New Zealand Radar

[Oblivian]

COUaddictedGH

[41south]

Who me?

[nzradar]

Way to go man! You've joined the ranks of the AA, didn't take long did it!

[Petenz]

Arg1180 March 16th 2013.JPG
I am quite happy with these results, but NEVER content!
I am trying to think of ways to improve my setup and have already cut off 2 1/2 metres of small linking COAX and replaced it with a USB cable. This delivered a range gain in some areas of about 20 NM. The next step would be to cut 2/3 metres off the bottom end of my LMR 400 cable a short link to the Beast which would have to sit outside under the eaves in a waterproof box. I have a 5 metre USB cable to connect to the computer. I am wondering if this sort of setup is gainful after Mike's disaster in this area.

[deconz]

I have a 5 metre USB cable to connect to the computer. I am wondering if this sort of setup is gainful after Mike's disaster in this area.

I tried my TV Dongle with 5m USB lead and found it erratic. In the end I ordered an active 5m USB cable and that solved the problem.

[North Borneo Radar]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1926[/ATTACH]
I am quite happy with these results, but NEVER content!
I am trying to think of ways to improve my setup and have already cut off 2 1/2 metres of small linking COAX and replaced it with a USB cable. This delivered a range gain in some areas of about 20 NM. The next step would be to cut 2/3 metres off the bottom end of my LMR 400 cable a short link to the Beast which would have to sit outside under the eaves in a waterproof box. I have a 5 metre USB cable to connect to the computer. I am wondering if this sort of setup is gainful after Mike's disaster in this area.

I wouldn't say what Mike had experimented is a disaster. It has yielded something most of us didn't expect that's all and we don't really know why. Just like things about the human body or the universe, it is complicated. We still got a lot to learn.

Of course, if you are going down this route like what Mike did, something needs to be done differently. I have no idea in all honesty but my guess is like making sure the beast is in its own box/using a band pass filter (?noise).

[Petenz]

I tried my TV Dongle with 5m USB lead and found it erratic. In the end I ordered an active 5m USB cable and that solved the problem.

I have ordered an active 5 Metre USB cable ; thanks for telling me such a thing exists.

[nzradar]

Hi Gang, yesterday I had another go at connecting my Hi-Tec 9dbi 1090MHz antenna directly to the dongle. The cable from the antenna is sealed at the antenna end i.e. there is not RF connector, it shipped originally with a 1 metre tail terminated in a female N-Type so I could connect a run of 5m LMR400. Now, the antenna has just about 150mm of cable with the centre conductor and shield exposed. These were soldered directly to the MCX solder lugs on the back of the dongle and assumed that the centre of the five lugs is the antenna centre and any of the other four are ground. Once soldered I then connected a 1 metre USB cable to my netbook and fired up RTL1090 and got exactly the same response in SISEX as I did when I put it up the mast. Looking at SISEX showed a massive amount of interference and the gain had to be reduced to around 20db to remove it, bt it also removed any signal theat was present.

I then got my spare dongle and connected that to the supplied GNS5890 antenna via the MCX connector and checked SISEX on that and was pleased to see a nice clean signal mainly from local aircraft. So thinking that it might be a 'burnt' dongle I attached the Hi-Tec antenna and got the same result as the first attempt, too much interference or overloading.

Tests of using either dongle using my DPD and 5m LMR400 results in clean and clear signals so something else is at play here when the dongle is placed close tot he antenna. Perhaps an enlightened RF engineer could tell what?

My conclusion is that the dongle cannot handle vast amounts of signal surmising that the only combinations that would yield success are:

Low gain or no gain antenna with the dongle attached at short length, or
High gain antenna with the dongle attached at a distance.

[Oblivian]

Interesting.

Radar: T-NZNE1

Watching NZM252 (its still broadcasting its last route) drop in to Napier now

Nice not many regional holes left now

[Oblivian]

Uhhhm... not so good. Someone needs to tweak their TV Tuner

nzne.jpg

[nzradar]

NZNE is North Shore Aerodrome! I thought it was just another jafa!

[Oblivian]

Ahh. That'd need a change to NZNR then methinks

[Petenz]

Uhhhm... not so good. Someone needs to tweak their TV Tuner

Very strong crosswind perhaps?

[Petenz]

If anyone is interested in adding waypoints to Mikes excellent waypoint file all you need is Edit+ to open the file and using these two great URL's
http://skyvector.com/ and http://andrew.hedges.name/experiments/convert_lat_long/ copy and paste the results into Mikes file. Remember to calibrate your PP chart using your home lat and long beforehand. Great care is needed to accurately convert the Degrees, Minutes and Seconds to decimal. Remember that the minutes you get show the seconds as a decimal of 60 seconds and you must convert those in your head to Seconds for placing in the conversion boxes. It is easy, but delicate work and very time consuming.

[chris]

Off topic but I thought this the best place to ask. What international flights fly over nz without landing, currently? I noticed a Qantas Santiago to Sydney the other night.