Thursday, July 30, 2009
It SUCKS and I want my money back
by Kenneth from Perris CA USA 
Pros: Great Idea
Cons: Too much money to be so undependable. Only sees half of the planes even in the Los Angeles area, and those jump around in position so much you still don't know where they are!
Review: Too much money to be so undependable. Only sees half of the planes even in the Los Angeles area, and those jump around in position so much you still don't know where they are! Not happy, wish I didn't buy it.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Not perfect but very good!
by Ed from Sugar Grove IL USA 
Pros: Identifies approximately 75%-80% of traffic and gets eyes outside the airplane.
Cons: Does not identify 20%-25% of transponder equipped traffic.
Review: The ZAON PCAS XRX appears to work as advertised. That is to say it detects many transponder equipped airplanes but not all. For some reason there has been, on occasion, times when ATC was calling traffic to me that was clearly inside the detection window and obviously their transponder was being actively interrogated. The XRX did not detect the traffic at all or the detection came after the traffic had already passed. Visual contact was made with the traffic so it was there. I suppose these could be explained by potential "blind spots" in the system due to the local operating environment, that is the mag compass, center post in windshield, etc. Zaon does warn of these items causing problems and does offer suggestions to minimize these. I have done the best I can in my particular aircraft (C337) and suppose I have no choice but to live with the advertised limitations. I am overall quite pleased with the product and would recommend it to anyone. I would rate it an 8/10. It gets my eyes outside the airplane which is a good thing and makes spotting traffic kinda fun.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Zaon for the lone pilot
by Texas Cross Country Flyer from Central Texas 
Pros: Great second pair of eyes for single pilot operations
Cons: Too many wires, too many bozos not using their transponders
Review: I purchased this last year because I have a grass strip on my farm and have lot's of crop dusters flying over and near my property. To compound matters, I live near an Air Force training base and 3 MOAs and I am not too far from an airport service two airlines. (I suspect by now you know this unit reads the other guys transponder and NEEDS that signal in order to work. If not, you need to do some more homework on how the ZAON and other devices like this work... go Google) The ZAON did a good job at finding one bozo who took off from a small rural Texas airport I was about to land at. The bozo, NEVER talked on the radio announcing his intentions and I never saw the guy, but my ZAON did. In fact when it showed up in a graphical representation on my Garmin 496, I was a bit alarmed at first because the bozo was so darned close. I fly alone a lot in my Cessna, and I don't have the luxury of having a second pair of eyes when I fly to help spot traffic. That being said, there are three problems I had with the ZAON. #1. Crop dusters are %#@%s and rarely turn on their transponders, thus the ZAON is rendered useless for this segment of flying bozos. (Crop dusters are also notorious for NOT talking on the radio... you rarely have the faintest idea where these guys are 99% of the time... ) #2. Once the ZAON was placed up on my glareshield, I had a big mess of wires when tapping my headset and intercom into the unit (and another wire going to the cigarette lighter) There is another wire, if you buy the optional data cable to couple your GPS... This made my panel area look like a spaghetti bowl had been dropped. Although the ZAON was velcroed to my glareshield, it kept "yawing" sideways from the weight of the numerous cables. The ZAON needs to stay level on the panel and perpendicular to your wings, or it can give you inaccurate readings of the other aircraft. #3. Although the ZAON has an internal fan, it sure looks like it could overheat in the Texas sun, on top of a black glareshield in an airplane. I wonder how long it will hold up in Texas/Arizona heat? Despite those above mentioned "concerns" it is nice for a lonely pilot to have this as a second pair of eyes. It spotted several airplanes for me, but missed one Cherokee flying underneath me about 600 feet (probably NOT running his transponder...) I never got to see it work with military traffic... never flew close enough to a C-130 to see. I have to admit I used this for three months and gave up trying to get it to "read" crop dusters. It never saw a single aerial applicator, which is why I bought it. For someone living in complex airspace, this can be a great tool.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Extra Set of Eyes
by Steve from Wantagh, NY 
Pros: Plug and Play. We fly various aircraft and the portability is terrfific.
Cons: In some aircraft it is difficult to find the needed level space on top of the instrument panel. Although this can be overcome with a suction cup mounting bracket it interferes with visibility.
Review: We fly patrols and other missions in the Northeast. Generally our missions bring us through low altitude high density traffic areas. The Zaon PCAS-XRS system has given us an increased level of safety and comfort by providing what amounts to be an addtional set of eyes for the crew. Although our crews continuously scan the area, it is comforting that the Zaon unit can see traffic that we can't.

The transponder on any aircraft within range of the interrogation replies on 1090 MHz with their squawk code (known as Mode A) and altitude code (or Mode C). The altitude information is sent in an encoded format.  Mode S transponders also reply on this same frequency, and encoded within the Mode S transmission is the Mode A (squawk) and Mode C (altitude) information.  XRX will recognize interrogations from TCAS, Skywatch, and any other "active" system, military protocols, and Mode C and Mode S transmissions.