"Marco Leon" wrote in message
...
You have lots of good questions and it sounds like you would get a lot out
of one of the advanced courses offered by various places on the operation
of the GNS 530.
Some more info below.

No doubt! That's the sort of thing I'm looking into. Overall, though, the
530 seems pretty intuitive to me. I'm not a fan of having to scroll for
each letter/number (is there any option for a keypad, btw?), but otherwise
the interface seems almost familiar to me.

For the 430 it's only $1,500 but I'm not sure when it will go up.
Apparently it will be much higher after that so holding off on this will
hurt the wallet more than holding off on the aviation update.

From discussions w/ avionics shops, that $1,500 is good for the 530 as well.
The *order* has to be placed by 31 Aug; the *installation* has to be
completed by 31 May. My understanding is that the price will essentially
double after August, to $2,995 (I have not confirmed this, since I intend to
get the WAAS upgrade done before the deadline).

Great info on the db's and fact that the terrain is included in the
WAAS--since I'm doing the WAAS, it'd be a waste of money to do the terrain
upgrade.

Weather on the 530 will run you 2X-3X the cost of the 496 but will save
you yoke space.Plus, the 530 won't show as much as the 496. You will also
have the battery back-up GPS-driven "panel" which may save your ass one
day.

Understood on the cost & the yoke space--but, am I reading you correctly,
the display on the 496 is *larger* and/or *more detailed* than the 530?? I
didn't know that.... The handheld backup aspect of the 496 already has me
leaning that way--but this would cinch the deal, particularly given the cost
differences you point out and that I'm not too concerned about yoke
space....


- Finally, a pure newbie operating question: the green bearing pointer
in the default nav view--is that always a GPS bearing pointer toward the
next waypoint, or will it act as a VOR bearing pointer?

Not sure about the 530 as I have a 430 but I believe if you set it to OBS
mode with a VOR as the reference waypoint it will act like the bearing
pointer.

I experimented, the bearing pointer always points to the next GPS
waypoint--doesn't matter in OBS mode or not.


Here's some more interesting 530 stuff:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Garmin/


Interesting stuff, thanks--and, thanks for all the pointers!!

--
Doug
"Where am I to go/Now that I've gone too far?" -- Golden Earring, "Twilight
Zone"
(my email is spam-proofed; read the address and make the appropriate change
to contact me)