New User Here

[Paulc]

Hello all - bought myself a radarbox at Aero Expo over the weekend and having great fun with it so far. Hopefully my data is being received by others on the network? (am in Winchester, Hants)

[Spaice]

Paulc, welcome to the RB community, where you will find plenyt of help and advice if required.  Will you be leaving your RB connected to the network on a permanent basis?

[Paulc]

Thanks - have been looking through the forum and there is lots of help available for a newby such as myself (I will need it too) :)

Not sure yet - laptop is only on when at home where I have internet access so that equates to a couple of hours in the evenings. I will take it abroad with me (AMS in a few days) so will see how that works out. As I understand it you need an internet connection to share data onto the network so not sure what will be available when away from home. Laptop is wifi enabled its is just a question of finding an access point. The only slight downside to sharing the data is the large number of aircraft shown in 'my flights' which does make looking for a specific one a tad slow.

[Spaice]

If you are looking for a specific aircraft or airline, then you could use the filters to display just the aircraft you wish to view and the Alert function to alert you when your RB picks up the aircraft or airline you are interested in.  This would have no effect on the aircraft shared on the network form your pc; as I understand it anyway.

[steveb25]

Don't worry too much about sharing data, just enjoy your new toy.
Not that it is not important to share, but make the most of the RB box.

Also as spaice said setting filters does not effect anything other than your displays

[Paulc]

Will have a go at downloading an outline for AMS during the week - could be useful in a few days time. If I zoom into the AMS outline and set a filter to exclude anything over 1000ft (for example) will aircraft on the ground show up?
My local gets Flybe 95% of the time and none of their aircraft show up at all so not much point taking it there (would die of bordom as well) :)

Also looks like my software is only 2007 rather than 2008 so will update that as well.

The utilities website is also a very good idea and for us newbies a great place to find all sorts of handy updates.

[Spaice]

Setting a filter to exclude anything over 1000ft will eliminate all aircraft above that level, but will not gauantee that you see aircraft on the ground.  It all depends on your proximity to the airfield and clear line of site i.e not blocked by terminal buildings and then of course the equipment that transmit the data from the aircraft, some aircraft I belive will turn off the equipment upon landing whilst others may not have the equipment at all, especially light aircraft.  Some aircraft will be diplayed in your log because no position has been transmitted to allow RB to display on the map.

[Paulc]

Am staying at Schipol so that will help - the viewing gallery is on top of the terminals and the view from there of most of the runways is pretty good. Appreciate some aircraft will not appear as a result of not having the necessary equipment but having said that to be able to identify some of the departures which may not be visible (depending on runways being used) will be a advantage.

I did manage to pick up some light aircraft, including a couple from the Aero Expo show at Booker over the weekend. Some of these were in the trade show so may well come equipped with all the bells and whistles as a result of that.