Oudie Pilot Reports?

[AY]

Would any Oudie users care to comment on their flying experiences with
the Oudie? Particularly cockpit readability, unit dependability and
ease of use, or any other pro's or con's you might care to comment on.
Thanks!

Mark Akerley

[Mike[_8_]]

On Dec 10, 5:25*pm, AY > wrote:
> Would any Oudie users care to comment on their flying experiences with
> the Oudie? Particularly cockpit readability, unit dependability and
> ease of use, or any other pro's or con's you might care to comment on.
> Thanks!
>
> Mark Akerley

Hi Mark,

Check out a MIO M400 and this link. You may save yourself a lot of
money and get the same or better result.

http://www.postfrontal.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=82

[Sig_ZA]

On Dec 11, 2:25*am, AY > wrote:
> Would any Oudie users care to comment on their flying experiences with
> the Oudie? Particularly cockpit readability, unit dependability and
> ease of use, or any other pro's or con's you might care to comment on.
> Thanks!
>
> Mark Akerley

Been doing some flying in the bright African sun and with my
sunglasses I am able to read the Oudie very well.
However, what I did do to help, was to make the fonts on the map (for
waypoints, etc) almost double the size. I also increased the default
line thickness, by one, of the roads and railway lines. Furthermore I
have set the navboxes to almost zero opacity.

Screen brightness was not so much a problem as the reflections from
within the cockpit itself. This did cause a few hard reading issues.

My problem, however, was trying to push those five little buttons at
the bottom of the screen. Much verbal abuse was hurled at the Oudie's
direction in this regard. The buttons either doing nothing when
pressed, or blast through a zillion screens in a flash. Buttons need
to be made bigger. There also seems to be a bit of dead zone on the
Oudie for the last few pixels at the bottom of the screen where no
amount of pushing helps.

[Dan[_6_]]

On Dec 11, 7:06*am, Sig_ZA > wrote:
> On Dec 11, 2:25*am, AY > wrote:
>
> > Would any Oudie users care to comment on their flying experiences with
> > the Oudie? Particularly cockpit readability, unit dependability and
> > ease of use, or any other pro's or con's you might care to comment on.
> > Thanks!
>
> > Mark Akerley
>
> Been doing some flying in the bright African sun and with my
> sunglasses I am able to read the Oudie very well.
> However, what I did do to help, was to make the fonts on the map (for
> waypoints, etc) almost double the size. I also increased the default
> line thickness, by one, of the roads and railway lines. Furthermore I
> have set the navboxes to almost zero opacity.
>
> Screen brightness was not so much a problem as the reflections from
> within the cockpit itself. This did cause a few hard reading issues.
>
> My problem, however, was trying to push those five little buttons at
> the bottom of the screen. Much verbal abuse was hurled at the Oudie's
> direction in this regard. The buttons either doing nothing when
> pressed, or blast through a zillion screens in a flash. Buttons need
> to be made bigger. There also seems to be a bit of dead zone on the
> Oudie for the last few pixels at the bottom of the screen where no
> amount of pushing helps.

I have been considering getting an Oudie- I've never seen one or used
one.

I really like SeeYou Mobile but I sure don't like my iPAQ when it
crashes. However I use the 4 button and the large center button all
the time, I'm not keen on touch screens while flying, they seem to be
too sensitive to make work very well.
With Oudie there doesn't seem to be any physical buttons, might be
awkward but it might depend on how you set it up.
I also use the two pages all the time. One page for big picture
situation awareness, the second for thermalling, zoomed way in, really
helps keep track of lift center and wind drift while thermalling. I
love this feature.
I set up my Nav boxes to be appropriate info for each page.
I use one button to toggle bewteen the two pages, can you do this
easily with the Oudie?
Also I don't bother with all colored terrain, too much clutter for my
eyes, that seems to make reading the maps much easier.
I use a anti reflecting screen on my iPAQ maybe that would help. I
also use a long goosneck and can easily move it a bit to see it
better. Maybe that too would help.

Dan
WO

[Mike the Strike]

On Dec 11, 8:41*am, Dan > wrote:
> On Dec 11, 7:06*am, Sig_ZA > wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Dec 11, 2:25*am, AY > wrote:
>
> > > Would any Oudie users care to comment on their flying experiences with
> > > the Oudie? Particularly cockpit readability, unit dependability and
> > > ease of use, or any other pro's or con's you might care to comment on..
> > > Thanks!
>
> > > Mark Akerley
>
> > Been doing some flying in the bright African sun and with my
> > sunglasses I am able to read the Oudie very well.
> > However, what I did do to help, was to make the fonts on the map (for
> > waypoints, etc) almost double the size. I also increased the default
> > line thickness, by one, of the roads and railway lines. Furthermore I
> > have set the navboxes to almost zero opacity.
>
> > Screen brightness was not so much a problem as the reflections from
> > within the cockpit itself. This did cause a few hard reading issues.
>
> > My problem, however, was trying to push those five little buttons at
> > the bottom of the screen. Much verbal abuse was hurled at the Oudie's
> > direction in this regard. The buttons either doing nothing when
> > pressed, or blast through a zillion screens in a flash. Buttons need
> > to be made bigger. There also seems to be a bit of dead zone on the
> > Oudie for the last few pixels at the bottom of the screen where no
> > amount of pushing helps.
>
> I have been considering getting an Oudie- *I've never seen one or used
> one.
>
> I really like SeeYou Mobile but I sure don't like my iPAQ when it
> crashes. However I use the 4 button and the large center button all
> the time, I'm not keen on touch screens while flying, they seem to be
> too sensitive to make work very well.
> With Oudie there doesn't seem to be any physical buttons, might be
> awkward but it might depend on how you set it up.
> I also use the two pages all the time. *One page for big picture
> situation awareness, the second for thermalling, zoomed way in, really
> helps keep track of lift center and wind drift while thermalling. *I
> love this feature.
> I set up my Nav boxes to be appropriate info for each page.
> I use one button to toggle bewteen the two pages, can you do this
> easily with the Oudie?
> Also I don't bother with all colored terrain, too much clutter for my
> eyes, that seems to make reading the maps much easier.
> I use a anti reflecting screen on my iPAQ maybe that would help. *I
> also use a long goosneck and can easily move it a bit to see it
> better. *Maybe that too would help.
>
> Dan
> WO

I have several months' experience of using an Oudie in the Arizona
sun. I have so far used it on a knee-pad and have had no operational
problems accessing buttons. The display is bright and readable except
in direct bright sun. Adding a screen shade has made it very
acceptable. It's not as bright as the ClearNav and similar devices,
but is a step up from the typical PDA many use.

Doubtless there are some cheap Chinese PNAs out there that geeks could
get to work with SYM or other software, but for me it was worth
getting a device that would work straight out of the box.

Mike

[Randy[_2_]]

I have been using the Oudie since last Spring. Once the latest
software was loaded, the Oudie has been doing very good.
I turn off the all the terrain features and only show the roads,
rivers, airports, TP's and airspace. I have no issues with seeing
the display. It would be nice to if the screen was brighter, but I
try use it for reference only. The views are too good to not be
looking outside!

Randy

http://talihinasoaring.com/

[Bob D]

I've been using Oudie since the beginning of the season. I had been
using SeeYou Mobile for two years so I was sold on it as a program.
The downside had been the PDA's--especially the system crashes because
of all the crap that comes with Windows Mobile.

The Oudie screen is better than any PDA and yes, not as good as
ClearNav. But $2K plus is a bit rich for me as I have a LX-DX-50 for
other important data.

I put on sun glasses and went outside to configure the thumbnail nav
boxes as far as color and font size was concerned. I found black boxes
with bold white fonts and yellow boxes with bold black fonts are easy
to read. Scaling them larger helped.

As a device it's the step between PDAs and larger screen units. I have
not had any freezes or crashes and yes...some screen change buttons
can be twitchy. I have mine mounted on a RAM holder and use the Socket
Mobile battery pack to power it. You can wire up to your internal
electrical and power it with the glider batteries, but I like the
mobility convenience along with the suction mount they give you. That
way you can use it in other gliders easily.

Naviter seems to be a supportive company so I'm happy with the unit
and the program.

I too keep graphics simple: white background, gray and black markers,
roads and turnpoints for easy scanning. I also group my relevant nav
thumbnails on one screen, and the moving map on another.

Mike The Strike: what exactly is your screen shade you're referring
too?

I give Oudie 4.5 stars out of 5 for what you pay for.

Bob
GE2