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Silvertone exhibited at this important inaugural trade show and conference in Singapore on June 30-July 1. It was a fabulous event, showcasing a lot of technology and developments from around the world.

We had a huge amount of interest from around the world in the Flamingo platform and we showed off the design of the Mk3 Flamingo platform.

In the weeks before going to Singapore, F21 was also on display at Comms Connect 2015 in Sydney. We should have registered Big Blue for frequent flyer miles!
 

Silvertone’s Program Manager, Travis Downie has been liaising with CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority) as required regarding regulations around UAV flights and Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations and is now on several working groups and sub-committees, in addition to running the Mk3 program.

Ian and Travis are seen here amid the canola crop doing pre-flight checks before the proving flight for the integration of the 3W-28i engine into the Flamingo. The weather closing in on us over a several week period held up our trials and we got a narrow window where we confirmed our design and installation for the engine.

Engineering Intern Arthur gets some pointers from Chief Controller Ian during assembly of F22, “Big Red”.

In addition to these works, we were also testing out various communications payloads, which we hope to bring more details on in coming newsletters and releases.

 
Production Program.
We have successfully gotten the Flamingo Mk3 production packs ready for the composite manufacturers and pieces are coming out for validation and testing. We’re very excited to have the program now at the stage that we are ready for full production of the new enhanced platform. See the video on our Facebook page for an animated 3D CAD movie.
 
Payload testing with communications systems for telemetry, control and payload operations are underway. A variety of systems are to be tested, in the various ISM bands as well as for VHF and UHF two-way and data operations.
 
The CM100 gimbal-mounted camera from UAV Vision in Port Macquarie, here in Australia, is also being evaluated. UAV Vision have provided excellent support for our program and we are very pleased to be working with them.

We are also initiating evaluation of a LIDAR system for another group. To be mounted on the Mk3 platform, the LIDAR will provided an enormous wealth of information for survey and agronomics professionals.

 
LIDAR is also to be tested for the autopilot system. On a vastly different scale to the survey requirements, this LIDAR system will still give unprecedented ability to autonomous operations.

There has been a real surge of interest in Signal Hound products of late. Partly this has been to the great reception that the Spike software received, followed closely by the release of the VSG25A Vector Signal Generator. As usual Signal Hound have excelled with their products and we remain proud to be associated with this great company.
 
Don’t forget that Signal Hound is releasing updates to Spike™ via the website. Spike is available in 64-bit Windows or in a more limited feature 32-bit release. It provides vastly superior performance to the legacy software and is a free download from the Signal Hound website. Recent updates have included enhanced modulation analysis capability.

There is also an update to the firmware for the BB60C which improves the performance of the device. Currently, switching in and out of streaming modes takes approximately 750ms. With the new Version 6 firmware this switch will take approximately 10ms. That’s a significant increase in performance!

Kestrel.
Silvertone is now a distributor of the Kestrel Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) software. The Kestrel TSCM ^TM Professional Software - Signal Intelligence Support System (SISS) is a full featured standalone TSCM specific, operator centric, rapid deployment based, RF collection and analysis system.

Kestrel TSCM ^TM is utilized for conducting professional level Technical Security (TSEC) evaluations, Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) inspections, Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) collection, and for managed Remote Spectrum Surveillance and Monitoring (RSSM) related assignments at the facility level, for critical infrastructure sites, and for wide geographical area surveillance of the ambient RF spectrum environment.

 
Kestrel’s powerful monitoring, decoding and analysis software is ideal for serious signals intelligence professionals.

More detail on our range of RF signals monitoring hardware and software is available via the Silvertone website. Click on the Radio-Comms menu tab, or direct from the Signal Hound  or Kestrel websites.

Autopilots
 
The Firetail Diamond Autopilot system (DAPr5) has been with us now for several weeks for integration planning. This superb device is more powerful than most other reasonably priced offerings and we have had the privilege of being able to get some input into desirable features during the design phase.
 
The Diamond’s software has been upgraded quite significantly too and can be seen on the manufacturer’s website. Also available now is simulation and design software.

 

 
Silvertone has expanded the available stock-lines in the Remote Control (RC) area. We are seeing more walk-in customers at the store-front which is nice – we have not put much effort into advertising the physical store so the word of mouth is obviously doing a fine job of letting people know we are here! Check us out if you are in the Wagga area for servos, RC transmitters and receivers, fuel and accessories.
 

 
It’s hard to keep up with the number of news items which occur on a daily basis in the UAV industry. The big news lately has been the FAA and their approach to opening up the skies, which has seen an enormous increase in the number of exemptions granted for operation.
 
In addition, Google has proposed a system of traffic separation to improve safety for unmanned system operations. There is still a lot of work to be done but this sort of thinking is a move in the right direction.
 

 
Everyone has had a bit of a mention in this newsletter so we just include this photo of work going on with Big Red during assembly.



As usual, don't forget to check our Facebook page for news and updates as they occur.
 
Safe flying!