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Stratus 1 location question

W

Windrunner

Member
My stratus 1 (without an external antenna) receives more towers and displays more traffic when I locate the unit on my left knee rather than on the glareshield. Anyone else noticed this?
 
Yep. I found even just turning it on edge vertically on the glareshield went from 1 tower to 5+. Now that I'm flying with it on every flight, I bought the bits to make an external antenna cable and hooked it to my DeltaPop blade antenna.

Other problem with the glareshield is heat, so I toss a light colored towel over it. Seems to help but I hate the reflection. Sadly no external gps antenna on the older Stratus.
 
I have a Stratus !. I tried several locations. First was in the foot well - no signal

Then on my knee - that worked.

Glare shield works. But is inconvenient

I bought the extension antenna thinking that I could place the unit in the foot well, have the iPad on a RAM mount above it, with a straight LOS between the two. Doesn't work.

Not sure if the extension antenna is the failure (i.e. just doesn't work) or what.
 
The glareshield of an RV is a known bad location for a Stratus 1. Two years ago at AirVenture I found this out from the Stratus folks. They said they don't know why. They gave me a mount to locate it somewhere else. I bolted it to the channel behind the roll bar of my tip up and it works great there.
 
DGlaeser said:
The glareshield of an RV is a known bad location for a Stratus 1. Two years ago at AirVenture I found this out from the Stratus folks. They said they don't know why. They gave me a mount to locate it somewhere else. I bolted it to the channel behind the roll bar of my tip up and it works great there.
Click to expand...

Heat is the reason, I think. A black glare shield and Sun beating down on it cooks it and it may shut down.
 
Saville said:
Heat is the reason, I think. A black glare shield and Sun beating down on it cooks it and it may shut down.
Click to expand...
My issue wasn't heat - I could never get a good GPS lock. ADSB-In worked, but no GPS position. As soon as I moved it, the GPS worked fine.
Of course on sunny days I did have to watch the temps - often wrapped it in a white piece of paper.
The mount in back solved all of that...
 
DGlaeser said:
My issue wasn't heat - I could never get a good GPS lock. ADSB-In worked, but no GPS position. As soon as I moved it, the GPS worked fine.
Of course on sunny days I did have to watch the temps - often wrapped it in a white piece of paper.
The mount in back solved all of that...
Click to expand...

Are you certain that the issue wasn't the bluetooth connection between the iPad and the Stratus I? I've wondered if that's why the iPad reports no connect.
It's hard to imagine that a 2-3 foot distance with LOS fails, but I can't rule it out.
 
Saville said:
Are you certain that the issue wasn't the bluetooth connection between the iPad and the Stratus I? I've wondered if that's why the iPad reports no connect.
It's hard to imagine that a 2-3 foot distance with LOS fails, but I can't rule it out.
Click to expand...
The iPad was talking to the Stratus just fine - got wx info and status info all the time - but GPS was intermittent at best. The number of satellites shown on the GPS 'circle' were mostly red - got a good position when enough turned green (but then they.
The location in back is farther from the iPad but works great. Just bad mojo on the IP...
 
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