Ken Dawber wrote:
I'm sure that changing gliding competitions towards or creating
technology towards making gliding competitions more of a spectator
spectacle would be a great help to the sport.
Since the new FLARM units are consistently outputting each FLARM
equipped gliders height, position and speed vector through out their
flight, how hard would it be to extend this so that a competition
could create real time displays of every gliders height and position
through out the completition.
I expect that the output of the Flarm units is nowhere near strong
enough for a single contest base station to pick them up but would it
be realistic to have a number of linked ground based stations
throughout the completition area to create that display.
Alternatively, or in conjunction with, would it be possible to have
specific competition versions that increased the output or also
broadcast the output on a second radio channel in a manner that
allowed fewer base stations to pick it up.
Their is no requirement for 100% coverage. If a real time
completition display kept losing some 10 per cent of the gliders in
specific parts of the course then it would probably increase the fun
of the spectacle.
I'm only asking question so I hopefully don't need a flame suit for
these.
You certainly don't need a flame suit - a similar idea occurred to me
some time ago.
Unfortunately, FLARM is a short range technology - about 3km for the in
glider units (Nigel Andrews has suggested that a ground based receiver
with high gain antenna might be able to get 10km).
However, something like FLARM could be created (Nigel suggested maybe
using CDMA phones as the comms mechanism - although the in glider unit
only needs to Tx and not Rx) to do just what you suggest.
--
Robert Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED]
+61 (0)438 385 533
Brisbane, Australia http://www.hart.wattle.id.au
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