Stratux ADS-B receiver

27 posts in this topic

Posted

I built my own Stratux ADS-B receiver today. It does everything a Stratus does except attitude for $130 in parts off Amazon. Took about 30 mins to assemble. It does weather, traffic, notams etc. It also has its own GPS so you can use any iPad without an internal GPS. It works with all the big name software. I'm using foreflight. I just finished it tonight so no flight testing but I was picking up airliners from the garage. Adsb allows you to not only see them but see their call sign, altitude, heading, and speed. For $130 it's almost worth it to just watch planes fly over from the house. 

 

http://stratux.me/

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Posted

How much does your setup weigh?

Thanks,

Dave in western IL

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Posted

Joey, that's very cool! Thanks for sharing, Bryce

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Posted

Since I'm electronically handicapped is this all you need to be legal?  I'm planning on holding out but if this gets me in compliance I have a tablet that collects dust and could use it . Either way I'm still not rushing to do this on a plane that would barely get 10k

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Posted

Since I'm electronically handicapped is this all you need to be legal?  I'm planning on holding out but if this gets me in compliance I have a tablet that collects dust and could use it . Either way I'm still not rushing to do this on a plane that would barely get 10k

Steve, this one really does nothing towards compliance. It does however allow you to receive signals so you can "see" other aircraft that are sending out ADS-B signal. Since it is a receiver only it's a great tool but not helpful with compliance. 

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Posted

Someone needs to make the transmitter and undercut the market then.

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Posted

They will...

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Posted

Someone needs to make the transmitter and undercut the market then.

I would love to see this as well. From what I have heard though no one as of yet has done it. Not really sure why but I am not en electronics guy either. Personally I think that a lot of pilots are waiting for this to happen. I haven't even heard rumors of one happening yet. With the low end costs around $4,000 for the out unit it is too cost prohibitive for most of us to install. 

Has any else heard of any rumors of other out units coming around?

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Posted

Appareo has the Stratus ESG transponder priced at $2995 which includes the required GPS receiver function. My thought is to switch out and sell my Garmin 327 transponder. This ought to keep my costs below $3000 even if I have to add another GPS antenna.  My airport falls a mile outside the ORD Mode-C veil so I feel compelled to comply before the deadline. 

I haven't seen any reviews or testimonials yet on this transponder so I'm not comfortable laying out the cash at the moment. 

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Posted (edited)

It looks like stratux has evolved nicely!  Joey, you can save a little weight and power by eliminated the fan in your RPi case.  It will never get hot enough to need it.  Even if you sit on it for a 70 min flight (or so I've heard, ahem..).

It's nice to see this in kit form now, and a very reasonable price too!  I built mine from code I downloaded, edited, and compiled locally, then flashed to an RPi similar to the one Joey has, then tuned a couple of cheapo antennas, fashioned a ground plane out of an old hotel key.  I bought a china cheapo SDR(Software Defined Radio) and flashed it with code available on the 'net - this handles the demodulation of the incoming ADS-B.  RPi is the little computer in the clear plastic case - RPi = Raspberry Pi

I can connect to it via WiFi from my Ipad and Iphone.  From there it integrates very well with Foreflight.  I can also bring up a web page that the stratux software publishes on any of my devices and see a great deal of information regarding the various planes and such in the area.

RE: the transmitter portion.  The problem with making the transmitter is the encoding format is horrendously complex.  Receiving and parsing the incoming signal is trivial in comparison.  I looked into adding the transmit capability to an RPi based receiver I cobbled together last year.  Yeesh! 

I thought if I could reverse engineer the SDR,I could come up with a way to transmit.  But unfortunately there's way more to it.  Not to mention transmission of signals can involve some of the F agencies, like FAA and FCC.

 

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Edited by Knuckledragger

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Posted

Hat's off to both of you for building those . My generation is all about computers except me. I could never get my brain to wrap around computer type stuff . My brother on the other hand builds all kinds of transmitter type stuff , maybe I could ask him about trying a bootleg transmitter? 

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Posted

They will...

Not.

The FAA will never certify a portable system.  They are planning to decommission most of the radar sites eventually, and will be relying entirely on the position/altitude information provided by the ADS-B out system to separate large aluminum tubes full of voters from each other and our silly little airplanes.  They, and all those voters in the aluminum tubes, don't give a rat's *ss if it costs you money to comply.  Have you seen any portable mode C transponders?  Yeah, me neither....

Mark

 

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Posted

They will...

...undercut the market with a cheaper unit (eventually).  Probably not until the mandate is officially put into effect, whenever that happens.  I believe more delays will happen.  There will be a large market for affordable electronics.  The person/company to fill this niche will have a HUGE market to profit from.

 

I agree a portable is not going to happen.  A portable is counter to the use of the technology:  Identifying the aircraft electronically.

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Posted

I hope you are right, but the one company that tried it is now imploding because to get the price down they tried to shortcut some of the regs and got caught.

The FAA has some new policies (NORSEE) for certified airplanes that are allowing non-TSO'd equipment to be approved for installation.  The policy was developed from their prior approval of angle of attack systems.  So far Dynon (D10A, D100), and Garmin (G5) have taken advantage of it.  Trio and Tru Track are working through the process to get their autopilots approved.  However, transponders and radios are not on the list of equipment that will be eligible for this approval track.

The costs of certification (both of the ADS-B transmitter, and the WAAS GPS source) far exceed the cost to actually develop the equipment.  If you've never dealt with it before, it is easy to underestimate it.  Some of my work involves FDA approval of medical devices and pharmaceuticals.  Some days I wonder how anything ever gets to market.

Mark

 

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Posted

I'll rob my piggy bank and see if I can get some of my computer savvy friends to come up with a rx and tx thats cheaper if I have to .

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Posted

Appareo has the Stratus ESG transponder priced at $2995 which includes the required GPS receiver function. My thought is to switch out and sell my Garmin 327 transponder. This ought to keep my costs below $3000 even if I have to add another GPS antenna.  My airport falls a mile outside the ORD Mode-C veil so I feel compelled to comply before the deadline. 

I haven't seen any reviews or testimonials yet on this transponder so I'm not comfortable laying out the cash at the moment. 

A guy selling one over on PilotsOfAmerica seems to like it... https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/fs-stratus-esg-ads-b-transponder-certified-version.100552/

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Posted

I flew today with my set up and man am I impressed at the amount of data you have at your fingertips. Aside from traffic and alerts you have full weather info to include metars,tafs, winds aloft, and a radar overlay. When combined with foreflight you can flight plan, check notams, get enroute weather, and file all in about 5 minutes. Not that we all do that frequently but it's sure nice to have the capability. It's almost scary seeing how much traffic is in the area at any given time. Being able to see where people are in the pattern is a great feature too. 

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Posted

Joey, are there other apps that this will work well with?  I am thinking about getting foreflight but until I have a different plane to fly it doesn't make sense quite yet. I had the trial version for 30 days with my new iPad mini but never figured it out in the roughly 10 minutes of flight time I was able to fly with it. 

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Posted

Joey, are there other apps that this will work well with?  I am thinking about getting foreflight but until I have a different plane to fly it doesn't make sense quite yet. I had the trial version for 30 days with my new iPad mini but never figured it out in the roughly 10 minutes of flight time I was able to fly with it. 

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Posted

Thanks Joey! 

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Posted

Joey,

Just remember you aren't seeing all the traffic that could affect you if you aren't ADS-B out equipped yet.  And yes, having flown with both out and in for the last 4 years, it is amazing and scary how many airplanes are around you at any given time.  Especially here in Florida!  One thing that it has taught me is the guys saying 'see and avoid is better' are wrong.  Even knowing exactly where to look, in most cases another small plane is invisible until about 2nm.  Sometimes I can pick them up at 3-4, if the sun is just right, or they have white plane, flying over dark ground and I'm above them.  On a converging path, 2nm, even if both planes are flying at 85mph like ours do, is still 170mph closure, which gives about a minute to see and avoid. 

Mark

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Posted

I will probably build one of these soon. I just got a new Samsung tablet to run Avare and I set it up with an OTG host/charge adapter and an SDR tuner/antenna but it will only receive one band at a time. I am not really planning to use it in my Avid and I have not flown with it yet due to a prolonged annual on my Yankee but I have turned it on and watched traffic being vectored into Houston Hobby over the sectional chart on the screen. I would like to have the dual band capability for flights in the more congested airspace and when I fly to the Dallas area. I am interested mostly in the weather info but traffic would be nice too although I will most likely be on flight following.

Dan

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Posted

Do you have to have the battery pack or can it be connected directly to a usb port type charger (cell phone cord)? I was hoping to just power it from the other port on the charge plug that I use for the tablet's power

Dan

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Posted

I know nothing about these and probably will never own one, but there is a Stratux that looks like Joey's rig on ebay now - Opening at $25 with buy-it now of $150.   From the ad, I guess it is dual band with a GPS.  EDMO  http://www.ebay.com/itm/201796015859?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I just saw some other Stratux II sets that were selling for $255.   EDMO

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