Garmin 396

[Doug]

Does anyone know what I would have to do to make a 396 go from an
aviation unit to a car unit? Could I just take it out of the plane,
push a few buttons and put it in the car and get turn by turn car
navigation instructions? How does the car stuff work? Does it have all
the resturants and stuff. Or would I be better off buying a seperate
car system?

[kgruber]

You push two buttons and it is an auto unit with all major highways and
roads. It has enhanced features if you buy the auto kit and download maps.
These maps have the local roads, restaurants etc on them.

Push the button twice again and it's a marine unit, useable with bluechart
data cards, purchased separately.

Karl
"Curator" N185KG

Karl
"Doug" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> Does anyone know what I would have to do to make a 396 go from an
> aviation unit to a car unit? Could I just take it out of the plane,
> push a few buttons and put it in the car and get turn by turn car
> navigation instructions? How does the car stuff work? Does it have all
> the resturants and stuff. Or would I be better off buying a seperate
> car system?
>

[Doug]

Do you have to hook it to a computer inbetween aviation mode and
enhanced auto mode?

[Dave Butler]

Doug wrote:
> Do you have to hook it to a computer inbetween aviation mode and
> enhanced auto mode?

No. Just a button push. I use mine in the car frequently and find the road
navigation is fine, but the list of nearby restaurants etc goes out of data fast
and the database updates don't come out very often. It will often point you at a
restaurant that "used to be right here". I don't think that problem is unique to
the 396, though.

You can fit about half a state worth of detailed road data on the flash card. If
you're travelling out of town, you need to tediously download the data for the
area where you're going. If I were driving to Atlanta, for example, I'd download
all the areas along the interstate that I intend to travel, plus the Atlanta
area. By download, I mean from my PC to the 396 flash. Don't know whether you
can upgrade the size of the flash, I have the one that came with it.

Dave

[kgruber]

No. But at some prior time you do have to download the maps from the
computer to the memory chip that goes inside the 396. Once that is done the
chip can be used at any time and just left inside the 396.

Depending on how big a chip you buy the more maps you can put on them. I can
store Alaska, western Canada, and the western states on one 256MG chip. If I
were to go New York to Seattle I'd load up a different set of maps. However,
interstate travel is completely possible just with the native database
inside the 396 and a chip is unnecessary

Karl.


"Doug" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Do you have to hook it to a computer inbetween aviation mode and
> enhanced auto mode?
>

[Jonathan Goodish]

In article <1141918896.917005@sj-nntpcache-5>, Dave Butler >
wrote:
> No. Just a button push. I use mine in the car frequently and find the road
> navigation is fine, but the list of nearby restaurants etc goes out of data
> fast
> and the database updates don't come out very often. It will often point you
> at a
> restaurant that "used to be right here". I don't think that problem is unique
> to
> the 396, though.


Garmin appears to obtain the road mapping data from NAVTEQ. As far as I
can tell, most of Garmin's competitors obtain road mapping data from the
same source. Therefore, I would expect these data problems to be
inherent in everyone's GPS products.

That being said, I find the detailed data very useful. It won't always
take you precisely to the door, but it will get you very close.



JKG

[John]

While I cant confirm the source of other Garmin maps, the mapset that
just came with my new Garmin Quest is from NAVTEQ.

Blue skies . . .

John