A future barrage of questions

[breskin.thelonious48@gmai]

Hey everyone,
I've been an aviation enthusiast for a while but I've never really gotten into actually tracking aircraft myself. I kinda threw myself into the deep end by ordering a raspberry pi and flight stick 1090 with the antenna. I have many questions, and most of them you would probably consider to be pretty dumb, but when I email support I get copy/paste answers that don't really have a whole lot to do with my question.... so, here goes
1) Why are there two different frequencies? 1090 and 978 are totally different and need separate hardware, but to my novice eye, they do the same thing... Why have two totally separate systems?
2)Whenever I uncheck "show network traffic" on radarbox everything on the map vanishes, including traffic that my hardware is recieving ... I'd like to be able to run it showing only my data, but I don't know how. Insight would be apreciated.
3) I've done some research and now know what MLAT is, but I have no idea why my station isn't enabled for it, despite the fact that I've entered my exact GPS coods and elevation.
4) Do I need the data sharer software, or can I just use radar box?
5) how long can I run my cable before I start encountering loss issues?
6) Some of the posts on the forum seem really outdated... Should I disregard the ones from 2008 or are non-relavent posts deleted?
7) I'm sure I'll come up with some more stuff to bore you guys with-- I'm 21 years old and just getting into this so I appreciate the patience in advance!

Thanks!

[Runway 31]

To answer some of your questions

1 1090 is mainly used for ADS-B purposes and most aircraft in the USA were required to be equipped by this year to meet the FAA mandate.  However, the US has an enormous light GA fleet with very vocal owners, and the FAA itself was concerned about 1090MHz congestion, so they added UAT (on 978MHz) as an alternative. It was assumed this would be simpler and less expensive than replacing every transponder in the entire GA fleet (which seems to be true), and they also added free weather (FIS-B) to encourage GA owners to choose UAT unless they actually need 1090ES, in case the price difference wasn't enough.  978 is used solely within the USA and aircraft intending to travel outwith the confines of the USA  ie Canada or Mexico require to be 1090 equipped.  Its use is also limited to under 18,000 ft

2 To see only your own traffic click onto MyFlights

3 Not all receiver types can get MLAT and the flightstick used with V6 cant.  If you used the flightstick in conjunction with a Raspberry Pi you can however but you then cant use V6 as it is Windows only

4 As per my reply to the other thread you started the data sharer software is not intended for V6 users as data sharing is usually ticked by default through File/Preference/Radarbox/Share Flight Data

5 I would keep the antenna run to under 20m and you should be ok but you need to use low loss cable intended for this purpose

6 Threads are not normally deleted due to age and evensome of the older ones are still relevant but I am sure that there will be something covering every topic repeated at a later date

Alan

[breskin.thelonious48@gmai]

Thank you so much for all your help and advice. I have a few more questions of course, but I warned you...
1. My station is showing flights that are outside of its maximum range polar diagram. Obviously, if it can see the flights, then the maximum range diagram should be updated. Do you know when that would be?
2. Additionally, the computer that I'm using to run the antenna is a piece of crap, but it's primary purpose is to just run radarbox 6 so I don't really care. However, I cannot resize the "my flights" window, and the map window will only occupy about 1/4 of the area that it should. I do not know how to change this... dragging the boarders of these windows traditionally works, but for some reason on the crappy computer it doesn't.

[Runway 31]

The polar diagram adjusts itself it does not happen instantly, possibly on a 24 hour basis but I am sure that it will be different in the morning

The Airnav screen should usually be about full size of your computer screen.  I don't know how you have set up but I presume you have vertical tracking view enabled, you can get rid of it via Map untick Vertical Tracking view and that give you more of the map where it was.

If you go to the edge between the map and the MyFlights grid the cursor will change to a double line, you can then move it left or right to change the size of the grid/map.  You also if you want can go Full Screen via Tools/View FullScreen and use Esc to come out of that mode

You can get rid of Photos and or Flight History via Tools/Show Photos and or Show Flight History

Alan