I’ve used Stratux for about a year and agree if your only use is accurate traffic avoidance than this is not for you. Most light GA traffic simply doesn’t show up for the above stated reasons. That said – would I ever get rid of mine? Never. A couple things I like about it:
Is any of this a must have – no. It remains a gadget for sure. But isn’t so much of flying about little gadgets….
Cttime wrote:
I am planning on building a Stratux but if someone has one they are looking to sell I’d be interested in buying it. It needs to have the AHRS module or at least be in a case with room for me to add it.
If you need any help building (it is very easy) I’m happy to help answering any questions.
Can also do it for you (free of charge) but not sure it’s economical for you given shipping costs to Sweden.
The only point to watch out for is the GPS chip is a USB dongle and likes to come loose in flight I’ve found – so would recommend finding some creative way to make sure it stays in place. No easy way to open and fix that during a flight.
Seems like my post got moved here. I just figured I’d post in case someone wanted to recoup some of their investment (and I could save a little). I mainly want it to have the AHRS as another backup. Traffic wise as others have said it’s pretty useless here but it will be useful when flying back in the States.
I built a Stratux unit this Friday. Perhaps, it is more appropriate to say that I assembled the parts together :) The build itself is easy. I got the parts on amazon.de. I tested it with SkyDemon from my garden. You can see the planes like FR24 as long as they are in the line of sight of the device.
A limited FLARM DIY solution, SoftRF, is also something I have assembled but not properly tested. Apparently, it could be combined with Stratux as a secondary device. I presume then one could see FLARM enabled planes or gliders with ADS-B planes together on SD. This I still have to test.
Cttime wrote:
I am planning on building a Stratux but if someone has one they are looking to sell I’d be interested in buying it. It needs to have the AHRS module or at least be in a case with room for me to add it.
I just wanted to add if you plan on building one and you want to use FLARM you need to buy two of the old SDRs. The new V3 SDR which is used for UAT does not currently work with FLARM (as mentioned a firmware update is in development but might take another 1 or 2 month).
Also one thing I forgot to mention if someone wants to connect SkyDemon (via GDL90) to Stratux: go to the settings page and disable GDL90 MSL altitude since SkyDemon is one of the few EFBs which respects the specification of GDL90, i.e. expects height above the WGS-84 ellipsoid whereas other EFBs wrongly interpret the ownship altitude as altitude MSL. Discussion about the topic here: http://forums.skydemon.aero/Topic19950-11.aspx
(This option is only available in my image. I also added the height above WGS-84 ellipsoid to the GPS/AHRS page.)
Btw I just did a quick test regarding ADS-B range and I can see airliners more than 100nm away from me with the Stratux hanging out of my window. So range should even be higher in the air.
Arun wrote:
A limited FLARM DIY solution, SoftRF, is also something I have assembled but not properly tested. Apparently, it could be combined with Stratux as a secondary device. I presume then one could see FLARM enabled planes or gliders with ADS-B planes together on SD. This I still have to test.
I don’t know if you have been following the discussion but this is possible with just the Stratux. The only thing SoftRF does that the Stratux does not is also transmit FLARM signals.
Seems like my post got moved here
Yes; there was another thread entitled something like “Stratux in the USA” which halfway became “Stratux in Europe” so I merged the two together. It produces a more informative forum
Btw I just did a quick test regarding ADS-B range and I can see airliners more than 100nm away from me with the Stratux hanging out of my window. So range should even be higher in the air.
They will be transmitting with way more power. Basically it comes out of the output stage – ~250W pulses – of a proper transponder, not out of a little battery powered PCB which is what all the portable gadgets are. 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.
It is certainly true that if you do the (ground based) receiver really well, you can pick up ADS-B (or Mode S for that matter) emissions from hundreds of miles away, subject to “line of sight plus a bit”. I have seen a demo with a receiver somewhere in SE France, a vertical rod antenna, and showing airliners over a radius of maybe 500nm.
What PepperJo is saying
There are very few GA aircraft that have ADS-B out and as pointed out you rarely get close enough to the big ones for it to matter. However I have seen a few helicopters using it.
is what I have been told by so many people (off forum) but I always get jumped on when I post it When you read some of the Brit forums you get the impression that everybody has gone some gadget radiating, possibly with one brand of gadget per forum poster but in reality the percentage penetration is probably very small, due to issues such as this (a thread worth a read).
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.
I bet everybody who has one of these boxes thinks they can see the whole universe (it is human to think that) but they are probably seeing a tiny % of what is out there. An active TAS like mine probably sees Mode A+C and thus sees maybe 50%, with the rest being non-TXP or Mode A (= Mode C with C turned off) and most of these being so deliberately, for “reduced interaction with the CAA” which nowadays is on your case 100% and mostly pretty vigorously. Fortunately, from visual sightings, it is pretty obvious that the non-Mode C community flies mostly below 2000ft, so there lies a useful strategy to improve one’s odds. The one place you cannot escape is in the circuit i.e. 2x per flight and I rely strongly on my TAS and “escape” as necessary.
Very true about helicopters being more visible. It seems clear that TXP carriage and usage is a lot higher there. Yesterday I was behind two of them on the way in. Never saw either of them visually (1-2km vis in haze) but was able to adjust spacing by doing an orbit. I think heli owners are not as tight with money, and probably get busted for CAS busts a lot less.
Also see here.
PepperJo wrote:
I don’t know if you have been following the discussion but this is possible with just the Stratux. The only thing SoftRF does that the Stratux does not is also transmit FLARM signals.
I wasn’t aware of it. Thanks for the info. I would try searching for it.
PepperJo wrote:
I replaced the 978 antenna with this one: https://www.bastelgarage.ch/lora-868-mhz-antenne
There are also a few vendors which sell dedicated FLARM antennas, e.g. http://www.air-store.eu/epages/AIRStore-LuftfahrtbedarfundAvionik.sf/en_GB/?ViewObjectPath=%2FShops%2FAIRStore-LuftfahrtbedarfundAvionik%2FCategories%2FVerkehr%2FPowerFLARM%2FAntennen
Anything with a SMA connector should work.
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…
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.
