fixdgear –
Allow me to correct a few misimpressions here. I’m in a good position to understand the situation since I wrote the article reviewing the traffic devices for Aviation Consumer.
First of all, I did not say that the SureCheck TrafficScope performed better. This misimpression has become widespread because SureCheck has misquoted the article on their website and refused to change it despite Aviation Consumer’s efforts to get them to correct it. In the article, I listed a number of features that the SureCheck has and the Monroy does not (the local altitude reference and battery power among others) and noted that these extras add $400 to the price. I then said that “If that capability is important to you or you can’t run on ship’s power alone, the SureCheck TrafficScope is the better choice, in our view.” SureCheck’s “quote” of this is “TrafficScope is the better choice, in our view.” This is a little like taking a movie review that says “if you like blood and guts this is the movie of the year” and quoting it to say “This is the movie of the year.”
The most unfortunate part of this is that the article said some quite complimentary things about the TrafficScope (and I have to take issue with your statement that Aviation Consumer has never had a good thing to say about SureCheck products – if you re-read the article you will see that we had quite a bit good to say about the TrafficScope). Sadly, instead of honestly quoting the positive things we said, SureCheck decided to be dishonest and misquote the article. This dishonesty in advertising makes me, at least, wonder about their honesty in dealing with their customers.
Let me straighten out a few more details: (1) While I did not say that the TrafficScope performed better, I did admit it had more features – at a price – and suggested that if you wanted those features and thought they were worth the price you should buy it. (2) Paul and I did not disagree on which unit was better. In fact, we flew all the tests together and came to a consensus on the conclusions in the article. (3) The words “Razor Thin” were, in fact Paul’s. It is SOP in the magazine business that the writer suggests a headline and the editor (almost always) revises it and runs it by the writer for agreement before publication. This is what happened in this case and I thought his wording for the head characterized our conclusions very well (I’m not proud – Paul is generally better at writing heads than I am).
As for electronics manufacturers claiming that you get a better review by getting friendly with Paul Bertorelli, my only comment is that it sounds suspiciously like sour grapes. Aviation Consumer’s claim to uniqueness is their lack of bias. It’s existence is based on that. Paul is not an unaware person – I find it very hard to believe he would accept some short-term gain in exchange for a threat to his livelihood. And in my experience, at least, he has always been one of the fiercest proponents of accurate and fair reporting in journalism.
A couple of additional points: Judging traffic devices by flying with each for a while is not a good way to judge them because you have no reliable reference. If the device doesn’t point out some traffic and ATC doesn’t mention it and you don’t see it, you have no way of knowing the numbers of the “ones that got away.” We used a TIS display that shows traffic based on an uplink from ATC radar, so we knew where the traffic was and could compare it accurately against what each device displayed (it also let us compare real distance with the distance displayed on the devices). We also had both devices looking at the same traffic at the same time in the same airplane.
Using that arrangement, we found that the Monroy was slightly better at reporting traffic than the TrafficScope. That does not mean that the Monroy was perfect by any means. Both were almost totally blind to traffic ahead and below, and seeing opposite-direction 737 traffic a mile away and only 500 feet beneath us while both traffic devices remained silent was a sobering experience (fortunately the 737 had us on TCAS, we had him on TIS, and we were both talking to the same controller).
I hope this clears up some of the misunderstanding. Note, by the way, that Paul reviewed the ProxAlert R5 in the June issue of Aviation Consumer and found he liked it better than either the Monroy or the SureCheck, although it too had some of the shortcomings of the others, like some blind spots. After we were unable to get a ProxAlert unit in time for our original article, we lectured ProxAlert on the basics of marketing in the US (it is a French company). To their credit, they took our criticism to heart and shaped up significantly, so the unit is now available directly from them through their Phoenix office and their website.
Jon
