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Thinking about technical difficulties

In my last post, I described a couple of technical issues that I ran into. I've been thinking about one of them, and I performed an experiment to see if I could reproduce the other one.

When it comes to the issue with FltPlan Go crashing when displaying traffic, I set up my Stratux receiver and iPad mini at my desk at home, connected them as before, and set FltPlan Go to the map view with traffic displayed. Even in my house, it's able to receive ADS-B out broadcasts from nearby aircraft. I let it run for a while as I worked. I let it run for at least half an hour and it did so with no issues. It didn't crash, and kept the display on like it's supposed to. I don't know why it was behaving differently the other day in the plane. I'll try it again on a future flight and, if it happens again, it has to be something specific to operating in the plane. Perhaps it was unable to maintain wireless communication with the Stratux and crashed when it disconnected. It's possible that the iPad and Stratux were too close to each other in the plane, though they were only a couple feet apart during my experiment. Maybe the structure of the plane was interfering with the signal in some fashion. There are several things I can try.

I also verified that the Stratux still works fine with FltPlan Go running on my phone. It's an Android device and, while FltPlan Go for Android is close to the iOS version in terms of functionality, one thing it doesn't have is audible traffic alerts when another airplane gets close. To be honest, if it did, I'd probably use it instead of the iPad, as I could then connect it to my Lightspeed headset and have the ability to hear the alerts as well as listen to music and make phone calls. If I use the iPad, I can connect it to the headset, but then I can't do music streaming or make calls as it's not the model that has cellular data capability.

As for the communication issue, I read up on the KMA 24 audio panel, as well as the Precision Engineering PM1000II intercom that is installed in the plane. Since the issue occurred with both radios, I figure the issue lies between the radios and the headset. As I understand it, the headset jacks are connected to the intercom, which is connected to the audio panel, which is connected to the radios. Now that I have a better understanding of how to operate everything, I have several things I can try such as making sure the squelch on the intercom is set correctly, turning the intercom off which should cause the headset to be connected directly to the audio panel, making sure the audio panel is configured correctly, making sure the volume on the radios is set correctly, using the test feature of the radios, etc.

I also came across something online about the possibility of EMF interference with the intercom causing issues. I doubt that's the problem, but I did introduce two new radios to the cockpit in the form of the iPad and the Stratux. At this point, anything is possible.

Finally, I emailed the previous owner and asked if he'd encountered anything like this. He said he hadn't, so it's either a configuration change I inadvertently made, something that I introduced to the cockpit that's new, or something just now began malfunctioning. As you might expect, I would prefer it be the first, and really hope it's not the last.

I probably won't go flying again until next weekend at the earliest. The weather is typical for this time of year which means it's raining pretty much constantly. Even if I don't fly, I can still head out and check if the problem is still happening. If so, I can then try the troubleshooting steps I've come up with.

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