Mine does, i just had that twice yesterday!
But it’s a problem if the traffic is a little lower … then the Skywatch (due to the single antenna) will not see it.
Mine sees 12 o’clock traffic at say 5nm but then it vanishes and reappears (with the urgent audio warning) at about 1nm.
The 15nm TAS605 range is never achieved except on bizjets and airliners, presumably because they have decent transponder installations.
Yes, I never see stuff 15 miles away. Which is probably good …
You could have it measured and see how it perfoms, and see the difference between the antenna’s swapped with dual blade on top and the single blade on the bottom.
Peter wrote:
Mine won’t, and I have a suspicion that some others won’t either.It could be due to the propeller shielding the signals or, on the TB20, the curve of the cockpit
On Friday I returned from Straubing having just installed the TAS605 in the TB20.
http://hellasga.com/gallery/kyp/athens_munich/2015/TAS605-works
I will report back in the weeks to come when I arrange with some friends “interception” test flights under VFR in remote area.
I certainly seem to get much later notice if heading straight for them!
I had the option of installing the two antennae almost on the front of the aircraft (the upper one above the front seat) but decided not to because of the even more extensive amount of “moving stuff around”. Given that the installer (nameless) managed to strip maybe 50% of the screws which he had to unscrew, I am happy with that decision
And if the issue is due to prop shielding, it would not have helped anyway.
Peter wrote:
And if the issue is due to prop shielding, it would not have helped anyway.
How likely is that? XPDR responses (Mode A or C) are about 21µs long, while the prop needs in the order of 12ms to make a half turn (2 blade prop), and there’s only a small percentage of the prop disk area covered by metal. So while the prop may shield a small percentage of the Mode A/C replies, the vast majority should still be able to get through.
This is completely different from VOR/LOC/GS, where the prop can cause a spurious amplitude modulated signal in the same frequency range as the navigation signals, and may thus interfere with the navigation function.
For those of you looking for an elegant traffic advisory solution, look at the integrated Lynx 9000 transponder & TCAS from L3
https://www.l-3avionics.com/products/lynx/models
Effective range 35 miles (note that for tCas capability you need the NY156 antenna – the one in the kit only gives tas capability).