Bob, A good idea, but we are dealing with some older technology in many cases. The VOR (VHF Omni-Range) receivers are based on a pair of pulses from the navigation station. The station puts out a rotating pulse with a sync pulse when the rotating pulse is at 0 degrees (magnetic). Your receiver sees the sync pulse and then times the delay to the second one. 30 RPS for the rotation rate. If an impulsive emission occurs with enough strength your receiver responds to it and you can lose track of what radial you are on, giving a spurious indication on the CDI (course deviation indicator). No error checking in this analog system. Updating it would not be practical given the number of aircraft equipped to use it and the cost of replacing the equipment. The airlines might absorb the cost (by charging higher fares), but your average GA bugsmasher pilot just isn't going to be too hot on spending several thousand dollars on new equipment. It's easier to control PEDs on the plane.
BTW, I'm one of those GA bugsmasher pilots. I'm not too hot on my club having to spend the money, either. We'd have to charge members more for the use of the planes. Yuck. Welcome aboard and please keep your laptop computer stowed and turned off for the duration of the flight. Besides, there are more interesting things to look at out the windows than on that screen <grin>. Ghery Pettit Intel Boring holes in the sky and loving every minute of it! -----Original Message----- From: Robert Johnson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 11:58 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: New EU regulations - civil aviation One thing that surprises me about avionics is the reports of spurious and misleading readings from instruments due to interference. It seems in these days of error checking and verification that we should be able to make instruments which are either confident of the data received or capable of reporting the reason they cannot display. Bob Johnson ITE Safety ------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: [email protected] Dave Heald: [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://ieeepstc.mindcruiser.com/ Click on "browse" and then "emc-pstc mailing list"
