Please help: LX9070 FLARM warning management confusion

[John Johnson]

I’m still new to the 9070 (about 25 flights) and have it connected to a FLARM Fusion.  I’d really appreciate some wisdom from the group’s experience on the FLARM warning settings.

First, I’m being constantly alerted to traffic >35km away horizontally which is driving me nuts.  I only want to be alerted to potential collision alerts (alarms?) in the immediate vicinity.  It would be nice if I could be alerted to new traffic only if it is within a specific horizontal distance and relative altitude band (you know, the traffic we actually care about).  Otherwise, I’m content with traffic and other info displaying passively on my map without notifications. 

So, what does this entail in the Flarm Warnings settings page?  Should I uncheck “Traffic”, “Obstacles”, and “Alert zones” and then only have “High alarms”, “Low alarms”, or “Medium alarms” set? (And why do they call this choice an incredibly unintuitive ‘High, Medium, Low’ instead of “Collision Alarm Sensitivity: 7sec, 16sec, 22sec” so any idiot could figure it out without looking it up in the manual?  Sorry, that’s just a whine). 

Second, what is meant by the terms “Directed warnings” and “Undirected warnings”.  The manual appears to assume we already know what the distinction is with no explanation of the difference.  Is this a PCAS vs Flarm sort of thing?  Do I set the H/L/M alarms choice the same for both? 

Third, Should I plug my separate Flarm display (LED indicator with a RJ45 cable) into the Fusion or the 9070?  I have had very few collision warnings to observe and I'm not sure yet how the display is behaving (not something I want to 'induce' for testing purposes).  Is this separate display using the 9070's sensitivity setting info or the Fusion's depending on where it's plugged in? 

Fourth, is there any way to remove map display of traffic in certain altitude bands?  For example, I would like to remove all aircraft above 25,000ft from my display.  The sky here is full of airliners above 35kft and their ads-b info really clogs up the display.  Below 25kft, I’m on the lookout for descents into the class B and C airspaces near my XC route.

Fifth, If I change Flarm settings in flight, do they immediately take effect?  Or is there a delay or a reboot required?   

Thank you in advance!

JJ

[Paul Remde]

Hi JJ,

Please see my notes below - marked with ***.

Paul Remde

__________________________________

I’m still new to the 9070 (about 25 flights) and have it connected to a FLARM Fusion.  I’d really appreciate some wisdom from the group’s experience on the FLARM warning settings.

First, I’m being constantly alerted to traffic >35km away horizontally which is driving me nuts.  

 *** Long range FLARM warnings are an issue with the FLARM configuration.  The horizontal range parameters for FLARM, ADS-B, and Mode C traffic are stored in the FLARM unit.  You can adjust the FLARM range settings in the Fusion over Wi-Fi or by creating a new configuration file and loading it into the Fusion.  You may also be able to edit the PCAS and ADS-B range settings in the LX9070 by going to Setup, Hardware, FLARM.  When editing the range settings in that screen, you are really editing the range settings stored in the Fusion.  I document how to create and load a configuration file with recommended settings in my PowerFLARM Tips document here:
http://www.cumulus-soaring.com/flarm/PowerFLARM-Tips.pdf 

*** I set my FLARM traffic horizontal and vertical ranges to maximums - so I can view distant FLARM traffic on the LX9070 screen and see the traffic's climb rate and track - showing whether it is climbing or cruising.  

I only want to be alerted to potential collision alerts (alarms?) in the immediate vicinity.  It would be nice if I could be alerted to new traffic only if it is within a specific horizontal distance and relative altitude band (you know, the traffic we actually care about).  Otherwise, I’m content with traffic and other info displaying passively on my map without notifications. 

So, what does this entail in the Flarm Warnings settings page?  Should I uncheck “Traffic”, “Obstacles”, and “Alert zones” and then only have “High alarms”, “Low alarms”, or “Medium alarms” set? (And why do they call this choice an incredibly unintuitive ‘High, Medium, Low’ instead of “Collision Alarm Sensitivity: 7sec, 16sec, 22sec” so any idiot could figure it out without looking it up in the manual?  Sorry, that’s just a whine). 

*** In the LX90x0's Setup, Hardware, FLARM & ADS-B screen, I recommend checking the "Reduce warnings" checkbox.  The settings in this screen will only be available if you have a cable that allows 2-way communication between the FLARM and the LX90x0.  I recommend Setting the PCAS horizontal range to about 5 miles and the vertical range to about +/-2000 feet.  I use the same settings for ADS-B ranges.  It doesn't look like the FLARM horizontal and vertical ranges are accessible here.  In the same screen, I recommend having the "ADS-B Warnings" checkbox checked.  

*** In the LX9070's Setup, Sounds, Alarms screen (and in the Setup, Sounds, Voice screen), I recommend having "FLARM collision" checked.  I don't recommend having "FLARM traffic", or "FLARM alert zone" or "FLARM obstacle" checked.

*** In the LX9070's Setup Sounds, FLARM Warnings screen, I recommend having "Tr. Advisory" unchecked for both the Directed and Undirected warnings.  I must admit that it is not clear to me what to recommend for the Low/Medium/High alarms.  

Second, what is meant by the terms “Directed warnings” and “Undirected warnings”.  The manual appears to assume we already know what the distinction is with no explanation of the difference.  Is this a PCAS vs Flarm sort of thing?  

*** Directed warnings are related to traffic of known exact position and altitude (FLARM, ADS-B).  Undirected targets are of unknown position (Mode C, PCAS) - only the altitude and approximate distance are known - not exact position - not direction.

Do I set the H/L/M alarms choice the same for both? 

***  I must admit that it is not clear to me what to recommend for the Low/Medium/High alarms..  

***The text below is copied from the manual - with #### above and below.

######################
Undirected Warnings: • Traffic warnings will be raised once a new aircraft is detected by FLARM. For each (Undirected and Directed Warnings) you can choose the alarm level separately. 

Explanation of alarms:
 • Low alarms: For distant FLARM targets the main unit can give a short or long message, just a beep or be turned off (19-25 seconds before possible collision).
 • Medium alarms: For distant FLARM targets the main unit can give a short or long message, just a beep or be turned off (14-18 seconds before possible collision).
 • High alarms: For very close FLARM targets the main unit can give a short or long message, just a beep or be turned off (6-8 seconds before possible collision).  

######################

Third, Should I plug my separate Flarm display (LED indicator with a RJ45 cable) into the Fusion or the 9070?  

*** The FLARM port on the Fusion is an 8-pin RJ45 connector.  If you have a display cable with an 8-pin connector, I recommend connecting it to the Fusion.  The FLARM port on the LX9070 is a 6-pin RJ12 port.  If you have a FLARM display cable with an RJ12 6-pin connector, you can connect it to the LX9070.  The 2 ports work the same. 

I have had very few collision warnings to observe and I'm not sure yet how the display is behaving (not something I want to 'induce' for testing purposes).  Is this separate display using the 9070's sensitivity setting info or the Fusion's depending on where it's plugged in? 

*** FLARM, ADS-B and PCAS range settings are saved in the FLARM.  

Fourth, is there any way to remove map display of traffic in certain altitude bands?  For example, I would like to remove all aircraft above 25,000ft from my display.  The sky here is full of airliners above 35kft and their ads-b info really clogs up the display.  Below 25kft, I’m on the lookout for descents into the class B and C airspaces near my XC route.

*** No, but limiting the ADS-B and PCAS vertical range settings in the FLARM to +/-2000 or 3000 feet will keep all connected displays from displaying the traffic outside that range.

Fifth, If I change Flarm settings in flight, do they immediately take effect?  Or is there a delay or a reboot required?   

*** Yes.

Thank you in advance!

JJ

[Paul Remde]

Hi,

This is an update to the note below.  After posting the notes I found the following note in the LX90x0 manual regarding the Setup, Warnings, FLARM screen, 

####

  During competitions it is recommended to select Medium or High alarms, otherwise too many warnings will be displayed. Medium or High means that only the most important alarms will be triggered.  
####

So, to me that means that we would want to select "high alarms" if the goal is to minimize nuisance alarms.

Best Regards,

Paul Remde

[Ramy Yanetz]

I agree with most of Paul’s recommendations, but also recommending:

1- leaving the reduce warning unchecked. Once you reduced your range as Paul suggested, there is no need to further reduce warnings. Any reduced warning may be the warning which could save you. 

2- I strongly recommend having farm traffic checked for directed warnings. Without it, you will not get any alerts for flarm traffic until collision is imminent. Set directed alarm level to medium or high (I think mine is set to medium). 

3- I recommend setting PCAS (undirected warning) traffic checkbox checked, but no alarm. otherwise it will go on constantly in a thermal with another mode C  equipped glider. 

Ramy

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[Paul Remde]

Hi,

Ramy flies a LOT more than I do, so I defer to his expertise.  

Best Regards,

Paul Remde

[John Johnson]

Paul, Ramy,

Thank you very much for the info and advice.  This is helping.  Such a pain that LxNav decided to spread FLARM/ADS-B/PCAS/Mode-C across 2 different settings pages.  Why, for goodness sakes, did they spread FLARM and ADS-B warning settings across both the HW page and the Warning page?  Arrrgh!

There are 3 distinct types of information/notifications that I’d like to have control over and I’m still not fully confident I understand how they are managed.  But, with your info and lot of puzzling it out, I think I’m getting there.  Here’s what I’m trying to do and how I’ll proceed:

1)     Traffic shown on the map display: I’d like to see everything below 25,000ft (FLARM, ADS-B/ADS-R/TIS-B) appear on the map except PCAS.  I think this can be established as follows in the Fusion’s configuration settings:

·        FLARM: set H/V ranges to unlimited or maximum values

·        ADS-B/ADS-R/TIS-B: set Horizontal range to unlimited.  V-range, unfortunately, is relative to your altitude (not an absolute altitude) so I’ll set it to 6000ft as a compromise.  This will filter out high altitude airliners and still give me a view of descenders when I’m at 17kft.

·        PCAS: set Horizontal range to 5nm and vertical range to 2,000ft (without specific location info, I’ll know to look out for it when a ‘new traffic warning’ pops up)

·        Note: the LX’s Hardware/FLARM &ADS-B settings page is not coherently aligned with the Fusion’s configuration list.  I’m concerned that the LX will overwrite my Fusion’s config settings, so I’ll have to check to see if things get changed on subsequent power cycles. 

2)     Warnings: Except for PCAS and FLARM, I don’t want to be warned every time a new aircraft traffic appears on the map.  So, in LxNav’s Warnings/FLARM Warnings settings, I’ll set the following:

·        Directed: Traffic checked, Obstacles and Alert Zones unchecked – this enables FLARM traffic warnings (I’ll probably turn this off in high traffic competitions or set ‘Reduced warnings’).

o   ADS-B traffic should not generate any new traffic warnings because I’ll have ADS-B Warnings unchecked in its illogically placed location in LX’s Hardware/FLARM &ADS-B

·        Undirected: Traffic will be checked – but the limited range setting should minimize the number of PCAS warnings generated.  This gives me a heads up to locate any nearby PCAS traffic

3)     Alarms (collision alarms):  For now, I’ll choose Medium alarms for both directed and undirected settings in LxNav’s Warnings/FLARM Warnings.

thx, JJ

[Ramy Yanetz]

Hi John,

There are actually more than 2 places for flarm related configuration. There is also the graphic setting…

I am not sure why you would want to set ADSB to unlimited range, you will get tons or alerts from traffic 10-20 miles away. 

I do not recommend unchecking ADS-B warning. You will not get warning of nearby ADS-B traffic. 

Don’t worry too much about PCAS Mode C warning, it is not available in Fusion anyway. You will see most of Mode C Traffic relayed via TIS-B. 

Ramy

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[John Johnson]

Ramy,

  Understand your concern about ADS-B 'warnings' but you also used the term 'alerts'.  Is there a difference or are they both just called 'warnings'.  Aside from 'warnings', I thought the only other notification type was an 'alarm' for potential collisions.

 I want to be able to see all ADS-B traffic on the map in a ~25mi radius and below 25kft.  But I only want to receive a 'warning' if that traffic is much closer - like within 5mi.  It just seems obvious we might want to display more range while limiting the notifications (warnings) to a smaller range.   As I understand it, that's not possible.  If warnings are turned on, you will get a warning (in the form of a LX9070 popup and voice notification) for any aircraft within the horizontal/vertical range settings.  So I can either:

 - limit my range to reduce nuisance warnings but not see developing encounters with fast moving aircraft further out (lots of airline approach traffic in our area)

 - increase my range to see aircraft further out but receive many nuisance warnings

 - increase my range to see aircraft further out but turn off ADS-B warnings

If I'm missing a way to limit the ADS-B 'warning' message range while still keeping the displayed aircraft range larger, please explain.  (It would be awesome if I'm wrong about this)

I'm confused about the lack of Fusion PCAS support.  I'm pretty sure I've seen Mode-C range circles on my map a number of times ('Show PCAS' in the graphics settings).  Also, the FLARM config tool calls out PCAS horiz/vertical settings.  Are you saying Fusion reports them in the data stream but just doesn't provide for PCAS 'warnings'?

Thank you for responding and your patience - I appreciate your help and insight.

thx, JJ

[Ramy Yanetz]

JJ,

By ‘warnings’ I indeed meant alerts. 

Flarm provides 2 types of warnings:

1- traffic alerts/advisory - when traffic first get into the specified range, and again when it gets closer (I think around 1 mile, although I don’t think this is always working) - those alerts are implemented as voice alerts in LX90xx.

2 - collision alarm when a collision is imminent (based on the alarm level you select, low, medium, high). 

Your concerns are similar to mine. I also want to see traffic from further away, especially my buddies with ADS-B out, but get audio alerts only when the traffic gets closer. I requested both LXNav and Fusion folks to provide this, but so far it is not available. It will help if others will request the same. I think LXNav and Flarm folks think I am the only one who is bothered by that… So a compromise is to set the range to 5-10 miles and 2-3000 feet so I don’t get too many alerts. The other option of turning alerts off completely is not acceptable for me, as I don’t look at the screen often enough to notice if an aircraft is dangerously close, and I don’t want to be startled by an alarm. The alerts essentially reduce the alarms significantly as I can avoid getting too close to another traffic. 

The PCAS/undirected rings you see are mode S. Flarm confirmed to me that they did not implement mode C In Fusion from various technical reasons (too many false alarms from own aircraft). They planned to provide a more robust mode C capability but so far this didn’t happen. 

[Aldo Cernezzi]

Maybe I'm saying the obvious, or it has been discussed in the previous posts... but my setup includes a small, external LED display "Flarm display v3" on top of the glare shield, which provides flashing alerts and beeps (it also has a simple push button for audio volume setting).

I then use the LX9000 (or PDA) just for situation and sporting awareness.

In competition, I activate the "reduce alarms" function in the Flarm settings.

I think the combination of this setting and the LED display is a very good solution to the excessive alerts during flight.

ciao,

Aldo Cernezzi

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[John Johnson]

Thanks Ramy!

  That clears up my confusion.  I'll send a note to LxNav, Naviter, and FLARM to add another voice to the desired behavior we seek. It just seems obvious that we would want something like this:

  1) FLARM sends an unlimited range data stream of all traffic types to the flight computer/display.

  2) FLARM sends traffic alerts based on specific range criteria settings per traffic type

  3) FLARM sends collision alarms based on sensitivity choice settings per traffic type

  4) LxNav (and other FC vendors) use the unlimited range data stream to display only the traffic that meets user-defined filtering criteria per traffic type (horizontal/vertical range).  Map display filtering criteria would be established in flight computer settings (not FLARM). 

  5) LxNav (and other FC vendors) directly pass through any FLARM generated alerts and collision alarms with the FC giving the user only enable/disable control of alerts and alarms per traffic type (for example, in the cases where other alert/alarm indicator devices are present and the user doesn't want them all responding).

  My career was in developing large-scale semiconductor manufacturing equipment.  I spent a lot of time putting together sequence control schemes, user interface models, and recipe/menu management (settings) architectures to control that equipment.  I'd love to be able to re-factor the interfaces we see on these, otherwise very capable, hardware devices.  The reality is that UI's generally grow 'organically' over time as new features are introduced and they become quite rigid with an unwieldy underlying SW structure.  Any significant structural change is a very big deal.  I'm not hopeful we'll see changes.

  That said, I would enjoy packaging a comprehensive feature/user wishlist and formally document our requests.  This provides a vendor something tangible that they can judge and make decisions on with more weight than random one-off requests.  If you want to share your other ideas (different topics), let me know.

thx, JJ

[John Johnson]

Thanks Aldo.  I agree that your solution manages alerts but it doesn't address the display behavior I was hoping for.  Per my other note, I'd like to see alerts, alarms, and what traffic gets displayed fully decoupled from each other with different range filtering for each.

thx, JJ

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[Dave Springford]

According to Section 5.1.12.6  FLARM* of the LX90xx manual

checking the ADS-B warnings box will DISABLE these warnings.

"ADS-B Warnings will disable warnings for ADS-B traffic, however it will still display them on the map."

see attached image:

[John Johnson]

Hi Dave,

  Yes, I got that.  Ramy was pointing out that no warnings/'traffic alerts' on ADS-B are risky.  His solution is to leave them turned on but restrict ADS-B to a reduced range.  I want to see ADS-B traffic farther out on my map (~25mi) but only receive alerts for the nearby traffic.  That is not possible so, for now, I am going to turn off ADS-B warnings while keeping my ADS-B range set to unlimited.  I understand Ramy's concern but I look at the map often enough to develop a picture of the nearby traffic and stay on top of stuff getting close.  On the other hand, I find myself virtually ignoring traffic warnings because there are so many for ADS-B traffic that isn't near me.

thx, JJ

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[Dave Springford]

If you have the "TRAFFIC" option selected, then the LX will give you a warning for every new aircraft that is detected.  This is overkill.  I don't use the traffic option.

For collision, the low medium, high options are best interpreted as low collision risk, medium risk and high risk.

Initially, I thought it was low number of warnings, but it is the inverse.  Setting high gives the lowest number of warnings and only for something that is about to hit you.

Dave

[Ramy Yanetz]

I am not sure where you found this text, which is obviously a typo. 

Here is what I see in the same section: 

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[Dave Springford]

Rev 45 from Jan 2022, but I see the Rev 51 from Dec 2022 has the text you are seeing.

So either they changed the functionality of the check box between releases and updated the manual, or ...

Dave

[Ramy Yanetz]

Indeed low should be interpreted as low(er) risk for collision.

As for disabling warning, if you scan your display frequently enough that you never miss nearby traffic, you probably don’t need the warning. I am scanning the sky much more than the instruments, so need this audio alerts. It is up to each pilot to figure what works best for them. 

I am flying in a very congested area (San Francisco Bay Area) with tons of traffic, yet setting the distance to 5 miles and vertical to 2000 feet always works very well for me. Not too many audio alerts for traffic. 

But like JJ, I would prefer to set my display to larger range and the alerts to lower range (2 miles) but there is no such option. 

Ramy

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[Ramy Yanetz]

They updated  the manual. I am flying over 5 years with the checkbox  checked and always got alerts. 

Ramy

[John Johnson]

Dang, this is good to know - I'm heading to the field tomorrow and have been looking

at an older version of the manual (rev 48) that says the check box means 'disable warnings'.

This would have confused the heck out of me!

thx, JJ

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[Morgan Hall]

I've been fighting with an AHRS gyro reset.  After some wonky Hawk readings last weekend I figured I would go through the leveling process again.  In doing so I noticed that the latest revision of the User Manual has a lot of differences from the previous version.  The Password section has been virtually eliminated whereas the older version had password codes for resetting a variety of things.   I don't know if that was intentional or a new person is working on documentation, but I'd say it is probably worth grabbing a copy of the last 2022 version and keeping that available as a reference.

Morgan

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[Morgan Hall]

Never mind…

The “latest” I managed to download seems to have been a google cached page with a January 2022 version of the document. Didn’t read the date and version info well enough in the footer while on my phone. 

The latest on my gyro issue is that my V8 needs to go back to Slovenia for calibration.  It shows 4.5 degree left wing down and resetting the offset doesn’t fix the problem.  

I had access to another V8 and verified that it is wings level with the fuselage level.  

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the wonky readings on the Hawk vario are coming from the gyro being off.  

Morgan 

[John Johnson]

I was able to spend some quality time with my glider sorting out the various traffic alert/warning settings and their effects on the map display and notifications.  First, Ramy's credibility index has advanced even higher (don't get a big head about it).  All of his assertions in this conversation have held true so I won't repeat them.  Also, I found that if I changed a setting on the 9070, I could observe that change after refreshing the Fusion's configuration browser page (Fusion uses a wifi hub and web interface for config access).  I could also see the inverse - a change in the Fusion's settings resulted in a change in the 9070's settings value.  And, yes, checking the ADS-B warnings check box results in enabling those warnings.

 On a thursday flight through busy Tucson airspace , I was reasonably satisfied using a 15km traffic notification range (ADS-B warnings 'on', voice warnings enabled).  I'd much prefer to see more displayed range on the map but the notifications were relevant and timely.  Most importantly, I now understand how the available FLARM settings work and get the results I expect to see (however, still not fully aligned to what I want).  I thank the forum's experts for their help.

JJ

[Chris Dowell]

Is there a way to get the warning voices to speak faster?

When I had my CNII, it said, "Traffic 4 o'clock low!" in less than 2 seconds. With my 9070, it's like reading poetry...slowly.

This was very useful in a gaggle.

D1