Hi Ed,

You are correct to a certain extent. I don't know much about XCSoar because
I don't sell it. Since it's free I can't sell it. I'm not trying to avoid
it or push only products I can sell, but there is no motivation for me to
spend my time trying to figure it out. Every time I've gone to the XCSoar
web site I have been unable to find clear information that would help me
install it on my PDA or PNA. I'm a pretty technical person and the web site
is not intuitive to me.

It if was easy to install then maybe I would include it in my newsletter,
but my impression is that it is not easy to install and therefore mainly for
high tech glider pilots that can work their way through the installation,
etc.

I'm glad that some glider pilots like it. That is fine. More power to
them. I'm not getting rich selling soaring software. However, I am
sincerely a fan of the soaring software I sell and support. I think it is
great and worth every penny. Some glider pilots will choose to buy SeeYou
Mobile, Glide Navigator II or pocket*StrePla and some will choose the free
software.

On the other hand, I do a lot of paid support for Glide Navigator II and
SeeYou Mobile customers. They seem to appreciate that I can walk them
through installing the using the software. I suppose I could get paid to do
the same for XCSoar. Perhaps I just need to dig into it and get familiar
with it so I can support it. But so far my attempts to get to know it have
ended in frustration. I hear it is neat software, but the level of effort
required doesn't seem worth it to me. Of course, once I got over the
initial hurdles I imagine I would find it less difficult than I anticipated.

Best Regards,

Paul Remde

"Ed Winchester" wrote in message
...
Let's throw another one into this mix.

I have one of these which I use for flying my Warrior:
http://www.aviationsafety.com/flight_cheetahfl190.html
It's based on this Samsung Display:
http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/o...ype=prd_detail
Samsung doesn't list a display brightness on the specs page, but having
used it numerous times in the air, I've never seen screen brightness to be
a problem. But with all these devices which have been lately pointed out
here, how do you fit the thing into a glider cockpit?

But what I actually fly with is a Nokia 500 PNA, which I bought off eBay
for $110. I unlocked it and loaded XCSoar on it, along with a whole group
of software called MioPocket. And, it still has all its original PNA
functionality. Yes, screen brightness is a slight problem, but I can live
with it as is.

Actually, some of the stuff I've seen written lately is upsetting me a
bit. You have nice, informative articles by Mr. Remde in Gliding
International, and maybe even in Soaring, but they don't mention XCSoar as
software to use. I've been using it for more than a year and can't
imagine something else I'd want it to do. I also own PocketStrepla
running on an Axim X51v which is no better, if as good. I'm sure Paul's
(and other writer's) writing is biased by trying to sell the products that
make him a living, and he gets nothing from XCSoar.

Ed

wrote:
This one was pointed out to me and at $425 looks like it will give us
what we need.....

http://www.wdlsystems.com/downloads/specs/1EPDX5U_s.pdf

Cheers

Al