Skyview HDX WiFi Dongle and ForeFlight

[kurtfly]

i don't really understand the alert from FF "Skyview has disconnected" while foreflight continues to happily show traffic, and the IPAD WIFI still shows as connected. Obviously FF thinks that something isn't right with the connection and perhaps it recovers very quickly, but does not bother to inform the user that the "Skyview has now re-connected". My FF did exactly the same thing with a Stratux receiver. This is somewhat annoying and hard to troubleshoot. Every time it happens I must verify that FF is working ok (it has a small ADSB status indicator in the top left corner). Hope we can get to the bottom of this. Foreflight does not have a user/support forum I guess?

Foreflight has no forum. They have no user available bug report. They do not air their dirty laundry. I had a FAA guy tell me I should file a NASA ASR report. This will get more attention by Boeing Foreflight as they are part of the review board process. Boeing Foreflight appears to be more interested in adding more features and forgetting the basics. All the above problems have been introduced with Foreflight software pushes. You have no way to refuse these software pushes. EFB‘s have become standard equipment now, in fact, I no longer carry paper charts. But I carry two tablets.

I have started to use FLTPLN GO which seems to be stable and works good with Skyview. It has some quirks that are manageable. But I can jump in my plane and get METARS without an internet connection prior to flight, or if flights are greater than 1~2 hours. Foreflight will not do this. FltPln go is free. Just need to set up account with them.

Kurt

 

[ve0kog]

no textual METARS after approximately 1 hour of flight time or immediately if I took off without first having an update to Foreflight via internet

I can confirm that no METARS are updated in foreflight from skyview. In addition my IPAD is recording the track using its internal GPS rather than the skyview or GPS175.

But there is even a bigger problem related to not receiving the WX. The other day my foreflight was showing traffic at incorrect altitude, which makes me think it was not receiving the BARO pressure and therefore could not compensate the pressure altitude reported by the target ADSB packets. It was showing the level with me traffic (confirmed visually and by radio) at 500 feet below. The altimeter was 30.44. 500 feet below would roughly correspond to the standard pressure alt. It would make sense for foreflight to default to std pressure when it has no access to nearby METARS - it can't guess any better.

I will dig up my Startux receiver and see if anything is different wrt foreflight.

This is a very significant problem!

 

[Raymo]

Do you have a list of the non-Dynon Wi-Fi dongles that will work with the HDX? I have tried several different dongles and have not had any success with the HDX seeing them…

I don't and had already purchased the Dynon brand before reading here that others had success with others. The forum search should turn those up.

 

[AlanR]

In my experience with using genuine Dynon wifi dongles or other brand wifi dongles it seems to make very little difference to which you have fitted.
The problem that needs to be improved somehow IMHO is in the Dynon Skyview unit itself/or the software and not the actual wifi dongle.

 

[ve0kog]

FWIW here is the adapter i have. No external antenna it's a few years old and this specific model does not seem readily available from amazon

EW-7722UTn V2 N300 Wi-Fi 4 Mini USB Adapter - EDIMAX

EW-7722UTn V2 is a mini USB wireless adapter that supports maximum data rate speed up to 300Mbps. Just plug this tiny Wi-Fi USB adatper into a computer's USB port and enjoy incredible high-speed wireless network access.

www.edimax.com

 

[PYoder]

My Dynon-supplied dongles work fine with HDX/ ForeFlight. Occasionally get the ‘disconnected’ message but it is still obviously connected and the message is brief. I do have USB extenders on the dongles.