That probably compares with the Golze ADL product, with a lot of usage.
Anyway, this vindicates what I have been saying all along – and got criticised for it 
– which is that the UK scheme was an unsustainable marketing gimmick for the companies involved.
Unfortunately anybody who could run a roadside fish and chips outlet could have told you that… you cannot fund an ongoing service from hardware sales only.
The problem is that once something gets a lot of skilfully planted traction on certain social media channels it becomes unstoppable and nobody questions the fundamentals.
Denmark is going to play around with ground based weather
https://www.motorflyvning.dk/uat
With the mention of Skyecho, I sense another “joint venture” promotion which is unsustainable in the long term, like the others above.
A pilot from Sweden mentioned they received the Danish ground station using a DIY Stratux receiver.
There is indeed a ground station now live at Billund EKBI. It’s also in the notams for the airport:
Q) EKDK/QCAXX/IV/B /AE /000/999/5544N00909E
A) EKBI
B) 19/04/05 11:13 C) 19/09/30 23:59
E) UAT ADSB-IN DATA IS BEING BROADCASTED ON UAT FREQUENCY 978MHZ. DATA ARE FOR TEST ONLY AND NOT FOR OPERATIONAL USE.
I’ve assembled a Stratux Raspbeery pi and did receive this station on my last flight.
It’s run by Air Support – a company doing flight planning software. They previously informed they intend to run a nation wide service.
How the business plan is around this I don’t know, but I think the mention of Skyecho was just to give a description of a similar system.
What is the cost is to install and run these transmitteres?
The question is what permits are required to transmit at 978MHz? If it was easy enough to obtain such a permit and somebody was selling small cheap transmitters for NOTAMs weather etc, I can see many private people installing such systems in their homes.
Like flightradar24 receivers that people already install voluntarily but transmitting instead of receiving.
Radar data could also be transmitted if air traffic services decide to provide such transmitters with the data via e.g. an encrypted link to prevent spoofing.
Anyone knows where I can find the 978MHz UAT specs?
A Digital PMR transceiver which covers the frequency would be about £ 400.00. It would probably cost 20 pence per day in power.
If the weather report could say “Sponsored by XYZ Limited” at the top of each page, then flying schools/ local businesses/ aviation parts businesses/ even the local club “show off” might all sponsor one or two stations, especially as they could be hosted without rental at GA airports where there is already an internet connection. These things normally last for 20 years before the antenna coax fills with water and takes out the RF power amplifier so don’t need much maintenance.
As long as you could get the “sponsored” line in which could be submitted in the form of weather data a low cost model like this might work? It would be targeted advertising to the active flying population. Presumably the UAT specs allow you to transmit any plain text before going on to broadcast the data?
Please no ads in weather reports. I don’t want to need an Adblock for METARs.
I think people would host those stations without advertising, I know I would.
I don’t mean pop up adverts. I am talking about 1 x line at the top, perhaps a limit of 20 characters.
Even with a free site, there has to be a bit of revenue to cover the cost of the electricity and a new 1/4 wave antenna every 15 years. I would not object to a 1 x line advert.
Anybody aware of further steps from this test started mid-2019?
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/aviation/garmin-demonstrates-datalink-weather-broadcast-for-pilots-in-germany/
quoting from link:
“Today, pilots operating within the vicinity of the Friedrichshafen airport with compatible ADS-B In receivers have access to new datalink weather products in Europe. Weather products accessible through this ground station include, radar imagery, METARs, TAFs, lightning, icing and winds aloft. Pilots can expect to receive weather up to 50 nautical miles away from the ground station located at EDNY and weather products will display within a 250 nautical mile coverage area.”
Further back here is a report attributed to Garmin which sounds like there is no viable business model for Europe for distributing wx over ADS-B.
Maybe @PepperJo has more recent info?
The general topic has come up in many threads and basically there appears to be no viable business model for doing this. Sebastian Golze delivers a good service for about €25/month and – together with the certified Garmin and Avidyne wx boxes which are a lot more pricey to run – he has probably captured the bulk of the market willing to pay for the stuff in the long run.
Below this level, there are what are IMHO PR stunts where a vendor of satnav software spends money on some terrestrial transmissions and gets way more column-inches of publicity than if they bought the adverts, plus it looks almost as warm and cuddly as Greta Thunberg so it spreads nicely all over social media But unless they can fund this out of their ~100/year subs (which they very obviously cannot, for any significant piece of Europe) it will get shut down in due course.
