AirNav Systems Forum

The idea is that all RadarBox users (who hear about this and have an Internet connection) put aside any opinions they may have about the AirNav network and tick their Share option and share their data for a specific day. Which day that is can be decided sometime in the future.

My reasoning is that if those users who currently are deciding not to share were to share for all or part of the day, those of us who do get the network, and AirNav themselves, would get a real demonstration of just how powerful the combined data of all the RadarBox users around the world would be.

Naturally I exclude from the experiment those users who are worried about the local legality of sharing data – I'm only referring to the users who object on principle to subscribing to the network.

If the experiment is a success, it might encourage AirNav to dramatically reduce the price of the network subscription to encourage existing users to use it and to share, and new users to buy the kit and share, and thus expand the network even more, to everyone's benefit.

AirNav would have to be prepared for a (hopefully) big rise in network traffic on the day, and have their servers on Max Effort too, but it could turn out to be a great demonstration of how good the RadarBox network really can be when all possible users are participating.

If the result of the poll is positive, I'll do another poll to decide which date it will be (possibly around Christmas).

Please do not use this thread to complain about the network or its charges – that topic has been done to death. This is your chance to do something positive about it.

The poll results are hidden until after you vote, to discourage sheep-like behaviour! I'll make them public later (if the forum software lets me).

Rod

Bump.

Did you have contact with A.N. on beforehand?

Maybe so many old Radarboxes come from the loft, shelf, anywhere (...) that
the A.N. network will blast?  ;-)

How about a Max Effort plan to update the 2009 software version 3.13?

That would be a novelty.

It seems obvious from this poll that the vast majority of RadarBox users are happily sharing data on the network - something that will leave some non-RadarBox users unhappy - unfortunately. Anyway it's the reality and we are happy to see the our RadarBox continues to be the most widely used and most important ADS-B network available - the only one professionally maintained at this time.

We've explained many times that the (minor) pending issues with RadarBox will be corrected as soon as ShipTrax is released as both applications share the same programming source code.

It would be interesting to run a similar poll on the quality of the aircraft data present on the continuous updates we release on a monthly basis: this results on the wonderful job of a team of volunteer users who keep their work available for free for every RadarBox user. An outstanding job considering the huge criticism we have had in the past on this area - strange the same people that criticized us on this fail to recognize this fact.

Note that this poll is being answered by forum members only and this represent only a small fraction of the total number of RadarBox users.

You are confusing the RadarBox Flight Data Network with the Aircraft/Mode-s Database.

The flight data network is kept and developed by aviation and IT professionals. The mode-s aircraft database is kept by a team of volunteers who make, on a daily basis, an amazing job which totally addressed the complaints we had before regarding the quality of the aircraft data: nowadays and in addition to several other features RadarBox has access to a daily updated database of worldwide aircraft.

We understand your feedback and the present (minor) problems will be fully addressed once ShipTrax is finished.

Can you please get back on topic, chaps?

In answer to Jannuh's question, yes, I did ask AirNav whether there was any chance that my idea might cause their servers to go into meltdown, but they were quite happy that they could cope.

From the poll responses so far, it doesn't seem that the servers would be greatly troubled if Max Effort does go ahead.

Rod

Mea culpa Rod but patience is running thin.

Back to Network. As you remarked a "Max Effort" will not take down Airnav's servers, to put it very kindly. So that poses the question as to where are our thousands of fellow RB enthusiasts and why aren't there many more of them on the forum?

The forum is free, it's relevant to the hobby and would seem a natural place to be for a box owner. You asked a simple question to which one might reasonably expect several hundred responses.

All a bit of a mystery to me.

Common misconception bratters is that every RadarBox customer signs up to the forum and participates. From our support stats we can clearly see that 60%+ of customers do not sign up to the forum. 

From the users who signup to the forum the majority are prospective customers. Finally from the RB customers signed up to the forum only 15-20% of them actively participate (1 post in the last year) . You can quickly see the view of the forum cannot always be taken to be the majority view of our customers.

Have a quick think your self of the electronic products you buy and whether you sign up to each of their forums. You probably only sign up to the forums if your very interested in the product, have an issue or question that cannot be answered elsewhere or you have a complaint.

Hi Airnav - Thanks for contributing. I'm sure your statistical analysis is correct and I find your last paragraph particularly interesting:

"Have a quick think your self of the electronic products you buy and whether you sign up to each of their forums. You probably only sign up to the forums if your very interested in the product, have an issue or question that cannot be answered elsewhere or you have a complaint."

Personally, I don't think you can compare a RB with say a televison or a PC or an Ipad. It seems to me that a RadarBox is an integral part of a hobby, much like an HF transceiver for a ham and is only purchased to further an existing interest in a specialised field.  As the Forum is very much an enthusiasts site I would therefore have expected many more box owners to be around.

The answer to the riddle might be that there are in fact only a relative few hardcore enthusiasts and many boxes are bought by "casual" purchasers for their novelty/interest value.

At the moment there is "61 Guests, 12 Users (4 Hidden)" maybe that shows you how good the AirNav box is, you only sign up when something goes wrong or you have a question.

Well, I'm not really a Forum person myself! This is the one and only forum of which I'm an active member (or even visitor), and I can well understand that there are many RB users who have never bothered even visiting us here.

If the Max Effort Day does go ahead, perhaps AirNav could publicise it in their email newsletter so that it reaches the most people possible.
Rod

Quote from: RodBearden on October 14, 2011, 11:52:40 AM
Well, I'm not really a Forum person myself! This is the one and only forum of which I'm an active member (or even visitor), and I can well understand that there are many RB users who have never bothered even visiting us here.

If the Max Effort Day does go ahead, perhaps AirNav could publicise it in their email newsletter so that it reaches the most people possible.
Rod

Very good idea Rod.

The poll's been going for more than a week, now, and I've made the results public.

At the moment the results are:
1 - 53 (79.1%)
2 - 7  (10.4%)
3 - 5  (7.5%)
4 - 2  (3.0%)

So nearly 90% of all voters have said that they will try to be online and sharing on the day. I reckon that it's probably worth giving it a go, but I'll leave it for a few more days before a final decision.

Any (constructive and relevant) comments?

Rod

At the moment 90% will share on NME-day, 63 users, 56 of them are alltime sharers.
Stay 7 sharers who promise to share at NME-day, so maybe 4 effectively do share....


Pffff what a relief for A.N., their servers can manage that I know for sure!!

Our server has been upgraded in Aug/Sep and can now deal with up to 2500 RadarBox units feeding data simultaneously.

Must be female if it can multi-task as well as that.   ;-))

ANDev, I know the answer to this'll be that it would go against your commercial interests to answer the question, but I'll give it a shot - How many RBs have actually been sold worldwide to date?

Quote from: CoastGuardJon on October 18, 2011, 10:22:36 PM
ANDev, I know the answer to this'll be that it would go against your commercial interests to answer the question, but I'll give it a shot - How many RBs have actually been sold worldwide to date?

Let's have a crack at that using the figures here and Airnav's responses earlier in the thread.

"Common misconception bratters is that every RadarBox customer signs up to the forum and participates. From our support stats we can clearly see that 60%+ of customers do not sign up to the forum.  From the users who signup to the forum the majority are prospective customers. Finally from the RB customers signed up to the forum only 15-20% of them actively participate (1 post in the last year) . You can quickly see the view of the forum cannot always be taken to be the majority view of our customers."


So 75 (+/-) responders apparently represents 15% of Forum membership so forum membership is 75/15*100 = 500.

As Forum membership is only 35%(+/-) of overall box ownership the total box ownership must be 500/35*100= 1430 give or take.

Bit early in the morning for me so E&OE chaps.

Since RadarBox was released almost all vendors shifted from giving importance to our competitors and start selling RadarBox instead (just open an aviation and radio magazine and you will see that all virtual radar ads focus on RadarBox).

Even ML&S which used to sell SBS now only offers RadarBox as their Virtual Radar solution. It is obvious to find out why.

The number of RadarBox units sold is much higher that what you mentioned - multiply it by 7 or 8 and you will be closer.

Quote from: AirNav Development on October 19, 2011, 09:50:05 AM
Since RadarBox was released almost all vendors shifted from giving importance to our competitors and start selling RadarBox instead (just open an aviation and radio magazine and you will see that all virtual radar ads focus on RadarBox).

Even ML&S which used to sell SBS now only offers RadarBox as their Virtual Radar solution. It is obvious to find out why.

The number of RadarBox units sold is much higher that what you mentioned - multiply it by 7 or 8 and you will be closer.

I make that in excess of 10000 units and circa £4million at retail prices. That's not bad going Airnav, not bad at all. :)

Quote from: AirNav Development on October 19, 2011, 09:50:05 AM
Even ML&S which used to sell SBS now only offers RadarBox as their Virtual Radar solution. It is obvious to find out why.

Not immediately obvious. As far as I can tell, ML&S seem to be offering SBS and RB on their website.
Can you confirm ?
Sid

Hi Rod,

From my point of view your idea about Max Effort Day day is very interesting and timely - my suggestion is to organize not even Max Effort, but a RadarBox World Network Day 2011.

During this day AirNav should grant a 24-hour access (let's say from 00:00 to 23:59 UTC) to real-time RadarBox network for all the RadarBox users regardless of their network subscription status.

Original Maх Effort plan presupposes  that some people who is ready to share their data in network during this day just won't be able to see the results of their Radarbox screens becаuse don't have a valid network subscription.

This may be a very good marketing and ads event for Airnav as well. Besides newsletter AirNav may open special section on their website with live full screen world map of RadarBox network during this day, along with the live counters for the number of tracking flights, number of stations and the list of participating countries.

This website section will also give a possibility to see our network live picture to not only RadarBox owners but also for a lot of potential customers around the world.

Rod, AirNav, Dear Colleagues - what do you think about this idea?  - you comments and opinions are more that welcome.

Regards,
Nick

P.S.  As for a number of RadarBox units that were sold up to date, we should take in consideration that probably a rather significant number (if not the fair share of it) is used most likely by Airnav's corporate customers, not by hobby amateurs.

Hi Nick

That's an excellent idea. However it would probably take a lot of effort from AirNav to organise, not only on the publicity side, but also on the server side - authorising all those extra boxes.

A comment from AirNav about this would be useful at this point, but it would certainly be a great taster for existing users who don't subscribe, and superb publicity.

Rod