RADAR BOX is Perfect??????

[davis]

I've sent you my Radarbox a second time because my hardware

has a loss of sensibility. I've received the same item 20

days after. When i've turned on Radarbox i've see that

something is not going well about sensibility...

Is from a month that i'm testing the hardware sensibility

placing it in comparison with sbs1.

I'm testing i'm my house with Antenna WIMO1090 and cable

ECHOFLEX10 (15 mt.) and i've see the following differences:

For example on the airway UL5 between ALG VOR and TINTO fix

(Radial 67 ALG), i've a difference between Radarbox and

SBS1.

With radarbox i lose airplanes at 68 Nautical Miles, with

SBS1 i lose airplanes at 92 NM and this happens with all

the flight at all Flight Level and from all the position

around me...

I've tried to test the difference also outside my home,

near Alghero airport in a place without obstacle. I've

tried SBS1 and Radarbox simultaneously on a Laptot with

their originals Aereals. The screen was divided in two.
When an airplane appear on SBS1 I could not see it on

radarbox if not 11 seconds after. The same thing happen

also after i've exchange aereals keep they in their

respective positions.

Is radarbox less sensible than SBS1 or the support center

continue to resend me an bad born hardware???


I don't tell you that i'm not satisfied about Radarbox but

i want to understand if I can have a better hardware if

mine works bad.

[AirNav Support]

Hi Davis,

Firstly we have many customers who have RadarBox and a SBS-1 and we have not had complaint saying RadarBox is less senstive than the other. You can search the forum for that and we feel we do not need to go into that further as our customer base can prove that.

Can you tell us what was the issue that made you send it back? Was the issue fixed? Did you ever recieve good reception from the RadarBox?

[Allocator]

This was a very early - and not very scientific - comparison I did between the RadarBox and SBS-1 reception (see link below).  Sometimes the SBS-1 seemed to give slightly better coverage, but then the RadarBox was better the other times.  I really don't think that there is very much difference at all, so it does look like you have a problem with your box Davis.  Right now I'm getting RadarBox contacts out to 140 miles using the BS1100 external antenna and about 10 m of cable that came with the antenna.

http://www.airnavsystems.com/forum/index.php?topic=177.msg1021#msg1021

[davis]

For AirNav Support

I wrote because 'I read in the forum that R / B is  most sensitive of SBS-1.
I have sent it to  the factory the first time because  Windows does  not recognize R / B.
I have sent it to  the factory a second time because there was a significant decrease in sensitivity.
the factory never said the type of repair they made.

 For Allocator

I know that this is not a scientific method , but i am  pilot and radioamateur (  IS0YGB ) , from 30 years and I know make a comparison between two devices.
I did not say that R / B is less sensitive  to SBS, but I said that (  MY ) R / B is less sensitive to SBS.
In all tests made morning and evening, under the same conditions by a month, I have never seen a parameter R / B  greatest  than SBS.
By monitoring all aircraft landing at the airport with ILS ALG , R / B loses its signal any aircraft at 1200 Ft  - 3 Nm ..
SBS loses the signal at 700 Ft - 1.3Nm   from threshold .

[wheeler]

Hi Davis
For all its worth i live in the island of guernsey also radio ham GU0FYR but where i live the aircraft that come in and out of Guernsey don't transmit the signal so i have to rely on the aircraft that fly above the island there are quite a few as we have a beacon here for the some of the big stuff flying high and i pick all these up at 20-30000ft as what i do is listen to brest control and i hear whoever calling Brest and the return form Brest then i can see the aircraft on the RADAR BOX great and if the rings are correct that could be up to 2-250 miles away have you checked your ant
cheers wheeler gu0fyr

[davis]

Dear GU0FYR

Excuse me , maybe i dont have e good knowledge of English language ,
so i dont undestend what you tell me , What got with the comparison between R / B E SBS????
It will be recalled that in free space R / B has seen an airplane up to 190 Nm, but at the same time SBS following the same plane  untiln to 210Nm ..
wherever there is always this little difference
I hope it was clear once and for all
 Gianni Davis
  Sardinya

[Navman]

Hi Davis,

I purchased my RadarBox January 2008, it worked fine until 21st April when it suddenly lost sensitivity and would only receive aircraft that were within direct line of sight. After about 4-hours it stopped receiving altogether although network traffic was ok which indicated a receiver sensitivity problem.

AirNav support asked me to send the RB to Portugal for repair or replacement. It came back on the 10th May, there was no information as to what had been done to it but it had the same serial number. When I connected it to my computer it said new hardware detected, so obviously something inside had been changed. 

The RB then worked very well with targets received over 200 miles away. I switched the RB on 26th May 16 days, later it was working fine and then to my horror the range started to get less and less over a period of about 3-hours. Eventually it stopped receiving altogether as previously but network flights were still ok.

I contacted AirNav support and asked if I could have a replacement as this was the second time it had failed. They said that they do not replace RadarBoxes with new ones as that would be a considerable cost to them. They said that I should this time send the faulty RB to Waters & Stanton PLC and they would get a replacement to me, I assume a replacement means a refurbished RB.

I have to say that I am very disappointed that the RB has failed twice already and that I am again without it. There obviously seems to be an issue with the RB receiver sensitivity. When I get it back I’ll post again the outcome.

Navman
Ham Radio Call GW6CNS

[AirNav Development]

It seems we have the same problems here: please describe in detail your current antenna/amplifier setup. As RB was designed to be more sensitive than SBS-1 you are injecting too much signal into RB causing this situation.

Are you using the same antenna and conditions for both RB and SBS-1?

From our point of view both products cannot be looked the same way: it like comparing a brand new B787 against an old B737-200. RB has new technology, networked software, superior 3D graphics while SBS-1 is just a basic application that had the merit of being the first one in this area.

The market trend in just one year gave RadarBox the majority of market share (currently 75% RB to 25% SBS) which says it all.

For more details you may want to have a look at:
http://www.airnavsystems.com/download/anrb/AirNav%20RadarBox%20vs%20Competition.pdf

[AirNav Support]

Just to clarify this issue has affected a small isolated amount of customers. We ourselves run many setups using preamps and like the one which is sold on our site and have had no issues.

We would like people who have experienced this (Only people who have had a sudden loss of total (or 50%+) reception to send us further details either via the forum or to our support email.

We are investigating. Please note some of these "blackouts" are caused by storms, we do advise you to disconnect your antenna during electrical storms.

[Navman]

My antenna setup is as follows:

I’m using a Sandpiper antenna which looks very similar to the Radar-Rama supplied by Waters & Stanton Plc. The antenna is on a 2 metre pole mounted on the chimney of my house. The antenna is connected to the RadarBox with 20 metres of Westflex 103 low loss cable. N-Type plug at the antenna end and PL259 to SMA adaptor with 300mm of small low loss cable terminated to the RadarBox SMA connector. Between the PL259 adapter at the RadarBox end is a lighting arrestor connected to ground. I do not use an amplifier.

I always disconnect my antenna when RB is not in use and there have been no thunder storms in the days before both failures.

The last time my RB failed it was not sudden; the sensitivity seemed to fall away over a period of 3-4 hours then nothing.

Navman

[davis]

It seems we have the same problems here: please describe in detail your current antenna/amplifier setup. As RB was designed to be more sensitive than SBS-1 you are injecting too much signal into RB causing this situation.

Are you using the same antenna and conditions for both RB and SBS-1?

From our point of view both products cannot be looked the same way: it like comparing a brand new B787 against an old B737-200. RB has new technology, networked software, superior 3D graphics while SBS-1 is just a basic application that had the merit of being the first one in this area.

The market trend in just one year gave RadarBox the majority of market share (currently 75% RB to 25% SBS) which says it all.

For more details you may want to have a look at:
http://www.airnavsystems.com/download/anrb/AirNav%20RadarBox%20vs%20Competition.pdf

Dear Airnav...

We are not talking about Radarbox software because is under the eyes of everybody that R/b has a better software than SBS1. we are talking only about the sensibility/sinsivity of the hardware...

The cable/aereals configuration is not the cause of this problem because with the same cable/aereals i obtain the two different result i've told in the first post...

I think that is a problem into my hardware..

For shure i told you my cable aereal configuration:

Aereal: Wimo 10/90   (the aereal is over the roof of my home.
Cable: ECHOFLEX10 (15 mt.) connected directly to the r/b hardware 

I don't use preamp or amplifier...

I know the risk caused by a storm and is accostomed for us "Ham Radio" to disconnect cables during storm...

i relink this passage of my first post:

"I've tried to test the difference also outside my home,
near Alghero airport in a place without obstacle. I've
tried SBS1 and Radarbox simultaneously on a Laptot with
their originals Aereals. The screen was divided in two.
When an airplane appear on SBS1 I could not see it on
radarbox if not 11 seconds after. The same thing happen
also after i've exchange aereals keep they in their
respective positions".


Finally:

if you told me that radarbox is less sensible than SBS1 (not too much, just a little as you can see from my first post) "due to a better software", the discussion end here, but if you tell me that the 2 products must have the same sensibility i tell you that mine is not perfect...  :D


Best regards

Davis

[AirNav Development]

Ok copied. We have passed your email to the factory and we are waiting for their reply. We hope we can find the problem that generates this situation ASAP.

[davis]

AirNav thanks .. always kind and professional

[AirNav Development]

Here is the answer from the hardware factory:

"No DC Voltage can be applied to Radarbox antenna connector. 
Otherwise, serious damage can occur to the unit.
For installations where an external device (like antenna amplifier) must be used, proper DC blocking devices should be used."

Your comments please so we can discuss this with them furthermore.

[davis]

Here is the answer from the hardware factory:

"No DC Voltage can be applied to Radarbox antenna connector. 
Otherwise, serious damage can occur to the unit.
For installations where an external device (like antenna amplifier) must be used, proper DC blocking devices should be used."

Your comments please so we can discuss this with them furthermore.

In all my posts I believe that he was clear in declaring my working conditions.
And I explained clearly what is the problem. I do not think it appropriate to describe it yet....
Aereal: Wimo 1090   (the aereal is over the roof of my home.
Cable: ECHOFLEX10 (15 mt.) connected directly to the r/b hardware 

I don't use preamp or amplifier.

"I've tried to test the difference also outside my home,
near Alghero airport in a place without obstacle. I've
tried SBS1 and Radarbox simultaneously on a Laptot with
their originals Aereals. The screen was divided in two.
When an airplane appear on SBS1 I could not see it on
radarbox  11 seconds after SBS1. The same thing happen
also after i've exchange aereals keep they in their
respective positions".
Maybe when I have returned the unit the second time, did not give the maximum sensitivity that could
this is the problem .. It is perhaps a machine born evil