paragliding detection system
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paragliding detection system
paragliding system

AirWhere - News

Please email us at Air Where Email to send any pics or news etc.
AirWhere discussion is now on a facebook group, please visit this page to ask any questions.
9/3/2017Ok, this is a difficult release this one v13 ( perhaps more unlucky for me ? ! )

v12 and v13 are NOT compatible, this is a major update.
New features :-
Mesh network
Skytraxx compatibility ( Skytraxx 3.0 unit checked and working with the new code )
Added flyskyhy option
Fixed a few GPS bugs
More accurate heading
This will be on the development version for a few days so if people can test, see if their unit seems ok and then will put to live, I will create a video for people who havent updated their unit before in the next few days.
Once you have updated to the v13 you can drop back again to v12 for flying if you want to be seen by the current ground stations.
If theres no issues in the next few days I will update the ground stations and then go live with v13.
Also

Back end live tracking has been upgraded to it can handle many many users - tried 60 windows , it was fine.
New live tracking coming shortly courtesy of Mr Read ( thanks ! )
Will update site with details of voltage regulator details to be added, this helps a lot with reception - please contact me if you need your unit retro fitted.
8/3/2017Two successful evenings done for the Derbyshire soaring club and the Cumbria soaring club - ground stations are planned, more units being built - more ideas coming !

v13 will be out anyday now with Skytraxx compatibility - watch this space.
9/2/2017Version 12 released - none critical update.

Added following features :-

add OTG
add Wifi standalone
add wifi timeout and selector if you want it - selecting yes makes the wifi stop after 3 mins saving power and less interference for the GPS lock
add wifi reconnect if its on hard wired.
add registration number config - please register on the site and pick a number and fill this field in, the current number will still work but this will be phased out.
Pilot Name.
add vertica v2

More instructions about these will come shortly - sounds are now working but really complicated and I might just wait for the port to the esp32 now its out, then we can have baro aswell very easily.
Working on v13 - major update coming - new instruments to be supported coming shortly.
23/01/2016More info going on up the facebook group page - please join to get more information and add your own pics, new ground stations going up all over the UK, lots of new units being made - we are doing a talk at the Derbyshire/Thames Valley and Newcastle club in Feb/April so please be sure to come along and see the system yourself.
9/12/2016Added some help pages for the build, simple procedures to make sure your hardware is working.
8/12/2016Version 11 out - Added baud rate selector in setup now so you can use 9600,38400, 57600,115200 - back to one version again for all GPS units, Added RFLORA diagnostic - if the boards not connected properly it will tell you in the terminal log
8/12/2016AirWhere evening ran - 8 pilots on their way to building the unit.
25/11/2016AirWhere Evening for the PSC - If you would like to make one of these units I can run an evening somewhere, probably at my house for 4-6 people to get a unit setup for them. Please contact me and we can arrange a date, we can print out cases in advance and then one evening should get your instrument built
24/11/2016Any questions and help you need please check out the facebook group, most of the updates will be on there now, hope its of use! : Click
22/11/2016Blue Fly Vario is now working, details on this page :- BlueFly vario
20/11/2016A good day, new ground station aerial up a roof with preamp and filter, tested to the ground 3km away no issues, pilot spotted 13k away, reliable signal with antenna down. Full system is now tested in a real world situation, great results. More ground stations coming soon !
15/11/2016So... bit of a change of name, dont want any hassle from a similar named company as we are basically a free organisation creating something to help each other out ! Will run both websites concurrently but will be called AirWhere from now on, if anyone knows of any other company called this then let us know, hopefully this will be ok.
14/11/2016As we predicited no flying on Pendle for more ground station testing, however a great day yesterday, 4 hard wired units working perfectly on Parlick, Kobo Glo and mini case now finished, Kobo Mini AirWhere.
4/11/2016Busy Day ! Ground station up on Pendle, no doubt there will be no flyable weather there for the next ever for testing ... ! Thanks to Dave G for this, good man! Testing is under way. Version 9 out, RSSI indicator ( Signal strength ) added to the webpage so you can test new aerials or antennas to get the most out of the system, please update.
2/11/2016Work has started on adding barometric support to the project for an extra £1 ( for a simple sensor ) or an extra £4 for the ultra high resolution one. We will also be adding a speaker for sounds for around 50p and then in time a vario built in making this a complete instrument. Unfortunately we are nearly out of GPIO pins on the current ESP8266 but with the ESP32 out now we will have many more to play with. Just waiting on the ESP32 to come out as a development board at the correct price.
1/11/2016As a special offer, we will build up 2 complete kobos for just the price of the parts for 2 pilots in every club in the UK to get people started, please contact us for details. In return these lucky pilots will have the job of demonstrating them to their club. We will require to be sent a Kobo touch, glo or mini and then we will return the instrument with 1-2 weeks with full airware system / larger battery / GPS and maybe vario on board for the cost of the parts we have added.
31/10/2016Webpage updated with the new build instrucitions for a Wifi version, standalone hard wired version and the one we like the most, the complete system in one. Did some more test on half wave and quarter wave antennas, the half wave is just slightly better than the quarter, both giving excellent results at 2-3km away. System running perfectly again, feel free to dive in and make one. We are available to a a talk at any club night and to run a "build an Air-wave" evening if anyone would like to have us.
22/10/2016New case with gps/airware/extra battery, all internal, very neat ! Pic
17/10/2016We are looking for techy people in various areas, perhaps associated with their local club that can give advice on setting up the units for new pilots, so if you have made one and dont mind being helping other pilots in your area, let me know, thanks
8/10/2016After a successful talk ( I hope ! ) at the Dales paragliding club, some more interest in the unit. Tried a larger backplate on with a 4500mah battery with the kobo and airware, getting 30+ hours out of the unit, thats just for £7 more... so thats the way to go I think ! The new unit is mainly done, few small bug fixes to sort but majority is completed, makes for a very compact unit see here. Circuit diagram and a build video to follow shortly.
4/10/2016First units of the wifi and hard wired version have been made, testing is revealing some amazing results, the LORA transmitter seems much more powerful, even with a small piece of wire for an aerial its getting better results than the ARF, will be fitting proper aerials soon and testing, very impressed so far !
27/09/2016We now have a new Transceiver sorted, this is now much cheaper aswell, £9.68 delivered ! This brings the cost of the unit down to around £20 to make, which we think is amazing. Just in the process of testing and adding into the original system. We have also started working with a major instument manufacturer! We will continue and produce the free version which will work with any instrument with wifi and they are going to produce a retail version. Dont worry we will always be free ! Apologies regarding the ARF, it was out of our control, the company has ripped us off aswell, not good for what we are trying to do, but thats life, we are heading in a much better way now with support and a brand new chip, details coming soon once we get it all working. Thanks for your patience.
01/09/2016 Please hang fire making one of these units, the company selling the ARF have decided to close down and they wont for some reason make the ARF available anymore, or release any of the code so we can continue.

Thanks for letting us know before ordering LOADS, great ! , anyway, we have a new module in the post that looks better, its actually cheaper aswell at £15. Hopefully this will be put in place this week and normal service resumed, if you have an ARF please do contact wireless things and try and get your money back asap as the new chip will not be compatible, I do apologise about this, but its out of my control and it would have been nice for someone to have told us that this was being discontined.... thanks for that ! ;)

26/8/2016Lots of wresting with a problematic 3d printer for a few days, finally managed to make a prototype case which seems to work well, pic here , here and here. This system pulls 200-300 mah with charging the kobo and the vario, really good power consumption. A new version of Airware will be out soon with the ability to switch between this hard wired version and the wifi version, just needs some more testing. Hard wired schematic will be added to the website shortly, however if you would like a go at making one let me know and I can send you the rough details, its basically the same with a few more wires added. This case also has an antenna mount for locking the aerial away for take off and to keep it safe, few changes needed to the print file and that will be released aswell.
13/08/2016A full evening and some of the early hours of morning to find a strange data corruption problem, now sorted, we have a fully wired version! The esp seems to like this way much better, code looptimes are down from 20ms to less than 1ms which is rather nice ! On with making a back case and cover for the touch , hopefully we will have one completely integrated unit, nice for smaller flight decks and for people who just want to switch on and go. Bit messy at the moment ... ! pic
12/08/2016As there was some small wifi problems with the Kobo, it can disconnect after a period of hours which is a pain, and you have to manually reconnect ( we are still working on a fix for this, hopefully soon! ) we have a new version completely, thats hard wired, it does work now and we are designing a complete case for the Kobo so its all one self contained unit ! This will work with wifi aswell and be configurable to switch between each version so theres no functionality lost at at. Watch this space , pic here
11/08/2016New smaller box is now available, this is the smallest physically possible , see here, please give me a shout if you want a box, I have a lot of workable prototypes to give away!. Just realised theres enough connections GPIOwise on the Esp to hardwire the Airware unit directly into the Kobo, work is underway to create a directly wired link and then a new Kobo box will be made so its all one unit powered from the Kobo. This will be even less effort to switch on while on the hill and power consumption will be less as the Kobo will have wifi switched off! Contact us for details
13/7/2016Local pilot managed to set a unit up with onboard battery, nice one Nick, looks awesome ! -> pic
29/06/2016And in blue, sorted 3d printer out now so producing a much better finish, also created the smallest box possible to fit just the ESP and the ARF inside for smaller flight decks to mount vertically, see images page for details.
22/06/2016Ground Stations added to the tracking page, as soon as you setup a station it will appear on the tracking map, when we start getting data from these stations we will start plotting the range. A new box is underway, side mounted one, pics coming soon. Just purchased 10 ARF's with a 5% discount, so if anyone wants one a little bit cheaper, without the £5 postage charge then let me know.
15/06/2016v5 out now, added an nrf905 selector, please update and you can specify if you are running an nrf905 or not, default is not. If the nrf isnt attached the live version used to report error packets coming in on the nrf905 channel, system still worked fine but lots of bad packets reported, fixed now.
14/6/2016Once you have enabled livetrack 24, you can then link into the Telegram retreive system at www.xcr.org.uk.... lots more tracking options ! - Contact us to map your live track user to the Airware ID, this is done manual at the moment, but when / if ;) Airware gets going then this will be added as a LT24 feature.
13/6/2016Also available in black and well, basically any colour ! Please update to v4, a small typo broke the configure setup, adding all the ground station code, Thanks - also looking for someone to run a facebook page regarding Airware, let us know if you fancy it ?
10/6/2016Slowly getting to grips with this 3d printer, printed out a box ... call it v1, bit rough round the edges but does the job well, now to make the finish better... any tips anyone ? New Box
9/6/2016New ground station aerial tested, seems to have double the range, cant fully test it but seems very promising, hopefully get a ground station up in the Pennines next week so we can start checking range out :)
9/6/2016Thanks for the wonderful people at Livetrack24 we now have Livetrack support, if your running data on your phone or someone else!! is running data or a ground stations spots you, your live track will be shown, hopefully with the addition of ground stations in busy places, using your data will be a thing of the past, no more data fees, loss of signal problems etc etc. Details on how to link your Airware unit into your LiveTrack ID will be coming shortly.
8/6/20163d printer built and working, a case is being Cad'd up at the moment, please upgrade to v3, some tracking changes, thanks
6/6/2016Nice day out flying with Airware running in the van, van temperature got to 40 degrees and it performed perfectly, things are going well :) Still getting a strange packet coming through now and then giving a false reading, nearly found the problem, sort as soon as the weather turns :)
3/6/2016Recieved a donation towards the up keeping of the site and towards building costs, its amazing to have people help in this way, thank you so much ! A free case will be on its way to you soon, well soon as I have worked out how to make build the 3d printer and design a case and print it..... more learning :)
30/5/2016New Version 2 released, please update, new features, Ground station mode, stand alone setup for just uploading to web, changed wifi to B mode for stability. Uploading of chipId so we can tell which unit sent which packet
28/5/2016Day out testing and 100% success , the ability to see other peoples climb rates is amazing, wont be able to fly without one soon ! No more wifi disconnect problems, testing for about 2 hours, the LK8000 guys should have a fix for the random wifi disconnects soon so wifi will be 100% stable :)
26/5/20163d printed box is on its way hopefully, found a very helpful club member to help make one! hopefully we will have something soon to be able to purchase and/or available in kit form.
Semi finished tracking, you should be able to upload your picture and details and be shown on the live tracking page :)
25/5/2016Version One released, couple of small bugs still to sort, seems 100% stable now, one unit up for 9 days with no problems :) Tracking and registration pages nearly done.
paragliding system
paragliding detection system