Jonathan Goodish wrote:


You're right, XM provides more, but not $30 more per month, much less $50.


Not sure that I agree with your assessment. I subscribe to the $50 XM
option and have found almost every element provided to be very useful.
Not to mention that Baron seems to do a decent job with data quality--I
wonder where the data from ADS-B comes from.

Nexrad and other weather comes from the government.



I just don't understand the whining that I hear everywhere about the
cost of XM weather. In an era where folks pay close to $100/month for
cable television, give a cell phone to every pre-teen in their
household, and drive huge SUVs, I can't understand where the pain of
paying $30-$50/month for weather uplink is coming from. It's not for
everyone, but frequent flyers can certainly benefit from it.

Why would you pay $50 per month when just about everything you get for
that $50 will be free? Not to mention the people that wouldn't pay a
nickel for weather now get it for free.




In addition, ADS-B doesn't provide an entertainment services like XM
radio, for those who might use it.

I don't pay anything extra for XM in the plane right now. I simply take
one of my radios with me when I fly.


I have an XM radio in my plane now. Although XM in the 396 works it is
a secondary function and as such is not all that convenient to use.


Actually, I think it's pretty intuitive. Garmin did a good job with the
integration, though it's not quite as convenient for things like channel
selection.

Bingo, once you've had an XM in the plane the 396 is really cumbersome.



Until those "hundreds of transmitters" are live and active, ADS-B is
pretty much moot. I doubt in 2-3 years we will see widespread ADS-B
available as we have XM available today. And, I wonder what happens to
your data if you're out of range of a transmitter?

You're right, it is a chicken and egg problem. However it is already in
place and running for the entire east coast. In 2-3 years I'll bet the
entire country is covered. And one of the driving factors will be
traffic information, something XM does not and cannot provide.