I imagine it’s flight ID
certified ADS-B OUT targets, which is currently almost nobody in light GA.
OK, I don’t object at all to having been “almost nobody” for the past four years, but are there really no other nobodies out there with ADS-B OUT?
I don’t bother displaying other ADS-B targets unless flying south of Leeds, but then I do detect quite a few other “nobodies”. I can’t recall that any have come closer than a few hundred feet, but it does relieve punctuate the boredom of instrument flight or gawping through the windscreen at a clear sky.
Timothy wrote:
Garmin allows you to identify individual aircraft. Now I imagine that when some marketing wonder thought this up, they might have thought that it improves situational awareness,… but in reality its main use is as a toy to play with ….
Imho for me it’s actually a useful feature (Flying a GTS800 displayed on a GTN/g500txi). It helps you to double check if the plane you identified through the window is actually the traffic you see on the TAS. More than once visually “identified” traffic that turned out to be a different plane.
Jacko wrote:
but are there really no other nobodies out there with ADS-B OUT?
Have never done a tally, but my impression is that about half of the GA transponder-targets these days also have ADSB.
On the original question: I had an Avidyne TAS and switched to a Garmin one (because during a major avionics upgrade it turned out that there is no STC for the Avidyne in my plane). It feels like I see more targets now with the Garmin – but I can’t tell if this really is a Garmin/Avidyne thing or if the older Avidyne installation was done so badly. That for me is one of the key learnings: Installation has much more effect on TAS-Systems than the difference of manufacturers might have.
On the question of GPWS: Does one need it ion times of glass PFD where everything turns red when we get to close to ground?
Timothy wrote:
Garmin allows you to identify individual aircraft. Now I imagine that when some marketing wonder thought this up, they might have thought that it improves situational awareness, so you know that you are looking out for a BA 777 or whatever, but in reality its main use is as a toy to play with when bored on airways.
I have the Avydine for TAS and the GTX345 for ADS-B; the GTX345 merges the two, so on my screens I see a single target (ADS-B if it’s available). I find having the call sign of big iron very useful, not just to alleviate boredom or check that a given target is indeed the right one, but also when they ask for weather deviations.
Denopa, do you get non-N-reg callsigns from your TAS6xx?
Do you have the TAS6xxA i.e. the ADS-B IN version? If not, the callsigns must be coming from the GTX345, not from TAS6xx, and they are coming from the certified ADS-B OUT emissions.
It feels like I see more targets now with the Garmin – but I can’t tell if this really is a Garmin/Avidyne thing or if the older Avidyne installation was done so badly
It is possible. Mine was bodged – see here under Installer Performance 
The company threatened litigation (in a different context; their name is not mentioned in thaty writeup). I improved the performance dramatically, as posted, by moving one antenna.
Peter wrote:
do you get non-N-reg callsigns from your TAS6xx?
Yes, I do. Actually I don’t understand your reasoning on why I would not.
Do you have the TAS6xxA i.e. the ADS-B IN version?
No
the callsigns must be coming from the GTX345, not from TAS6xx, and they are coming from the certified ADS-B OUT emissions.
Yes
OK that makes sense Yours are arriving via ADS-B, via the GTX345.
The TAS6xx (non ADS-B) can get them only from Mode S, and this works only with N-regs (because of the availability of the 24-bit encode algorithm), and only with an RS232 (not ARINC429) feed to the MFD. I have seen it myself. This search digs out various past threads.
It would be useful to know if a TAS6xxA (ADS-B IN version) displays callsigns (of certified ADS-B OUT aircraft) by itself. It clearly could, in theory. I wonder if @Steveavidyne knows.
Peter wrote:
The TAS6xx (non ADS-B) can get them only from Mode S, and this works only with N-regs (because of the availability of the 24-bit encode algorithm)
Why?? Standard mode S transmits the callsign as well as the encoding of the registration which you refer to — it is not an ADS-B feature. For GA, the callsign is always always the same as the aircraft registration so there is no need for any decoding.
No idea; this is what Avidyne told me ages ago.
They appear to have chosen to get the tail # by decoding the 24 bit ID.
I guess one logical challenge is what are you going to do if you see a signal where the 24 bit ID and the configured tail # string don’t match. This does happen. You have to discard one of the two, so they probably chose to use just one of them, and using the 24 bit ID is probably safer. These IDs are officially allocated.
Airborne_Again wrote:
For GA, the callsign is always always the same as the callsign
Should have been “For GA, the callsign is almost always the same as the aircraft registration”. Sorry.
[ fixed above ]
