Zaon still useful in the West?

[MountainDude]

Thinking of keeping my Zaon, even with ADS-B. Given the terrain and sparse ground stations in the West, I think it may be useful. Thoughts?

 

[Pilawt]

I kinda wish I had my Zaon a couple of days ago inbound to Lake Havasu City (it's been on my bookshelf at home since the ADS-B was installed). Some guy in a 172RG was also inbound, and all of his position calls seemed to be exactly where I was. I never did see him, and there was nothing on ADS-B. I'm thinking now he must have been miles away and not very good at estimating his location, but I was on red alert there for a while.

The pattern at Havasu is likely below ADS-B coverage. Or ... maybe he just wasn't squawking, in which case even the Zaon would have been of no help.

 

[Scrabo]

I still use my mine

 

[flyingron]

Death to Zaon. Death to Zaon.

 

[Ted Ricci]

Zaon is still viable since it interogates mode c which adsb can't show you.

 

[pdonahue]

Zaon doesn't interrogate mode C, it just sees mode C replies to someone else's interrogations. The TIS-B feature of ADS-B does show you mode C aircraft, but only if you have ADS-B In and Out and if you're near a ground station.


-Paul

 

[Jim Carpenter]

As Paul says, the Zaon needs an interrogation hit from another station (radar or TCAS), then it would seem not so useful in areas with no airliners/jets and low altitude below any radar coverage, exactly where you would want to supplement ADS-B.

 

[flyingron]

Zaon is still viable since it interogates mode c which adsb can't show you.

Zaon doesn't interrogate anything. It's entire passive.

 

[Baron62]

I have both the Zaon passive system and ADS-B in/out in my Archer. Rarely does the Zaon provide benefit. If I am flying low with no ground ADS-B signal and there is a transponder that is responding to Ground RADAR installations or TCAS- or other active system-equipped aircraft, then I would pick up that transponder response on the Zaon and get an alert. This scenaro would occur more in mountainous areas where you ADS ground station can not be seen.

From Zaon manual "If a transponder XRX is a passive system, meaning it listens to replies from other aircraft. Other aircraft are responding to interrogations. There are two types of interrogation networks: Ground RADAR installations and TCAS- or other active system-equipped aircraft".

 

[stsflyer]

I still have my XRX and get hits that do not show on the iPad with my Stratux. Once I get ADS-B Out in a few months, we'll see how that goes.