WxWorx or Anywhere Wx

You are correct in that the GDL69A costs more. However, installing a panel
mount CD player or XM receiver would cost a whole lot more as a standalone.
I had a portable XM radio plugged in to the audio input, but between the
power, antenna, and audio cables it was messy and cumbersome.

I had the GDL 69A installed for the retail price alone in my Baron.

"Jim N." wrote:

The GDL 69, although not perfect, integrates well with my 530, particularly
in combination with the stormscope.

I have the WSI downlinked weather that displays on an MX20 MFD. XM Radio
provided by a portable XM receiver and a small antenna mounted above the
glare shield.

Someday I will post my rant about the pitfalls of this particular setup and
my slightly less-than-favorable experience with WSI's service availability
during a long flight I took from NY to California and back last Memorial
Day weekend.

This month's Aviation Consumer had another write-up about the WSI and XM
Weather comparisons. Too bad I wasn't asked to contribute.



--
Peter


















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I had a portable XM radio plugged in to the audio input, but between the
power, antenna, and audio cables it was messy and cumbersome.

I took a different musical route for my Skylane. At home I have the ability
to capture XM radio into 1-2 hour long .mp3 files. I download 20-30 hours
worth of music to my my RIO mp3 player and use the mp3 player in the plane.
The player is tiny and has a single wire from the player to the input jack
for my audio input. Very clean and easy setup.

Guy Byars

In article ,
"Jim N." wrote:
The GDL 69, although not perfect, integrates well with my 530, particularly
in combination with the stormscope. It is excellent for a long range view
if you are going around an extended line of storms, but would not be
especially good for navigating through a line of scattered storms. In this
scenario, on board radar is a better choice, along with the stormscope.


The problem that I see with the GDL69 is that it will only provide
NEXRAD and METARs on the 430/530 displays, according to Garmin. You
still have to pay WxWorx for the full or "lite" feed, both of which
include products beyond that which can be displayed on the 430/530.

In particular, since the NEXRAD provided is base reflectivity, the echo
tops product become valuable in judging the actual strength of the cells
that are displayed on the base reflectivity return.

The bottom line is that you pay a good bit of money for a certified
receiver that to pair with a certified GPS that is unable to display
most of the available weather products. Both the Garmin 396 handheld
and the various PDA/TabletPC solutions provide more bang for the buck
for weather uplink in this scenario.



JKG

You are correct. Garmin claims that with some upcoming changes the full
functionality of the data downlink will become available. Of course, we've
been waiting for WAAS and terrain for over two years now, with no firm
delivery in sight.

For me being a piston driver, base reflectivity is good enough. I also have
Stormscope and on board radar, and in combination feel comfortable with the
information provided. They each provide unique data, and when put together
give a good idea of the weather picture.

The downlink systems are really in their infancy, and it is obvious that the
manufacturers are struggling to keep up with the technology, particularly
with the ponderous bureaucratic certification process imposed by the FAA.
There is no "best" established technology.

I just don't care for a rat's nest of wires and cables in the cockpit from a
portable system (I'm looking forward to the bluetooth headsets as well), and
I enjoy the XM radio as well. So far, Garmin has always come through with
their products, although painfully slowly and well behind schedule.

Hopefully there will be an evolution to one standard that will be
inexpensive and readily available to all.

In article ,
"Jim N." wrote:
The downlink systems are really in their infancy, and it is obvious that the
manufacturers are struggling to keep up with the technology, particularly
with the ponderous bureaucratic certification process imposed by the FAA.
There is no "best" established technology.

Weather uplink has been around for a little while, but the certification
process undoubtedly adds quite a bit of delay and, obviously, quite a
bit of cost. That's why the non-certified portable systems (whether
from Garmin, WxWorx, or a PDA software vendor) have eclipsed the
certified systems when it comes to weather uplink.

The "rat's nest of wires" really isn't the case so much anymore with the
portable systems. With some simple cable management for power, I can
get pretty close to no visible wires. Obviously not as clean as having
everything tucked into the panel, but far from a "rat's nest," and a
heck of a lot less expensive for the exact same information, which is
probably the single largest reason why I invested in a portable system
(it never leaves the airplane).


JKG

On 9-Jul-2005, Jonathan Goodish wrote:

The bottom line is that you pay a good bit of money for a certified
receiver that to pair with a certified GPS that is unable to display
most of the available weather products. Both the Garmin 396 handheld
and the various PDA/TabletPC solutions provide more bang for the buck
for weather uplink in this scenario.


Please correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe that the FAA has any
certification criteria -- or requirements -- for use of weather avoidance
equipment in IFR flight. Certainly there is no "slash suffix" (e.g. "/G"
indicates GPS capability) to indicate weather avoidance gear on the IFR
flight plan. So it really doesn't matter whether the GPS providing input
for display of weather info is certified or not.
--
-Elliott Drucker

In article OGXze.6050$xB6.2348@trnddc03,
wrote:
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe that the FAA has any
certification criteria -- or requirements -- for use of weather avoidance
equipment in IFR flight. Certainly there is no "slash suffix" (e.g. "/G"
indicates GPS capability) to indicate weather avoidance gear on the IFR
flight plan. So it really doesn't matter whether the GPS providing input
for display of weather info is certified or not.


My comments were referring to the hardware itself, that being the GDL69
paired with a Garmin 430/530, not the operation of the hardware. As far
as I know, weather avoidance is the pilot's responsibility, not the
FAA's.

My point was that you can pay $5000 for the GLD69 to pair with your
existing 430/530 installation, or you can pay $2500 for a PDA or Garmin
396 that can display more weather data than can be displayed on the
430/530.



JKG

"Jonathan Goodish" wrote:

In particular, since the NEXRAD provided is base reflectivity, ...

Not exactly true. Here's what WxWorx has to say about it (with minor
paraphrasing):
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WxWorx develops their own version of a composite radar picture using the 124
nm base reflectivity from each radar scan (revolution). They arbitrarily
undertake compositing at a five minute interval, compositing the latest scan
and going back in time so that all previous elevations are included (if
there are 14 "cuts" conducted by the radar and it is currently on "cut 4",
we include the latest cut, 4, then all others). The composited image from
each radar is then mosaic-ed for the whole U.S. image."

Each elevation scan or revolution produces a product called base
reflectivity. On a 5 minute schedule, WxWorx uses the most recent scan and
the previous 13 revolutions to build the composite reflectivity image. The
timing is arbitrary which means that the most recent scan may be at some
middle elevation. So when the timer goes off, they just dive in and grab the
last scan that completed and the previous 13. Essentially they have
"considered" all elevations by using this method.

The color of the pixel that gets displayed on your screen depends on many
factors. They look at each elevation over the last 13 revolutions (or 5
minutes) and choose the highest reflectivity value. This could have been
from the latest scan or from the oldest scan. You just don't know. They do
this for the entire 124 nm radius. There are other factors that I have not
mentioned that may change what you see (such as clutter filtering.

This is different than the composite reflectivity seen from the NWS SSR-88D
display. WxWorx does not try to align itself with the Scan 1 to Scan N
(called a volume coverage pattern) composite reflectivity image. Obviously
this makes good sense since they are trying to be schedule driven, not
product driven. In most cases, they will produce a product that is taken
from two volume coverage patterns. But who cares? Each elevation is
considered and they can provide the most current product.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They refer to each scan as "base reflectivity", no matter what elevation the
radar is tilted to. The point is that the colors you see in your airplane
represent the highest level of all the different elevations scanned for that
area.

-Mike

Jon,

I have been using the IPAQ 4705 with the Anywhere weather. Here is my
experience :

Never leave the 4705 or the Garmin GPS10 bluetooth receiver in the plane
after you land. It won't handle high temperatures. I also keep a vent
pointed towards it while airborne. Twice when the weather go really nasty,
the operating system hung up (due to heat) and I had to reboot while
enduring turbulance.

If you go with the 4705, then you must also buy a 1 Gig SD card and install
the Anywhere Weather on it. Once you have it configured the way you want
it, back it up onto the SD card. That way, any time your system hangs, you
can just restore in less than 45 seconds and bring your last configuration
back.

I have a 430 in my Skylane and I use the 4705 as a backup and for XM
weather. They work great for situational awareness.

The newest release of the Anywhere weather is a vast improvement over the
last release. Seeing is believing. If you want a live demo, I am local in
Indy and can show it to you.

Good Luck.

....Robbie.


"Jon Kraus" wrote in message
...
I have looked at it but was scared off by the $5000.00 price tag.

Jon Kraus

Jim N. wrote:
If you already have a 430, have you looked at the GDL69? It downlinks
near realtime Nexrad radar along with graphical metars.

An added bonus is XM satellite radio, which has better than CD quality
sound and over 110 channels.