As the PilotAware project has resurfaced and lots of units are in circulation now, would it be possible to address at some point the way Mode S returns are portrayed on SkyDemon by way of a suggestion rather than bearingless targets appear as a cluttered mess over my aircraft, a table in one of the corners with all direct traffic appearing in a series of colours according to signal level received. Rather like the way EasyVFR do it.......I don't like their software but I do like the way traffic is represented.
Thanks

Yes, I reckon we can probably do something about this. To refresh my memory, would you be able to provide two screenshots of the SkyDemon display from PilotAware with your personal configuration, the first being the display of a normal target and the second being the display of a bearingless one? I want to compare the font sizes and think about how we might improve the display of bearingless target.

I'm pleased to hear about the switch to the standard display of bearingless targets. One should not ignore the success of Flarm, with tens of thousands of units in circulation, who (for all their faults) have honed this protocol pretty well over the years. I do agree with you that the rings should not really be interpreted as "range" rings, but they do have their purpose as the pilot can see them increasing/decreasing.

In the meantime I will have a think about display improvement.

Hi again Tim,

Many thanks for agreeing to look into this problem. Sorry I was busy software testing yesterday, so missed your reply, but see the others have already posted screen shots. Here is another recent one from my home 5 miles south of EGPH this afternoon showing an ADSB contact together with a Mode S one in the same shot, which I think perfectly illustrates the problem. Apologies for the route and track - they were still on screen from yesterday, though not in any way unrealistic.



The ADSB altitude and Flight ID is clearly identifiable, while the Mode S relative altitude is virtually unreadable against the (very necessary) background 'clutter' of the chart. Whilst this is in part due to the smaller size of the Mode S text, the ADSB text is also made much more readable by the contrasting yellow background, which effectively masks the chart behind (or should that be below). The inclusion for Mode S of Flight ID/Reg as with ADSB (as raised by Lee above) would also help to make the text block bigger and thus easier to pick up quickly on screen. It can often also help to 'identify' the potential position or route of otherwise bearingless aircraft. Locally, for example, I know G-OSSA - a regular Mode S contact - is the Parachute Jump Plane out of Fife - Glenrothes, so would look for it first towards that general area. In this case the Mode S contact (from my PilotAware Traffic Table) was a FlyBe Dash 8, which would have been identifiable from an on-screen callsign and which would be following one of the standard Edinburgh approach or exit routes. Hope this helps.

Many thanks once again

Regards

Peter