A

Alibi

Member
I have a Zaon XRX interfaced with a AvMap EKP-4. I get a red traffic alert display (red dot) on my moving map display from time to time in mode C airspace on the nose of my symbolic aircraft. Very unnerving to see this in close proximity. The red dot will stay with me for awhile, then dissappear, then reappear again after awhile. I have been trouble-shooting this with Zaon for over a year now with no success. Howerver, they did mention that my XRX might be picking up "my" transponder. No advise on how to fix this anomaly. The set-up of the XRX, as per the manual. Any ideas to this issue would be appreciated.
 
Is your Xponder antenna clean?

What kind of Xponder is it and how old?

I read somewhere where there is a setup option to "make the Zaon dig deeper to find your Xponder signal" or something similar. Have you played with that setting?
 
Yes, antenna is sqeeky clean. It is a Apollo/Garmin SL70 Yr 2002. Called Zaon last yr while i was in the plane in my hanger. They walked me through various settings, eg. suppression level changes, resetting altitude & heading which i recalibrated prior to my call. No changes to my issue. I called them a month later to report and another tech told me that changes to the suppresion level would not solve my problem. I guess there was some dissagreement. I have a request in to Garmin for information as to adjusting the RF output power. They have not responded yet.
 
Same issue

I have my XRX connected to my AFS 3500 and see the same thing occasionally. My antenna is clean. I have not tried any other settings yet but was considering setting the range detection limit closer. I think I have mine set up to detect traffic out as far as possible.

I have noticed that this seems to happen more during certain climatic conditions such as low temp / dewpoint spread when there is "mist" in the air and / or possibly when I'm flying near high powered radar facilities? I live under an MOA and when I fly to the DFW area I can count on it happening near Wichita Falls, and the nearby alert and restricted areas. This is bad because just when I am needing this thing to work the worst, it scares the heck out of me with false traffic alerts.

If it ever gives the voice alert though, I can count on it to be the real deal. I'd like to hear if you find a resolution to your issue, and what it was.
 
I have tried the 6 & 3 NM range with the same Alert indications. These false alerts happen in good wx. I fly in & out of a very congested area where there is a lot of overlaps of various ground radars. I was getting so many voice" Traffic Alerts, Obtain Visual Contact" I decided to turn it off. I also contacted another pilot who is encountering the same issue. He said he doesn't turn it on any more. I think there are a lot of pilots out there with the same issue. Would like to here from them.
 
With the way these things work, they try to mask your transponder and it depends on signal strength. They came up with an average of whatever strength a typical transponder will put out for the same airplane the XRX is riding in and block that as a target.

Where is your Xponder antenna and what type and length is your coax from it to the Xponder? Most Xponders are specific on what they want for coax length.

If the signal getting to the Zaon is weaker than it expects it to be for your airplane, it is my understanding that this can cause the problem you have...

For comparison, I have a tube type KT76A, RG400 coax, and one of the cheap little monopole antennas mounted right beside the fuel vent on the passenger side. I never have saw myself as a target on mine (may happen tommorrow though since I said that).
 
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Jim, didn't we tell you that Underdog was haunted before you bought it?

Seriously, my Monroy will sometimes give 2nm, 0ft warnings when I fly over water. This happens a lot over the Fraser river. I expect that this is the reflection of my own transponder reply. You'd think that the software would reject it by examining the discrete transponder code, but it may not.

Perhaps the Zaon has similar issues. Keep note of where these false alerts are happening and see if you are over water when they happen.

Vern
 
Ya Vern, These false Alerts are happening over land. I disregard anything over the water, as the Zaon Manual mentions. I get most of these false alerts in and around the the Langley B.C. Airport, maybe a radius of 15 to 20 miles. Of cource, thats where most of the traffic is. I'm usually around 2,000 ft. What i see on my map display is some White dots which indicate "No Threat", some "Yellow Dots" which indicate an Advisory (Aircraft 900 ft below not changeing its altitude) At times this yellow dot will move toward me, and when it gets close, will all of a sudden show up on my nose. Will stay there 10 to 20 secs and then disappear. I sure would like to find an answer.
 
Same problem on an MRX

I've been trying to find a solution to this same problem on my Zaon MRX. I've had the unit for about 3 or 4 years, and have sent it back several times. Once or twice they found some filter (capacitor probably) that was bad, this time they stated they couldn't find anything wrong. It worked perfectly for the first couple years. I did all the recommended things. One remaining thing I need to try is to put it in a different plane. Another thing I need to try is running it on a battery instead of ship power. I'll update as I learn...
 
Brantel said:
Where is your Xponder antenna and what type and length is your coax from it to the Xponder? Most Xponders are specific on what they want for coax length.

For comparison, I have a tube type KT76A, RG400 coax, and one of the cheap little monopole antennas mounted right beside the fuel vent on the passenger side. I never have saw myself as a target on mine (may happen tommorrow though since I said that).
Click to expand...

I have the Garmin GTX 327 with the xpnder antenna mounted under the passenger's right knee just in front of the front spar. Sounds like the same antenna you have, Brantel. My RG 400 coax length is probably around 5 to 6 ft. I remember trying to follow the installation recommendations. I can't remember what the book said at this point and it is at the hangar. Others had good luck with the antenna in this location. They didn't have an XRX though.

Western Oklahoma doesn't have surface water so reflections off that are not an issue for me. ;) It may have just been co-incidence that mine acted up in misty conditions at least three times. It has also acted up in severe clear, especially around air force bases... Vance, Altus, and Sheppard all come to mind. But then again it has done it flying in to Post at Oklahoma City when I was still quite aways from Tinker AFB. There may be no correlation?? My false targets show up as the white hollow circles on the AFS. I don't think I've ever seen it turn solid yellow unless it was a real threat.
 
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Fixed!!

Caveman said:
I have my XRX connected to my AFS 3500 and see the same thing occasionally. My antenna is clean. I have not tried any other settings yet but was considering setting the range detection limit closer. I think I have mine set up to detect traffic out as far as possible.

I have noticed that this seems to happen more during certain climatic conditions such as low temp / dewpoint spread when there is "mist" in the air and / or possibly when I'm flying near high powered radar facilities? I live under an MOA and when I fly to the DFW area I can count on it happening near Wichita Falls, and the nearby alert and restricted areas. This is bad because just when I am needing this thing to work the worst, it scares the heck out of me with false traffic alerts.

If it ever gives the voice alert though, I can count on it to be the real deal. I'd like to hear if you find a resolution to your issue, and what it was.
Click to expand...

Not long after I posted about my XRX woes, it just up and quit me while enroute to a busy fly-in breakfast. The display went blank and it wouldn't show traffic at all. I had an extra power cord, so to eliminate aircraft wiring as the issue, I plugged it into my truck power source... still no go. It wouldn't power up. I called Zaon and told them about my problems. I thought I had registered the warranty with them but hadn't. They told me to send it in anyway. I got it back a week and a half later. They had replaced a board and dialed it in, no charge. I then flew to the Black Hills RV fly-in. The XRX performed flawlessly, alerting us to the many airplanes touring the Rushmore area. I'm happy with the service and the unit's performance now. I set the range and altitude to only show close in traffic to help cull some of the unnecessary alarms. It did send a false signal once when over a large lake after I got it back, but other than that, it seems to be working fine. I thought I should update this thread. If you are having trouble with yours, I'd suggest calling their tech support. Hopefully, it will last a long time without further repairs.
 
Follow up...

AlexPeterson said:
I've been trying to find a solution to this same problem on my Zaon MRX. I've had the unit for about 3 or 4 years, and have sent it back several times. Once or twice they found some filter (capacitor probably) that was bad, this time they stated they couldn't find anything wrong. It worked perfectly for the first couple years. I did all the recommended things. One remaining thing I need to try is to put it in a different plane. Another thing I need to try is running it on a battery instead of ship power. I'll update as I learn...
Click to expand...

So, my last post above was in July 2010. I spoke with a technical rep of Zaon at Oshkosh, and expressed my frustration. He assured me they would fix it, and to call him personally and get it sent in. I called Zaon a couple weeks ago, and the guy whom I met at Oshkosh was at lunch. I spoke with another guy, and his first question was whether I had changed the suppression level. Huh? He said it was in the manual (it isn't, at least in the down loadable version a couple weeks ago). Anyway, it comes from the factory at a default setting of 9. I changed it to 10, and only got one false alert in a 1.3 hour flight. I reset it to 11, and will see how that does.

The amazing thing is that no one at Zaon mentioned this until I spoke with this particular tech, although previous posts in this thread do mention it.

For the MRX, it is "mute" and "down" button, which takes you to the screen to adjust the altimeter (this is in the book). After pressing the multifunction switch in to accept the settings, the next screen is the suppression screen. Down on the multifunction switch increases the setting from the factory setting of 9, up reduces it. A center press accepts the settings. I'll report back after a few more flights. There still is the question of why I needed to change the settings at all.
 
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