Hi,
i’m wondering if the number of position reports has been lowered.
I checked my stats and my position reports have dropped by 33%.
till july 3rd i had around 600k position reports per day, then i moved my antenna inside because i was on holidays and i don’t like lightning strikes hitting a cable going into my house 
so it dropped to around 50k reports per day.
2 days ago i put it on its original position, no even 2cm higher 
yesterday i got around 400k position reports and today will be around te same, about 200.000 reports per day less???
So, did i damage my antenna or cable or did fa lower the reports per minute? I have a ff, software version 6.2.
I definitely see the drop in range and message rates. It looks like this is effecting all directions and ranges which leads me to think you have a noise problem instead of an antenna placement problem. If you check your polar graphs and the position by distance graph you can see what I mean.
The most common place for noise to enter the system is at the connectors. I would completely remove the connectors and retighten them. This will remove any oxides on the connectors and a good way to make sure the connectors are still very tight and have no visual damage. Hopefully that would fix this problem.
I should add a few more things about this.
The N connectors (the large one) are very tough and hard to damage. The suggested torque need for N connectors is very high compared to most types of connectors since they are rated to be used outside in very harsh enviroments. The tightness prevents water from getting inside the connector and causing corrosion. The sma connectors are quite a bit weaker and can break if you tighten them too much. SMA connectors (the small one) just need to be snug.
Moisture can be a problem. The wire should not have any nicks and the seals of the antenna should be intact. If the wire covering and antenna seals are still intact then moisture can only enter through the connectors. If the connectors are tight then water should not be a problem.
The cables we use are solid core cables. The solid core wire can be damaged with a bend of less than 4 inch diameter. Usually this is really hard to do and you will see a complete loss of connection instead of just a noisy connection.
I am thinking that having some message rates/sec and some relative noise floor measurements should help in installation and troubleshooting. I will see if we can get this added to later versions.
sorry for the very late reply 
af first i did check the cable up to the lightning arrestor, all seemed to be ok. about a week ago i removed everything because a large thunderstrom was coming and i noticed the antenna itself was loose on two points which i corrected of course. weather wasn’t that good so i kept it inside on first floor, reception was quite decent: 3400 aircraft per day inside! 2 m above ground with trees and apartment buidling close by.
today i’ve put it on it’s intended place but the reception seems to be the same, maybe a bit worse 
all cables have been checked, everything has been cleaned. do you still see the extra noise?
i can affirm you the cable has never been bended above its limits. the problem must be somewhere else.
i noticed some corrosion on the N connector connected to the antenna (the screw which connects both cable and antenna), but inside everything was clean. i think that is ok.
i ran virtual radar server for an hr or so and range seems to be ok, i just receive or send less reports… vr shows about 1500 messages a second in the afternoon.
