Missing ADS-B TFRs

[PT20J]

Recently I have not been having TFRs show up in my Garmin equipment. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this.

I have a GTX 345 providing ADS-B In and Out. It is connected to a G3X and a GTN 650Xi. I am getting other FIS-B products (NEXRAD, lightening, cloud tops, etc) depicted on the G3X and GTN - just not TFRs. The FIS-B page on the GTN displays No TFR Data. The status page shows NOTAM - TFR as green.

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[PeteMc]

What about in FF or G Pilot on you iPad?  Can you tell if GTX is receiving the data and it's making it through to the iPad?

I have a GTX-345 as well and think I'm taking a flight tomorrow.  We have one permanent TFR here, but I'll see if I can find any while in the air somewhere that wouldn't have been pulled down in my Brief. 

 

[Ragsf15e]

My gtx345 is depicting tfrs this weekend.  Good idea to check a phone or iPad to see if it might be a g3x issue?

[PT20J]

39 minutes ago, PeteMc said:

What about in FF or G Pilot on you iPad?  Can you tell if GTX is receiving the data and it's making it through to the iPad?

I have a GTX-345 as well and think I'm taking a flight tomorrow.  We have one permanent TFR here, but I'll see if I can find any while in the air somewhere that wouldn't have been pulled down in my Brief. 

 

ForeFlight is receiving Connext data from the GTX. It’s a little hard to figure out what’s going on with it because according to FF support, ForeFlight will revert to displaying TFR data cached from the internet connection if it loses the ADS-B data. I do see the TFRs on FF, but I think they are cached since they remain if I turn the iPad Bluetooth off.

It’s possible that this is a data feed problem from the ADS-B system. I have not been able to find a source online for reporting FIS-B status.

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[Ragsf15e]

6 minutes ago, PT20J said:

ForeFlight is receiving Connext data from the GTX. It’s a little hard to figure out what’s going on with it because according to FF support, ForeFlight will revert to displaying TFR data cached from the internet connection if it loses the ADS-B data. I do see the TFRs on FF, but I think they are cached since they remain if I turn the iPad Bluetooth off.

It’s possible that this is a data feed problem from the ADS-B system. I have not been able to find a source online for reporting FIS-B status.

Skip

Possibly mine is cached as well as the ipad is my primary display for tfrs.  Ill be flying in 2 hours and will take a closer look for you.

[PT20J]

1 hour ago, Ragsf15e said:

Possibly mine is cached as well as the ipad is my primary display for tfrs.  Ill be flying in 2 hours and will take a closer look for you.

ForeFlight tech support reminded me that:

If you tap on the time stamp in the upper left of the Map page you’ll see the age of each displayed layer. 

Or when connected to the GTX345 tap More > Devices > Garmin Connect and scroll down to see the age of each ADS-B item. 

[Ragsf15e]

1 hour ago, PT20J said:

ForeFlight tech support reminded me that:

If you tap on the time stamp in the upper left of the Map page you’ll see the age of each displayed layer. 

Or when connected to the GTX345 tap More > Devices > Garmin Connect and scroll down to see the age of each ADS-B item. 

So I’m flying now and don’t see tfrs being updated… but the time stamp on my FF says they were updated 20 minutes ago and I was airborne.  On the Devices page I don’t see a TFR block to even show a time?

[Ragsf15e]

Couple screenshots.  Ff map time stamp.  Tfrs while airborne.  So here’s the embarrassing part… shouldn’t they display on the gns430?  I usually use FF Ipad for that but thought they were on 430 too but now I’m not sure?  Second picture is of ipad and 430 centered on 65S which has tfrs on both sides, but they only show on the ipad.

Also, @carusoam, help!

[PT20J]

Ah, now I can read it.

It sure looks like it's receiving TFR data from the GTX 345. As for TFRs showing up on the GNS -- good question. When I had the GTX 345, GNS 430W and single Aspen, I also used ForeFlight as a moving map and I don't recall whether TFRs showed up on the GNS or not. Maybe someone else can answer.

I asked ForeFlight support how to clear the cache and they said forcing the app to close and then reopening it would do it, but it didn't seem to so I'm waiting for more detail on that. I can't find any setup issues with the GTX or the GTN. Hopefully, I will have some time to investigate further tomorrow.

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[PT20J]

ForeFlight got back to me and confirmed that there is no way to clear the cache. The data is either removed when it ages out or is replaced by newer data from the internet or ADS-B. 

[PT20J]

I checked it again today. In my setup, the GTX 345 sends ADS-B In data to ForeFlight via BlueTooth and to the GTN 650Xi via HSDB. ForeFlight displays  TFRs. I can see the TFR data being refreshed on ForeFlight about every 5 min and the data looks good on the ForeFlight Device page (not shown). The GTN does not display TFRs and the legend on both the Map and FISB pages show TFR No Data. The FIS-B Datalink Status page shows NOTAM - TFR green indicating that it is being received. (Ignore the Lightning. Initially it didn’t show up on either ForeFlight or the GTN, but eventually came up on both. I took the Foreflight screenshot before it came up and the GTN picture after).

 

[PT20J]

On 10/2/2022 at 1:09 PM, Ragsf15e said:

shouldn’t they display on the gns430?  

I found this on Garmin’s webpage. Apparently the GNS 430W does not display TFRs.

[Marauder]

I checked it again today. In my setup, the GTX 345 sends ADS-B In data to ForeFlight via BlueTooth and to the GTN 650Xi via HSDB. ForeFlight displays  TFRs. I can see the TFR data being refreshed on ForeFlight about every 5 min and the data looks good on the ForeFlight Device page (not shown). The GTN does not display TFRs and the legend on both the Map and FISB pages show TFR No Data. The FIS-B Datalink Status page shows NOTAM - TFR green indicating that it is being received. (Ignore the Lightning. Initially it didn’t show up on either ForeFlight or the GTN, but eventually came up on both. I took the Foreflight screenshot before it came up and the GTN picture after).



 

Interesting observations. My setup is an Aspen fed by the Lynx 9000+. I also use a GDL-52 to feed my Garmin Pilot. It took me a while to get used to the non convention ways some of this TFR stuff is displayed. Here are some of my experiences:

- the Lynx 9000+ will show a non-active or upcoming TFR as orange on the Lynx display. It is orange up to 12 hours before the TFR becomes active. I’ll post one of these pictures when Biden’s next TFR comes up this weekend.
- the Aspens show both active and non-active TFRs in red. Ask me about panic attacks. I was flying back to my airport when this showed up:



It was for a TFR starting later in the day and I think it was pushed out an hour. Since it showed up in red, thump, thump, thump… Fortunately, I could see the start time was still out 4 hours. And both the Lynx and Garmin Pilot showed it wasn’t active (orange and yellow - you’re okay fellow).

- I like the way Garmin Pilot presents the TFR information. Nice yellow for upcoming with a nice clear local time depiction of when it will become active. It is really important for those of us living in Biden’s TFR world. He changes start and end times frequently. And the minute it become active, he goes red.




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[Pinecone]

Marauder, we are neighbors.

At 0W3, we get that little cutout on the southwest of the TFR.

 

ForeFlight is Orange before it becomes active, then Red when it is active.

What I thought was strange with the KSEA area pics was that the TFR appeared to not show up on the 650.

[Ragsf15e]

On 10/4/2022 at 7:43 AM, PT20J said:

I found this on Garmin’s webpage. Apparently the GNS 430W does not display TFRs.

Interestingly, the 430w series can display TFRs, but only with a gdl69 using XM weather.  That’s what I was reading in the pilot’s guide but couldn’t match up on my map menu page…

[jaylw314]

On 10/4/2022 at 7:43 AM, PT20J said:

I found this on Garmin’s webpage. Apparently the GNS 430W does not display TFRs.

I have a GNS 530W with GDL69, and I can confirm it does, in fact, display TFR's.  It's not clear to me how up-to-date the info is, though.  I saw one TFR a few years back and hadn't seen it on my planning.  I asked ATC about it, and the controller confirmed there was none, but he thought it might have been active a few days before.

[Ragsf15e]

On 10/1/2022 at 9:31 PM, PT20J said:

Recently I have not been having TFRs show up in my Garmin equipment. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this.

I have a GTX 345 providing ADS-B In and Out. It is connected to a G3X and a GTN 650Xi. I am getting other FIS-B products (NEXRAD, lightening, cloud tops, etc) depicted on the G3X and GTN - just not TFRs. The FIS-B page on the GTN displays No TFR Data. The status page shows NOTAM - TFR as green.

Skip

Here’s another weird one… going through the gorge just east of Portland there’s now like 5 fires with their own tfrs (and smoke up to 11,000’).  But my phone shows only about half the tfrs - I downloaded it just before takeoff about an hour earlier.  It’s not getting adsb.  My ipad is connected to adsb and shows about half the tfrs.  both have TFR‘s the other doesn’t and both are missing TFR’s. Neither has a complete picture.

[PT20J]

There are some peculiarities in the TFR depictions that can lead us to grief. First, ADS-B and ForeFlight (and probably Sirius XM, although I haven't checked) use as a source tfr.faa.gov. Two issue with this: First, the website includes a disclaimer Depicted TFR data may not be a complete listing. Pilots should not use the information on this website for flight planning purposes. For the latest information, call your local Flight Service Station at 1-800-WX-BRIEF. Second, sometimes only the textual description is available without a graphic. So, if you are just looking at a map and the NOTAM does not include a graphic, the TFR will not show up.

Garmin had a problem back when I made my original post that has since been corrected. Most TFRs are short duration, but the firefighting TFRs common in the west can persist for many days. Garmin had a bug that caused multiday TFRs to only be displayed on GTX 345/GTN equipment for for the first day.

Currently, I have seen a problem where sometimes the GTN 650Xi will show a graphic TFR received from the GTX 345, but it will not show up on the G3X for several minutes. I've reported it and it has been passed on to engineering. It took Garmin a year to figure out the "only on the first day" issue when I originally reported missing TFRs, so who knows when this might be fixed?

ADS-B has limited bandwidth. Text NOTAM-TFRs come in pretty fast, but the graphic depictions shown on the maps are transmitted separately and require more data and can take longer to arrive. 

I have found the ForeFlight app when connected to the ForeFlight server via the internet to be an accurate depiction of what's on tfr.faa,gov. ForeFlight caches the data from the internet and so when you take it to the cockpit it will still remember what TFRs it received from the server even if connected to ADS-B until the ADS-B information supersedes the cached data. This is why sometimes FF will show TFRs that the panel mount equipment does not even if FF is Bluetooth connected to an ADS-B In receiver.

When flying in an area where there may be TFR activity, I always get a briefing via FF, and file IFR or get flight following.
                        

[MikeOH]

Don't you just love how the government can get out of responsibility for their own website??  "Depicted TFR data may not be a complete listing"  SHEESH!

CYA with FF!