Garmin 396 Auto Kit

[Mike Spera]

On the Garmin site, it looks like the "City Select" CD set has been
replaced by the "City Navigator" CD set. There is no price listed for
City Select, but there are prices for City Navigator. Are they different
products or is this a replacement? Some avionics shops are selling kits
with the City Select CDs.

The Auto kit only comes with a 128 Mb card. How much of the US can this
card hold? What size would hold the entire US? How about just the
Midwestern third? Since I don't need the mount, I may be better off
buying the CD and data card separately if I need one larger than the 128
Mb card included in the kit.

I am looking to increase the utility of this $2350 airplane gizmo. On
the ground, I am pretty challenged so this might be useful. Any reports
of how it performs? I am interested in the full bore street detail right
to an address. Out of the box you can only get directions to a city. Not
too useful to me.

Thanks for any info.

Mike

[Jonathan Goodish]

In article t>,
Mike Spera > wrote:
> On the Garmin site, it looks like the "City Select" CD set has been
> replaced by the "City Navigator" CD set. There is no price listed for
> City Select, but there are prices for City Navigator. Are they different
> products or is this a replacement? Some avionics shops are selling kits
> with the City Select CDs.

In my opinion, Garmin's land mapping product line is a little difficult
to decipher.

I believe that City Navigator is the "updated" City Select product.
They both appear to contain the same basic capabilities. The City
Navigator NT employs compression (not compatible with the 396) to shrink
the entire country down onto a SD card.



> The Auto kit only comes with a 128 Mb card. How much of the US can this
> card hold? What size would hold the entire US? How about just the
> Midwestern third? Since I don't need the mount, I may be better off
> buying the CD and data card separately if I need one larger than the 128
> Mb card included in the kit.

What fits on the card depends on how much data is associated with the
locations you're trying to load onto the card. For example, I think I
can get just about the entire state of OH onto the card, but maybe not
much more than a couple major metro areas. I've found the card adequate
for the travels that I do, but I don't have a problem loading new map
data for my destination. Not as convenient as having the entire country
loaded, but it still works well.


>
> I am looking to increase the utility of this $2350 airplane gizmo. On
> the ground, I am pretty challenged so this might be useful. Any reports
> of how it performs? I am interested in the full bore street detail right
> to an address. Out of the box you can only get directions to a city. Not
> too useful to me.

In my experience, the unit performs well and will get you close to the
destination address (same street, a few doors down). It rarely marks
the EXACT location of the destination, but occasionally it does.
Sometimes it just can't find the address. Most of the issues that I've
experienced have been minor, and are related to the Navteq map data.

I once had the system turn me onto a side street where I almost
immediately came to a dead end. Then I noticed there was a missing
bridge at the dead end (looked like it had been missing for quite a
while). Turned around, hit the main road, and picked up the side street
on the other side of the bridge, where my destination was located. Same
street, but the map data showed the bridge as still intact.



JKG

[Maule Driver]

I have the City Select CD set as part of the auto kit which was 'free'
when the product was being sold at the original price.

The 128Mb card allows me to download my 'working set' of street detail
down to individual addresses. My working set includes NC, most of SC,
Pittsburgh, some NE corridor, Atlanta, most of FL except for Miami and
some other misc. The large metro areas obviously take more memory. I
still have enough memory to log all my trips for what appears to be
several years. Of course they can be loaded onto my PC and erased.
More card would equal ease of use in that I wouldn't have to juggle my
selected areas when adding something like LA for a special trip.

Having the 396 on board for the flight, then in the rental for the
destination, then in the hotel room for XM music and weather briefings
works great. They provide a sandbag type mount for strange vehicles and
a cigaret lighter/speaker device for the voice directions. You very
quickly get in the mode of, "don't bother giving me directions, I'll use
the GPS".

Yes, I'm a guy.

Mike Spera wrote:
> On the Garmin site, it looks like the "City Select" CD set has been
> replaced by the "City Navigator" CD set. There is no price listed for
> City Select, but there are prices for City Navigator. Are they different
> products or is this a replacement? Some avionics shops are selling kits
> with the City Select CDs.
>
> The Auto kit only comes with a 128 Mb card. How much of the US can this
> card hold? What size would hold the entire US? How about just the
> Midwestern third? Since I don't need the mount, I may be better off
> buying the CD and data card separately if I need one larger than the 128
> Mb card included in the kit.
>
> I am looking to increase the utility of this $2350 airplane gizmo. On
> the ground, I am pretty challenged so this might be useful. Any reports
> of how it performs? I am interested in the full bore street detail right
> to an address. Out of the box you can only get directions to a city. Not
> too useful to me.
>
> Thanks for any info.
>
> Mike

[~^ beancounter ~^]

"Having the 396 on board for the flight, then in the rental for the
destination, then in the hotel room for XM music and weather briefings
works great."

how is the music sound quality? can it bee hooked into a exesting
auto/boat/plane sound system (like one might do w/a ipod or mp3
player) and have decent sound quality at medium volumes?....

thanx....