iFly GPS Forum

All very excited. Plugged in the battery pack, loaded up Ifly GPS and boom! There was the stratux, connected to it, opened up settings, but no need to change anything. Looked on the map and saw some traffic.

Today I had some time to play with it, so repeated, but, now, the ADSB shows as waiting and has been for 15-20 minutes. :-(

Plus the traffic I sw yesterday was 21NM away (strangely, nothing closer). Is there a way to adjust the size of the "hockey puck" that it's reporting? 

UPDATE: FInally connected - way too long IMHO. I can't delay a student's flight (or mine for that matter) 30-40 minutes while it connects. Under ADSB Status it's saying it's received no GPS updates and 10's of thousands of CRC Error tests. Is this all normal? Does not seem right to me, though I really don't understand it.

UPDATE 2: Decided to try a Reset/Reconnect. 30 minutes ago... still not reconnected. I moved the Stratux to right beside the tablet (it was 3.5-4' away previously) and it connected almost immediately. This is the problem? WiFi that won't bridge 4 feet? So much for wanting to remotely mount the Stratux so it's not blocking sight lines. Is this really how poorly its WiFi works?

It now is appearing to only report (on screen anyway) traffic that's nearby, however the ADSB Status screen shows TIS-B Traff [128]. I assume that's 128 targets (though none show on screen)? Is there some explanation of this screen somewhere?

UPDATE 3: It's been connected for 1/2 hour or so. Stratux right next to the tablet - almost touching it. Did a Reset/Reconnect. Still took 1-2 minutes to reconnect. Is that normal? I've seen friends using receivers like the Garmin (yes, I know, it's2-3 times the price) which connect almost instantaneously.

Ian,

From your post it's hard to offer any recommendations because there's not enough detail to work with.  Provide some more data and folks might have more thoughts for you.

• "Stratux" can mean lots of things.  Did you buy a pre-built device or build it yourself?  If pre-built, what vendor/model?  If home-built, what components did you use?
• What device are you running iFly on?  
• When talking about "connection", are you talking about your iFly device connecting to the Stratux wifi or the Stratux device picking up an ADSB tower?  What are you looking at on the device or in the iFly app to determine your connection status?
• Where are you doing this testing?  Your living room?  In the hangar?  In the plane but on the ground?  In flight?  At what altitude and in what location?

Re: "hockey puck", you can't control what the FAA and other aircraft send you, but you can control what iFly chooses to show:  Menu > Setup > Alerts and Warnings > Traffic Alerts, then set "Distance Visibility" and "Vertical Clearance Visibility" to your desired thresholds.  You may also want to adjust the "Set Alert Thresholds..." to limit the number of alert popups you get for traffic.

FWIW, I've used a home-built Stratux with iFly on a 720, two Android phones, and two Android tablets for ~3.5 years with no problems.

Sounds like you've got the wifi connection figured out.

Looks like the Stratux that Adventure Pilot (iFly) sells uses an "internal" GPS (the receiver is on a small USB gizmo plugged into a port inside the device housing).  The receiver gain on these is sometimes a little weaker than an external GPS antenna (the receiver is in a small "puck" that has a 2-4' cord that plugs into the USB port).  It's always best to have a clear view of the sky when trying to get GPS satellite reception.  It may also help to keep the device on for ~15-20 min so that it downloads a full GPS almanac, which may help it establish a lock more quickly the next time you power it up.

While testing on the ground at home, you will only be picking up traffic signals from ADSB-out equipped planes that fly over your location, so depending on where you live (and how you adjust the iFly settings) you may or may not see targets frequently.  Once you start flying with it, in most parts of the US, you should generally expect to get good ADSB coverage once you're ~1000-1500' AGL, though in mountainous areas YMMV.  (Unless your name is Don and you fly a Searay, in which case all bets are off.  ;-) )