Nidge
 Second Officer
United Kingdom
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Duane Degn Posted at 6-15 14:24
As @Buzzyone mentioned, the ADS-B antennas are connected to the GPS board. You might want to remove the cover and make sure these antenna are properly connected.
You can get ADS-B receivers which plug into a PC for less than $20 (the antenna costs a bit extra). It might be interesting to compare what sort of data one of these USB connected receivers receive vs the air traffic info provided through the drone.
Over the years I’ve done a fair bit of testing with ADS-B, using cheap DVB-T dongles and advanced Software Definec Radio’s (SDR’s). I’ve not used the DJI AirSense system but I assume it shows only the basics such as distance, bearing, and height. If you sample the whole data burst and strip the modulation off there is so much more info available.
To be honest for 99% of users AirSense is more of a gimmick than a must have feature. In general aviation airspace there are minimum ceiling heights for aircraft and maximum ceiling heights for our drones. E.g. in my area the maximum height for a drone is 400ft, and the minimum height for a non-commercial aircraft is 1500ft. So if an aircraft is within even a few hundred feet altitude of my drone this would mean that my drone is the least of the aircraft pilot’s worries as he’s probably on a crash course anyway.
The same goes for the large passenger aircraft that transit my local airport some 5miles away. These aircraft are around 4,000ft agl before entering the airport’s restricted airspace where drone operations are not permitted. So again if my drone was in anyway in close proximity to one of these aircraft you can rest assured the pilot would have already issued a MAYDAY call and instructed everyone onboard to brace for impact, long before a possible collision with my 900grams of plastic.
What would make more sense would be for the drone to transmit ADS-B signals. This way the aircraft, and subsequently the Tower and relevant LEO would be made aware of an illicit drone flight, as to be a threat to an aircraft the drone will have to be flying outside of its permitted airspace in the first place.
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