Hi Ross Et al The unit David is having issues with was a Swiss Flarm bought 3 or 4 years ago, its the one with an SD card so it's not an old unit by any means. Unfortunately I have no information on this device from a circuit diagram point of view. There have been significant failures of the RF transceiver chip they use which is basically used in low cost wireless solutions like garage door openers etc. The effect is the receive sensitivity goes down. This could be caused by static discharge but I am not sure there is any one isolated case as its random. Flarm did start using some antenna protection in the form of an ESD device on the antenna input. I have no information on whether this worked or not. The minioz is shipped with such a device fitted but again as I have not been involved in this business for some 7 years I don't know how many may have failed if any.
If you have an antenna rubbing against the canopy this could cause some form of discharge so try and avoid this. Antenna choice and position are by far the largest issues when it comes to flarm performance. I spent a lot of time trying to find the best solution. For fiberglass only fuses a halfwave dipole works the best up in the nose glued to the side of the fuse and away from rudder pedals. We have done this in 2 discus B/ CS installations and the range is very good. A swiss flarm mounted on top of the dash with its little antenna seems to work as well. Antennas in the instrument cluster is a no no. I see some glider manufacturers are mounting antennas up in the tail. Providing the coax is kept to a minimum and the flarm unit is mounted at the rear then it should be the optimal position. Powerflarm does have a performance improvement as they are transmitting slightly more power and offering antenna diversity but it's expensive. The FAA has released a TSO (TSO c199) on a recommended system for gliders, UAV, balloons and sports aircraft called TABS. This might eventually replace non approved systems such as flarm in the future. TABS devices are expected to retail for $1,500.00 or less, they can be seen by other powered aircraft using ADS-B and mode S/ TCAS and can be seen by ATC and their size similar to a powerflarm with about the same current consumption. Garmin are also looking at making these so we could see even cheaper units as the TSO provides the requirements for this system which opens up competition to other manufacturers. Cheers Nigel Andrews Andrews Electronic Design Pty Ltd ABN - 921-33392140 Electronics engineering for the future **************DISCLAIMER************ The information contained in the above e-mail message or messages (which includes any attachments) is confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended only for the use of the person or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the addressee any form of disclosure, copying, modification, distribution or any action taken or omitted in reliance on the information is unauthorised. If you received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete it from your computer system network. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Friday, 20 March 2015 11:30 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Aus-soaring Digest, Vol 138, Issue 41 Send Aus-soaring mailing list submissions to [email protected] To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [email protected] You can reach the person managing the list at [email protected] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Aus-soaring digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Flarm support (still) non existant (David Kinlan) 2. Re: Flarm support (still) non existant (Ross McLean) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2015 16:45:13 +1000 From: David Kinlan <[email protected]> Subject: [Aus-soaring] Flarm support (still) non existant To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" This is an extract of an email from Daniel Hoffman from Flarm CH. Our current production and repair contractor also has never dealt with the Classic FLARM devices, and have therefore no competency with them. There is however a person in Germany who does some repairs, but unfortunately he?s not reliable when it comes to logistics and deadlines. If you still want to try, his name is Manfred Dinkel and can be reached at [email protected]. So not much help there.. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/private/aus-soaring/attachments/20150 319/f1fd5e45/attachment.html> ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2015 17:04:18 +1000 From: "Ross McLean" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Flarm support (still) non existant To: "'Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.'" <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Nigel Andrews was the Australian Flarm manufacturer maybe he could help you. ROSS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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