Which GPS?

[R22DRIVER]

Hi all,

With the New Year sales starting to boom, im looking at purchasing a portable GPS for use in both aviation and on the road ( Turn by turn Jobbie ).

Ive been looking at the Lowrance Airmap 600c as a good allrounder.

Any views on this unit or other possibles for the same price ( US$500 ) would be a great help.

Safe Flying for the coming year :ok:

R22

[CHOPPER74]

Hi,

I have tried the Garmin 196 and then sold it after getting a Garmin 296. I would say the 196 is the better of the two and alot cheaper to buy. The colour screen in the 296 is very hard to look at at certain times of the day with any sunlight on it.

Good luck:ok:

[rotorfloat]

I'm using an Airmap 600C. Flown about 10 000nm with it so far, according to the odometer :}

I chose it over garmin for size, price, regular AA batteries instead of battery packs, and the memory is easily expandable with off-the-shelf sd/mmc cards, as opposed to garmin's expensive memory packs. The display can be fully customized and is as easy to use as any of garmin's x96 units.

Not sure where you are R22Driver, but I purchased mine from Calgary Pilot Supply, and it included a 4 disk Canadian topographical database; which is amazing. The detail is no different than having a topo map right in front of you. With the 512mb card (included) there's enough room for me to store topo data of my 'backyard' alongside the jeppson database.

On the downside, the plastic screen is soft and can scratch easily. I just stuck a pda protector on it and cut to fit. The colour screen is hard to see without the backlight on, so I can get about 8 hrs out of a fully-charged pair of NiMh batteries with the backlight on all the time.

All card programming must be done through their proprietary sd/mmc card reader (included). You can only register/program up to 4 cards per unit. The jeppson database cannot be copy/pasted onto a larger card, so if you go to a larger card, you lose the aviation data. I wonder if lowrance will install this data onto a larger card for you?

I haven't ran off of aircraft power yet, but it does look inconvenient. The voltage regulator is in the cigarette adapter, so you cannot wire it direct to a canon plug; rather, you must purchase a female cig adapter and run that into your canon plug. The cable plugs into the bottom of the unit (as opposed to the back, with garmins), and it is rather large for a simple dc power supply, so this may interfere with where you suction-cup it to the panel.

Good luck with your purchase.

[remote hook]

I have a Garmin 76CS colour screen.

Been great. It's all you need in terms of information, and for the aviation specific database, you can go to the 96CS or the new equivilent.

The Garmin is bullet proof in hot or cold, and I have mine direct wired. The voltage regulator in the cig adapter portion isn't needed, you can snip it off, and wire a 24V cannon plug into it. Works just fine.

Whatever you choose, make sure you can use the buttons with gloves on.... seeing as you'll be up in winter very soon....!

Ciao

RH

[Flying Bull]

Hi R22Driver,

have a look at http://www.pocketfms.com (http://www.pocketfms.com/)

Buy a regular PDA, something like this from acer
http://cgi.ebay.de/Acer-N35-PDA-GPS-256MB-SD-Navigation-Destinator-N-35_W0QQitemZ300063622741QQihZ020QQcategoryZ38331QQrdZ1QQcmdZ ViewItem
or from the HP iPAQ series.

Either with inbuild GPS, if that is o.k. with your type of aircraft - or with a bluetooth GPS-mouse (dont use cable-versions, they are a pain in the a..)

Then you have your roadnavigation system - and with pocketfms on it, also a great aircraftnavigation system.
Think about the 50€ to become a donor for pocketfms, giving you better maps and a faster upadteservice.
But the free version works also very well.
You can record tracks, extract them, visualize them in googleearth and and and...
Just have a look

Greetings
"Flying Bull"

[thecontroller]

Hey R22 driver, hows the american dream going? any plans to come back to blighty in 2007 ?

[MamaPut]

If you're flying in a helicopter without a GPS and really feel the need for one, I'd recommend the absolute cheapest which will work okay in whatever you fly. I have a 5 year old very cheap hand-held Garmin, with a B&W screen, in which I entered all the waypoints manually. It's worked perfectly including several long-ish 3000 mi+) ferry flights. I think I paid around $120 for it, which seemed quite expensive at the time. Now you can get the same performance from a garmin eTrex costing less than $100 :ok:

[g-mady]

Have to agree with MamaPut,

The Etrex is a great device. It depends on which aircraft you fly but if you want one to just show you a few waypoints and show you the way, the £100 on an etrex is money well spent, and of course works well for land and sea!

Flying Bull,
Ive never tries one but have always assumed the Ipaq/GPS combo look a little cumbersome esp if flying say an R22? Touch screen a bit fidly, and possibly glare on the screen? Also dont these devices act a little slow at updating (not instant)? But I guess it works ok on the road aswell?

MADY

[bogey@6]

R22Driver,

For R22/R44 use, to me nothing beats the Garmin GPSIII Pilot-- must be cheap now. We've installed this in R44s on the Cyclic using clamps similar to those used in car radiators attached to the included base. No vibration. Black and white contrast is kewl in broad daylight. Software logic is basically the same as other Garmin products. We've tried installing GPS196 & similar sized Garmins vibration prevents good use. Go with GPSIII-- you won;t regret it in R22.

bogey@6

[bolkow]

Have to agree with MamaPut,

The Etrex is a great device. It depends on which aircraft you fly but if you want one to just show you a few waypoints and show you the way, the £100 on an etrex is money well spent, and of course works well for land and sea!

Flying Bull,
Ive never tries one but have always assumed the Ipaq/GPS combo look a little cumbersome esp if flying say an R22? Touch screen a bit fidly, and possibly glare on the screen? Also dont these devices act a little slow at updating (not instant)? But I guess it works ok on the road aswell?

MADY
I have a tom tom, and when I reach a roundabout, particularly ones with 4-5 offshoots, it does not keep pace with the car speed which frequently results in wrong exits taken. I should add that I dont speed at roundabouts.