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Interesting traffic problem

RVDan

Well Known Member
Patron
Flying today around the south side of Kennedy airport Over the class B airspace and ran into an ADS-B issue. The scenario went something like this.

Flying at 7500 ft, some traffic displayed all appeared normal. Then we saw traffic (on the screen) on an intersecting path and overtaking us from our 7:00, same altitude. The traffic continued to close. We tried but failed to get visual. I decided evasive action was required and initiated an aggressive climb, while advising ATC of the evasive maneuver. ATC responded that there was no traffic near me and that they have been having ADS-B issues in that area with false traffic being shown in ADS-B. The controller said that they have had aircraft with TCAS II (now integrated with ADS-B traffic) get RA?s. After my maneuver the traffic on the display disappeared, and my heart settled down.

I have the Dynon Skyview and the SV-ADSB-472 ADS-B receiver. ADSB OK was displayed.

We continued to observe other traffic, some with what appeared to be split targets. The unusual part is that usually with split targets, you see the ghost on the same track and altitude as the original and very close to the actual target, and in this case the ghost were on converging or diverging paths maybe a few hundred feet different altitude until at some point the ghost disappeared. We discovered that none of the ghost had an aircraft ID depicted.

We get in these congested areas and lean on the traffic displays only to have the ground system messing up. When a collision looks imminent it gets worrisome. I can?t imagine that airlines responding to RA?s that are false is going over well either.
 
I've seen where if you do any sort of abrupt change in direction or altitude, the Traffic Warning will show another airplane where you used to be. It is unnerving until you realize that it is a ghost of where your own airplane would have been.
 
Ghosting

With TIS I had the same thing over Malibu into santa monica when over the ocean and below the tops of the Santa Monica Mountains. I think if there is a multipath, the Ground radar sees two images.
 
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