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ADSB in coverage in Canada (using Scout)

terry.mortimore

Well Known Member
Hi gang:

I?m wondering if the Scout will pick up a signal to receive weather on our side of the border? If so how far north will it pick it up?

I?m North of Michigan and a lot of my flying is down to southern Ontario.

Any experience out there?


Terry
 
ADS-B COVERAGE NORTH OF THE BORDER

Hi Terry

I can't personnally comment on the Scout's performace but I have a Garmin GDL-39-3D in my RV-4 and coming back from Oshkosh last summer via the Northern route (OSH-Drummond Island,YYB YUL ) I received weather and traffic all the way to Montreal.

A friend bought a Scout in OSH and he said that he could pick up traffic on his IPAD so I guess as long as you're within 100 miles of the border it should work just fine.

Good luck

Bruno
 
Hi gang:

I?m wondering if the Scout will pick up a signal to receive weather on our side of the border? If so how far north will it pick it up.

Terry

It?s essentially line of sight to a ground station, so it very much depends on altitude, with higher being better.
 
If you fly out of range of a ground station, I assume the weather map will not be up to date. How often does it update and does the iPad screen indicate “not in contact with a ground station” or other such warning about the data being old?

I’m using FltPlanGo on IPad so that’s the application my question is geared towards. Thanks.

Bevan
 
ADSB in coverage in Canada

Hi Bevan:

I haven?t bought the scout yet but I intend to. ForeFlight indicates that it is receiving weather by a colour dot on the airports, green dot = VFR, blue dot = marginal VFR, Red dot = IFR and pink is low IFR. If the colour dots are not there it is not receiving weather updates. I have connected my I-pad to my cell phone hot spot while flying, it updates the weather when my phone connects to a cell tower. Needless to say it is very hit and miss and I certainly don?t rely on it.

Terry
 
I did some testing with a Stratux before leaving Ottawa, comparing it to my XM WX system. My testing showed the following:

  1. Reception range is very variable, depending on atmospheric conditions. On most days, reception requires altitudes of several thousand feet. There was one day with a strange temperature inversion where I could recieve ADS-B data at very low altitude, but only at very low altitude.
  2. Radar data is only from US ground stations. This may give the impression of a relatively low intensity shower in Canada, when XM WX, using data from Canadian ground stations, shows much more significant weather.
  3. ADS-B data does cover a few Canadian METARs and TAFs, but the data was often out of date, sometimes more than 24hr old.
 
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