Garmin 296 worth the money?

Interestingly, the source where I first heard of this [1] is no longer
claiming XM compatibility. It used to say that both TAWS-like capability
and XM weather would be supported via a free firmware upgrade some time
after shipping . Now they only mention the terrain stuff.

I'm in a 10-pilot club, so $50/mo. isn't a deal breaker. As far as the "XM
gear" goes, the original claim was that it would all be built in to the
airmap. Who knows now...

[1] http://www.avshop.com/catalog/produc...productid=6054

"Darrel Toepfer" wrote in message
...
Jeremy Lew wrote:
The question really is, is the 296 worth $1700 minus the value of your
current GPS.
I know my 196 is worth $700+ to tropicaero as a trade up, "value add"
must
only be $1000,
not $1700. Despite the proprietary battery, the unit recharges itself
while
plugged in to the plane's DC power (and continues to function too),
which I
think increases its relative value if you have a power socket available.

What I really want to know is whether they are going to add on XM
satellite
weather capability, like Lowrance is doing with their upcoming model.
This
would make it a no brainer for me.

Do you have a URL about this? There is no mention of it on the website
for the Airmap 2000...

Although you'd need to fly quite a bit to justify the $50 a month
subscription for that, plus the cost of the required XM gear...

http://www.xmradio.com/weather/service_and_pricing.html

Try 256-319-9679 Huntsville, AL tech support.

I have never heard of the port to Lowrance. All I got from the AOPA show
meeting with the owner was the G1000 project and then the GNS530's. I use
the product on a laptop and NavAero TPad800.

$50/mth is fair compared to the price of the other products that use sat
phones & charge per download. I turn this thing on & get all the
weather/winds/lightning/METAR/TAF/Fronts/ on & on....

--

Thx, {|;-)

Victor J. (Jim) Osborne, Jr.



take off my shoes to reply

I turn this thing on & get all the
weather/winds/lightning/METAR/TAF/Fronts/ on & on....

Does the "on & on" include PIREPs ? I could never get a straight
answer on that from Wxworx...

No PIREPs at this time. I understand they ARE working on it. It's a matter
of them being made available in a form they can readily use.

I know you can get PIREPS on line from
http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/pireps/
but the format isn't transferable at this time. (What I am told.)

To me, the real 'straight answer' problem comes from 'sales' saying yes and
'IT' i.e. programmers, having to make it so. I made my living doing
software for others for a few years. I learned the truth in the phrase "Do
you know how to tell when a salesperson is lying? When their mouth is
moving."

Having said that, I have had good results from calling Huntsville and
getting help from Lyle.
--

Thx, {|;-)

Victor J. (Jim) Osborne, Jr.

"Victor J. Osborne, Jr." wrote in message ...
No PIREPs at this time. I understand they ARE working on it. It's a matter
of them being made available in a form they can readily use.

I know you can get PIREPS on line from
http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/pireps/
but the format isn't transferable at this time. (What I am told.)

Having said that, I have had good results from calling Huntsville and
getting help from Lyle.

OK, good deal, sounds like they have a good product in the works. I
fly in the Pacific NW and icing (and, perhaps more importantly,
tops/layer) pireps are quite important to the overall picture, that's
why the curiosity.

Thanks for the note, look forward to more XM-capable hardware. If
someone could cram the receiver (or even just display capability) into
a $2K handheld unit, that would be awesome.