On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 16:30:06 -0800, hretting wrote:

1. BendixKing AV80R found at MarvGolden.com or, 2. Garmin eTrex Vista
HCx Color as listed on a Amazon (the one in soaring mag.).

I know nothing about the Bendix, so I'll leave that for others to comment
about.

However, wrt Garmins, I'd strongly suggest he goes and plays with an
eTrex before he buys one. My reason for saying this is the placement of
its buttons and the way they're used. They are round the edge of the
thing and it has relatively few of them, so it tends to need multiple
keystrokes to do anything.

He should try before he buys and do that one-handed with the eTrex on a
table or (better) held by somebody at the sort of attitude and distance
from him that it will be in the cockpit on its mount. He may well find
that it is harder to use that way than a model that, like the old GPS II+
and III+, have buttons on the front and that generally only need a single
button push to complete an operation.

IOW, of the current models he may find that a GPS 72, GPS 76 or any of
the GPSMAP series will suit him better than an eTrex or the other models
with buttons on the edges.

I assume that he'll want it mounted on the panel and/or on some sort of
flexible support. If so, a further consideration must be the availability
and cost of a suitable mounting. Those bits of plastic are surprisingly
expensive for what they are.

He might also consider using something like an HP 31x GPS-equipped PDA or
a Binatone X350 satnav and run XCSoar on it. I have an X350 with XCSoar
installed. Initial impressions are good but I haven't yet flown with it.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |