between DME and Transponder antennas? I was told there isn't. We use ours with a cheapo single-stick transponder antenna on the belly (see http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalo...ransponder.php - it's listed as suitable for DME and transponder). Didn't work at first - which turned out to be faulty antenna wiring. I would suggest your failure to use it with a mounted antenna might be because of problems with the antenna. -- Thomas Borchert (EDDH) |
#40
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Thanks for that information. In a quick look on the web, all the antennas I
found were labeled DME/transponder (in other words, dual use) and all were labeled "broadband" but perhaps there are some that specifically for transponders that I didn't see. I noticed that SureCheck does say they got better results with a blade antenna than the stick-and-ball type (which is what we were using). However, we were not getting poor performance, we were getting no performance -- even when the other aircraft were a mile or less away (based on the TIS display and visual ID). Of course, it's also possible that that particular antenna had a problem. We did take the care to make up an extension from RG-142 cable as recommended by SureCheck and we did check the extension for shorts and continuity. Unfortunately, we did not have the time to explore this further or try another antenna. I believe we did say in the article that our results were inconclusive on external antennas and that our problem might have been a bad antenna. JonS "BHelman" wrote in message om... In all fairness I re-read the trafficscope manual, and I think what they are suggesting is that they only approve of certain antenna models. My thought is they didn't want to give a "blanket approval" for just any antenna on the market. This is understandable, considering transponder-only antennas have smaller bandwidths than the broadband DME antennas. I used to work bench test transponders (in my much younger years) and when I used the broadband antennas the power loss was much higher than in the dedicated transponder antennas. The typical broadband antenna had a VSWR of around 1.5, where the transponder antenna had a 1.2 In Lamens terms, this COULD mean a difference of several dB depending on ground-plane arrangements. I have two of the commant blade antennas installed, one above just rear of my comm, another forward of my transponder antenna, and trafficscope functions flawlessly. One consideration I noticed is that you do need to place the antennas 27 cm apart in a vertical plane. When I asked them about this they explained that it helps their splitter maintain phase balance. In reading their publications, it appears that Surecheck gives more attention to detail. They specify cable type, and antennas. This can mean a major difference in range, especially if you took the monroy advice and just wired up some lossy RG-58 and an unknown DME antenna. At the frequency these guys operate at, a few extra feet of RG-58 could mean a range difference on more than a mile. "Jon S" wrote in message ... Thomas -- Just spoke to Paul about this. Turns out you're right -- there is no difference. Paul checked with his radio person and was told it's exactly the same part number. Interesting because SureCheck was adamant that a DME antenna won't work and a transponder antenna will. JonS "Thomas Borchert" wrote in message ... Jon, We tried both the Monroy and the SureCheck units with a DME antenna (because it was on the plane and not being used) and neither one worked at all. There is a difference between DME and Transponder antennas? I was told there isn't. We use ours with a cheapo single-stick transponder antenna on the belly (see http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalo...ransponder.php - it's listed as suitable for DME and transponder). Didn't work at first - which turned out to be faulty antenna wiring. I would suggest your failure to use it with a mounted antenna might be because of problems with the antenna. -- Thomas Borchert (EDDH) |
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