dublinpilot wrote:
So of no use to me unless passing through the UK when this Covid stuff is over!
So it doesn’t take in Covid? 
I’ve been using a Pilot Aware for a few years now. It too is a raspberry Pi based system.
It’s downsides are that:
- it has no ADSB out (not issue for me, as we have ADS-B out in the aircraft transponder)
- as it’s a portable unit, reception can be subject to antenna position.
- £10 annual subscription
Advantages
- While it does ADS-B in like most of the others, it also takes in mode S & mode C for bearingless warnings. Most of the traffic here is mode C still. So while you won’t be told where the traffic is, you’ll know that there is someone close by and you need to look harder if you haven’t already seen it.
- it links in well will the major Nav moving maps, including EasyVFR & SD
- the GPS can provide a GPS for your tablet. So the antenna on the Pilot Aware might have a better view of the sky than your tablet on your lap.
For me, the mode S & C bearingless warnings make it much more desirable than the Stratux.
There are additional benefits if you live close to one of their transmitters, but I understand that they are only in the UK. So of no use to me unless passing through the UK when this Covid stuff is over!
Actually there are a lot of interesting things all over. Here is one, an e-ink screen connected to a cpu that can handle GDL90 traffic. It connects either by wifi, bt or serial and displays on the screen.
https://github.com/lyusupov/SoftRF/wiki/SkyView-EZ
As usual the USA is two or three steps ahead of EASA it looks. This is very interesting all of a sudden, and this Stratux using Raspberry Pi is equally so, but maybe I should make another thread, not to pollute this one 
Actually all Mavic drones sold in US and a part of the world is equipped with ADSB-in, to notify drone pilots in case of collision course.
The reason why DJI didn’t make it a rule on their drones wheighting more than 250g is mainly due to pandemic. But today, that’s only Mavic and the drones sold since 2020. But for sure ADSB is going to grow in the drone community, I would say that ADSB is the standard to take because it is installing.
The problem is that there is potentially more drones than plane, and ADSB out will require identification of the drone, and I’m not sure either people or the ICAO standard are ready for that.
I think it is nevertheless needed. At least we should create “drone generic code” on the 24b code, i’m not sure the ICAO regulation does permit it, but That would avoid that each people do register a hand made drone, that will crash 3 days after registration.
There are 16,777,214 possible addresses, not sure all are populated today.
I have never had any interest in stuff like this, other than FLARM (towing gliders). However, they are now starting to use drones to fly medicals over rather large distances. The drones are, supposed to at least, fly at 400 ft AGL. They shouldn’t really be a problem, but I mean 400 feet means 400 (+400 -200) or something, and I fly lower than 500ft from tome to time. Eyeballing such a thing, I would think is impossible. The only thing that would allow pilots to see these drones are something like this Stratux or FLARM.
Where they are flying is way below radar (literally). through valleys, large mountains, so transponder wont work I think.
What would be the best setup, for both the drone and the airplane? FLARM, ADS-B, Stratux ?
I use a Stratux with european firmware for ADS-B, FLARM and (non directional) MODE-S traffic reception.
Also AHRS, but I’m not sure I’d trust it so it’s more a gimmick.
What would be nice is one simple single box containing additionally a battery, CO detector, built in screen for traffic and super sticky rubber „feet“ to place it discreetly on the dashboard (stable enough for AHRS).
Hello follow pilots,
I am spending more and mode time using the stratux world and starting to study a kind of daughter board, case and associated SW for the raspberry pi that would gather some of the needed equipement in order either to reduce the bill, improve quality and add fonctionalities.
There are tons of PI daughterboard in the audio world and on the other hand, EFB software are more and more common in the pilots community, that’s far from impossible.
So far, the minimum stratux has:
-raspberry pi 3
-2 programmable radio for 1090 ADSB/Squawk and 867 for Flarm and OGN connected by USB for the EU version, US version change the 867MHz radio for a 978/UAT for METAR informations.
-1 GPS solution, today the easiers is a UBLOX 8 with at best 10m precision with WAAS/EGNOS on a USB dongle. We can do better or cheaper (not at the same time ;).
Some can add:
- a better GPS
- an AHRS (with a baro sensor and 9 axis gyro – works pretty well now)
- a battery
- a Flarm/OGN emitter.
- internet connectivity if connected to a smartphone hotspot (if below 5000ft we have still good connection around there).
They are several projects or versions with CO detector and/or pass through battery in order to be able to power the device with or without a USB outlet, and even recharge you phone/tablet.
Best combo today are 200$ to 400 € depending on where and how you get it.
The Foreflight sentry have seen its price getting down to 500$ apparently to face the stratux competition, and now it seems that the CO detector is working correctly, by even being able to send alarm to FF, but that’s definitely a good function to have.
If you have any idea of nice to have feature, that would be great.
Peter wrote:
And airliner transponders are probably more powerful than GA transponders; on my TAS605 I see airliners very reliably up to the max (software limited) range of 15nm, whereas “light GA” Mode S targets are much more variable, often invisible past a few miles.
Airliners also have antenna diversity and also most of them will be above you. Antenna installation will matter much more compared to transmit power – 250 watts from a typical GA transponder is a lot of power. At these UHF frequencies, a transmission of just a few watts can be perfectly receivable right to the radio horizon. But for most GA planes, the transponder signal will mostly be radiating only downwards, not level or upwards. Your own antenna installation will also be a factor, if for example your antenna for your TAS is on the roof you’ve got two lots of attenuation for any GA aircraft that’s not above you. If the airliner had only 25 watts of Tx power chances are you wouldn’t notice because their transmitting antenna setup is so much better than a typical light aircraft’s.
Peter wrote:
Re Flarm, some time ago I borrowed a FLARM box and picked up maybe 1 or 2 contacts in 6 months of flying with it. Reportedly the penetration is higher in Germany… and is higher in the glider community. The guy who lent it to me (a glider pilot) has died so I can’t tell you what brand it was.
Here in Switzerland FLARM is quite common (FLARM was invented here). In our club out of 11 airplane only 1 has no FLARM device. Last weekend I even saw paragliders with FLARM. But generally yes, the farther you fly away from Germany/Switzerland/Austria the less airplanes do have FLARM in my experience.
This gives a good overview of FLARM usage per country: https://live.glidernet.org/#c=45.72840,15.61536&z=5&s=1
Especially on the weekends it gets pretty crowded.
Honestly, in my opinion, what should happen is certifying an ADS-B device should become much easier (e.g. looking at the SkyEcho from uAvionix) and once the devices are
affordable the EASA should mandate ADS-B for everyone. Maybe open up 978UAT if they are concerned about frequency usage (Shut down or move those TACAN stations).
greg_mp wrote:
Thanks! The bastergarage site is currently down, will check another day.
Tried your build and working, it is not using the 978Mhz anymore, I think you disable it.
Do you know a way to reprogram the traditional stratux radio? I would be pleased to use the 978 to 868. I have no idea of the lora 868 one, but it has to fit into the stratux box or I’ll have to cut the box a bit…
Just search for “868Mhz antenna SMA” and you will find plenty of alternatives. Just to be clear I just replaced the antenna the radio is still the same that came with my kit for building the Stratux (As pointed out above FLARM only works on the old V2 radios the new kit now includes a V2 (1090ES) and a V3 (978UAT) radio). You can also try FLARM with the 978 antenna with more limiting range (since FLARM uses 868Mhz). The 868Mhz antenna I use is maybe 1cm shorter than the 978MHz.
If you flash my image on the SD card the 978 radio will be reprogrammed to 868MHz however don’t worry this change is not persistent you can switch between FLARM and UAT in the Stratux settings page.
