PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Avidyne gets NEXRAD well not quite but nearly.
Old 3rd Sep 2008, 16:22
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IO540
 
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I take it you mean the MLX770 system? This is very expensive, unless you already have a suitable big MFD in which case it is only a few k to install the Iridium satellite modem, the rooftop aerial, and the rest. Their radar data appears to come from meteox.com whose coverage is just N Europe.

The other, similarly expensive system, is MT. They use Iridium too.

The problem is that Iridium charge about $4/minute for dial-up data and this gives you just 2.4kbits/sec. OK for METARs etc but will always be pricey for radar images.

I have this working with a Thuraya SG-2520 sat phone and any windoze-running display device. Was pretty handy on a trip last weekend, too. The phone is about £500 and the "GPRS" data costs US$5/MB which is absolutely peanuts. At ~ 50kbts/sec it's also much faster. I have the details if anybody needs them.
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