Range experiment

[testmonkey]

Hi all,

Tried an experiment ths morning to see what sort of range I could get out of the RB with it's standard aerial. First shot shows the polar diagram taken as the box nomally sits in my living room. The second shot was taken from a high vantage point at a local beauty spot with the standard aerial attached to the roof of the car.

Some interesting stats:

Maximum aircraft logged at any one time = 262 (early morning so no GA traffic around)
Maximum ADS-B aircraft at one time = 98
Maximum distance away seen = 241.5nm !!!!
Most interesting aircraft logged = Sukhoi Su-25K (Bulgarian Air Force)

Cheers

[GlynH]

That's a great experiment - I can see why you have the name testmonkey!

Just goes to show the importance of being up as high as possible with no obstructions.

And all this on a little aerial...amazing!

Can I ask where this local 'beauty spot' was?

Many years ago we used to sit on top of a 'local beauty spot' all night with our CB <cough> radios and talk all over the world.

Mind you the antennas we were using couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be classed as 'mobile'.

I rember bolting an Avanti Sigma IV to the bumper of my works van...when parked up of course!

Maybe I could have gotten by with a smaller antenna after all! :-)

Kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

[BobR]

Great Screenshots. Tried something similar up in the Northumberland area and got some good results. Only problem is that the Mrs has gone away for six weeks on a course and took the laptop with her!!! Still at least I can sit at the base station without fear of being captured on that 'damn thing'!! I can see a whole band of RB owners looking at elevation as a consideration when moving house!

[testmonkey]

That's a great experiment - I can see why you have the name testmonkey!

The name testmonkey comes from the fact that I've been in testing for over a decade. I used to be Deputy QA Manager for one of Europe's leading computer games companies and these days I'm senior systems and software test engineer for a data processing company. One of our web based applications is powered by over 100 servers so this mornings little test wasn't really pushing the boat out ;)

Can I ask where this local 'beauty spot' was?

Burton Dassett Hills, Warwickshire. I could have got about another 60 feet up but thought it best to stay in the car seeing as the hills overlook one of the country's biggest ammunition depots. Being out in the open with a laptop, scanner and lots of flashing lights might have attracted some unwanted attention! Anyway having the aerial on the car roof probably helped as I imagine it makes an excellent ground-plane.

[testmonkey]

Still at least I can sit at the base station without fear of being captured on that 'damn thing'!!

Sounds so familiar Bob :)))

I can see a whole band of RB owners looking at elevation as a consideration when moving house!

Funny, but that's exactly what I was thinking whilst I was up there!

[GlynH]

Can I ask where this local 'beauty spot' was?

Burton Dassett Hills, Warwickshire. I could have got about another 60 feet up but thought it best to stay in the car seeing as the hills overlook one of the country's biggest ammunition depots. Being out in the open with a laptop, scanner and lots of flashing lights might have attracted some unwanted attention! Anyway having the aerial on the car roof probably helped as I imagine it makes an excellent ground-plane.

As I suspected from the map - that's the same place we used to sit out all night going back to the late 70's - early 80's with our CB radios & HF transceivers...

I have taken my old telescope up there (see my first attempt in the attached pic of Jupiter) and really should take the new out with its built-in GPS and put it through its paces...

Spent many an interesting night up them thar hills...;^)

Kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

[AirNav Development]

Totally off-topic but how did you get that great photo? WHat telescope/camera you use?

[GlynH]

Totally off topic answer coming up then! :-)

I used a Meade ETX 90 (the smaller of the two 'scopes in the attached picture) with a Meade LPI (Lunar/Planetary Imager) CCD Imager connected via USB to a laptop running Meade Autostar Suite.

The 'scope itself tracks the target due to the rotation of the earth etc. and the software takes as many exposures as you want, discards any out of focus/exposure and registers (stacks) the good ones together to make the final image.

The picture itself was taken in 2004 and the two dots that can be seen are two of Jupiters moons, Ganymede & Io.

Regards,
-=Glyn=-