Mike W. wrote:
Anybody own/use one of these regularly? Two of the planes in the fleet at my
flying club have them, no manuals. I had it demonstrated once, but of course
had a month or two when I didn't use it so forgot. If available online
somwhere would be awesome.

I had one in my Maule. I no longer have the manual, and I never used all of the
features, but here's what I remember. We'll run through the big knob first.

The GRI position allows you to select the LORAN chain you want. If you take it
several hundred miles, you'll probably get out of range of the chain you're
using. You can use this feature to change chains. Since you don't have the
manual, just let it figure out the situation automatically. This takes five or
ten minutes.

The Pos feature tells you what where you are. The default is distance and radial
from the closest Navaid. Use the Page button to change the screen. You can get
it to report Lat/Long this way.

The Nav feature was the biggie for me. I generally just went directly to the
next waypoint. To do that, turn to Nav. It will display the last destination
(we'll use "K3N6" as an example). The screen will say "Direct To? K3N6." If
that's what you want to do, hit the Entr button.

If you want to enter a new destination, hit the Msg button. A "destination"
screen will appear with the cursor blinking just to the right of the letter "K."
If you're going to an airport in the U.S., turn the little knob until the letter
you want is in that position. If you're going to an intersection, hit the button
beside the left arrow to move back and overwrite the "K." Once the first letter
is entered, hit the button beside the right arrow to move to the next position.
When you get the ID entered, hit the Entr botton. Assuming the Id is in the
database, the screen will then display the course and distance to the station,
along with a little CDI. Using the Page button will get you several other
screens; one gives you track info, another ETE, etc..

The FPL feature allows you to enter and retrieve flight plans. I never used
this, but I recall that waypoints are entered using the same method as is used
to enter destinations in the Nav feature. You can enter waypoints either by
inserting them in between your departure point and your destination or by adding
waypoints in a chain until the destination is entered. This is best done by
taking the LORAN home and plugging it into a powerpack (which is why I never
used it).

The Wpt feature allows you to enter waypoints. BFG dropped most small airports
from the database about 1994, so you will get real good at this feature if you
have a recent database. I don't remember the exact procedure, but you need to
make up an Id and know the latitude and longitude of the waypoint. If you're
entering data for an airport BFG dropped, you can use the real airport Id. The
database cartridge is a small box plugged in the right rear of the unit. It
should have the last update date on it. If this is 1995 or later, the unit will
be of very limited use.

The Aux feature gives you the nearest ten airports. IIRC, the Page button will
retrieve frequency info and other data about the airport currently displayed on
the screen. This may also be true (or may only be true) for the Wpt feature.
Play around with it.

Now. If you turn the thing on and the GRI page doesn't give you any useful info,
the internal battery is probably dead. This is soldered into the mother board.
You can get one at any good electronic store (Rat Shack will not have them). It
looks something like the capacitor in an old automobile distributor.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.