GNS 5890 Performance vs Beast and RTL

[coyotefxl]

Hi to all,

If someone has made some one to one comparison between GNS 5890 vs the Beast and also GNS 5890 vs RTL dongle (R820T) for range and more importantly Planeplotter message rate, could he tell here his results? Also, is GNS 5890 able to send Mode-A/C for Beamfinder Plus to PP? For what I saw on a video, it seems to exhibit a higher message rate than the Microadsb so I'm curious to see how to compares to the Beast (or SBS-3) and RTL dongle (as I have the dongle but I want better message rate for mlat when the mlat expands here)

Luc
+qX

[Anmer]

If someone has made some one to one comparison between GNS 5890 vs the Beast and also GNS 5890 vs RTL dongle (R820T)

For range and more contacts, the Beast was best and the dongle was just ahead of the GNS5890.

I didn't measure frame rates as I'm more interested in aircraft. 

[mezoo]

As a owner of all three receivers, I'd say you get what you pay for.

Dongles can be very good, but if you live in an area with high local traffic (= high signal strength) their input can be overloaded and then they start to lose distant contacts (=low signal strenght).

The GNS is much better at handling local traffic reception (the famous 'donout' effect)

The Beast (or in my case the Transponder Mouse - which is just the fully assembled version of the Beast) can easily handle all distant and local traffic.

I find that the range is more determined by the antenna height, any local obstructions and your regions topography.
I have a range of 300km to the north but only 50km to the south due to a hilly region in that direction.
No receiver will change that.

The difference between the receivers is  not so much the range but how many aircraft you can detect (e.g. low altitude)  and how long you can track them.
I recently made a comparison between two antenna's and posted that results in the Antenna section http://radarspotting.com/forum/index.php/topic,1366.0.html.

While the test was done with two identical dongles you can see how different the ranges are at lower altitudes.
The maximum range was more or less the same.

You have however given me an idea for some further testing ...   

[coyotefxl]

As a owner of all three receivers, I'd say you get what you pay for.

Dongles can be very good, but if you live in an area with high local traffic (= high signal strength) their input can be overloaded and then they start to lose distant contacts (=low signal strenght).

The GNS is much better at handling local traffic reception (the famous 'donout' effect)

The Beast (or in my case the Transponder Mouse - which is just the fully assembled version of the Beast) can easily handle all distant and local traffic.

I find that the range is more determined by the antenna height, any local obstructions and your regions topography.
I have a range of 300km to the north but only 50km to the south due to a hilly region in that direction.
No receiver will change that.

The difference between the receivers is  not so much the range but how many aircraft you can detect (e.g. low altitude)  and how long you can track them.
I recently made a comparison between two antenna's and posted that results in the Antenna section http://radarspotting.com/forum/index.php/topic,1366.0.html.

While the test was done with two identical dongles you can see how different the ranges are at lower altitudes.
The maximum range was more or less the same.

You have however given me an idea for some further testing ...   

So what your telling here and on the Antenna section, is that the GNS 5890 is a winner against the dongle when there's a lot of traffic and also with the frame rate but how does it compare to the beast for the frame rate at least? And is it able to produce good raw reports for mlat? And finally, is it able to work with Beamfinder Plus?

[mezoo]

Since I have my Transponder Mouse I only use the GNS when I'm mobile. I never tried it with Mlat.
As the dongle's can be used for Mlat (with the right software) there should be no reason why the GNS cannot be used to supply data to an Mlat network e.g. PP.
Mlat needs the precise data and timing from 3 - 4 stations to work, it is not something the receiver can do on its own.

I did try to use the GNS with Beamfinder and Beamfinder Plus but lacking precise data about the radars (location, rotation rate) was not able to get it to work.
In my area  most radars are clustered therefore the radar detection feature of PP did not give me any conclusive data either.
But I assume that I am doing something wrong as with the Transponder Mouse I have had no success with Beamfinder either.

Hopefully somebody else can help with that question.

[coyotefxl]

And for the packet rate, how the GNS 5890 compares in packet rate or frame rate with the Transponder Mouse? Thanks!

Luc
+qX

[mezoo]

Sorry I can't really answer that because I never ran a true comparison between the two.

The Transponder Mouse has a special antenna which I located as high above the roof as I dared.
The Mag antenna of the GNS has a relative short cable so it will always be much lower with more obstructions.
The GNS also has a different antenna connection than the Mouse (MCX vs. SMA) and I dont have an adapter.

Maybe Bill (who seems to be involved with GNS) sees these posts and can comment on that issue.

Subjectively I'd say the Mouse picks up about twice as many frames as the GNS, but I cannot prove this.
I see that it picks up aircraft quicker and tracks them longer than any other of the receiver/antenna combinations available to me.

You can find the specifications of both receivers on their webpages.

[coyotefxl]

Thanks Mezoo for your time!

[coyotefxl]

Does it receive Mode-A/C also at the same time as Mode-S and in which format is its output? AVR, Beast Binary, other? I sent an email to the manufacturer but never got a reply

[mezoo]

Just going back on memory.
I never got any output on the Planeplotter Mode A/C radar pulse window with the GNS.

But I am not sure if that is not a problem with PP.
My GNS came with the adsbscope programme from sprut.
But nowadays I think they iclud PP Lite.

[coyotefxl]

Thanks!

[Radio2.0]

does any difference between the GNS and an SDR Dongle?
so i want to improve my range and i try many thins out to find a solution.