Garmin 496 GPS Portable

I know there has been a lot of talk about various GPS units but I came across this one the other day.

I suspect that at least some of the aviators amongst us use the 496 but while looking closely at one, I was informed that you can take it out of the airplane and into your motor vehicle and it becomes a street navigator. Added to that you can take it out of your car and take it to your boat and it will find it's way around the water ways...........

My question is.....I know it is very good in airplanes (airways, restricted areas,TFR,s and all) but how is it on the road or in the water???? Does the XM weather work in all modes...

Thanks in advance


John

John,

I have a 496 in the bus (back when JDUB was only sporting the 396) and it works great in all modes. Especially XM weather.

MIke

I use my 396 in both the bus and the plane.

It is a little more effort than GPS units that are solely for road use, but it is accurate. You just have to download the map sections for the trip you will be taking.

I prefer it to a Magellan that I have so I have mounts for it in the plane and the bus.

Thanks Mike and Jon for the input.:)

I have a 530 in my a/c and never paid much attention to the portables until the other day. I know Garmin says it will do this and that but,.....never know until you ask the man who owns one.

That XM weather is really the cats meow....better than full blown radar because you can see so farther out and it updates every few seconds. While if I were in an a/c I wouldn't want to pick my way thru a line, in the coach... big red blob and you may want to find an overpass to park under till it passes. Stay away from tornado magnets...trailer parks!!

Thanks

John

With the 496 it is rare you would have to download any road data. I have used it for a year and it is infinitely better than even the new Garmin that is utilized in the Kenwood 7200 system I just installed. But for the sake of fair disclosure, it is twice as expensive.

Why? Well first off, I like the ability to program the fields on the map page. I can put Altitude or ETA or any one of two dozen options on it. This is somewhat limited on the built in units.

The weather is the best part. Virtually real time radar and hail detection is invaluable for someone travelling in a stainless steel bus. I have weather on my new system, but it is a watered down version. I would almost rather have it in METAR form than in the grossly abbreviated version.

Exit information - hit NRST on the 496 and page over to the exit part and you get every exit until you get to your destination and you get the rest areas; all in the order you get to them.

And the best part is when you check the data records it says that your max speed was 265 MPH if you have had it in the plane. You can make all the SOB/POS crack whores envious.

It's not the cleanest set up but it is the best I have encountered for all around use.

Maybe you pilots that use the handheld Garmins for weather limit your flights when it gets cruddy, but I never had the luxury. I have learned a lot since using the XM weather. I have radar, a Strikefinder and XM so here is the short version.

The XM is OK for long range planning. If I had it exclusively I would use it only to map a wide path around the back side of weather. XM has two serious deficiencies that offset its ease of interpretation. First under the best of circumstances it takes 6 minutes to load. That is a lifetime in an area of developing severe weather. As the weather worsens the XM load time for new weather gets longer. I have had delays in loading new weather as long as 40 minutes when the weather had turned to tapioca.

The strike finder is also a good long range device, and can be used to assist in the interpretation of weather when you are busy and do not have time to work the tilt. But like XM it is historic. Neither XM or Strikefinder are satisfactory for working through or around serious weather because they only tell you what has just happened.

Radar is excellent, but in our size aircraft it has a useful range of about 40 miles and it is a labor intensive device. I have to work the tilt to monitor cells to measure the tops, to determine if a cell is growing or collapsing, and to determine if I am dealing with just rain, or based on the height of tops something more serious. I am very aware of how radar can have blind spots so I am constantly watching weather development and comparing what I see on the radar with the other two devices.

The combination of the three is awesome, but if I had an XM only I would be ultra careful about launching or flying into areas of weather unless I knew I was dealing solely with benign rain showers. During the summer here in the south thunderstorms are a fact of life and I see XM as a nice accessory, but not a serious tool.

Jon,I have a friend who has a King Air 200 with a Garmin 530 and he tells me it updates every few minutes,he likes it as well as the radar.I have 2 Garmin 530's in my P Baron and am considering the XM weather,do you think that the 530 updates faster?Jack

I am not familiar with all the various weather downloads. I fly with a friend that has a 480 and the MX20 MFD and I am not sure who his weather provider is, but I have watched his delay updates. We were heading into an area of weather and my butt was puckering because his updates were stretching towards 15 minutes. Worse, mine and his are six minute updates, but those updates are delayed because the NOAA weather is massaged before it is put out so the real delay is even longer. I have flown into weather depicted on the XM that was bright red, but was clear in fact and on the radar I could see the red blob had moved away.

A guy flying in embedded stuff relying on XM could be in serious trouble.

I know for sure mine updates no sooner than every six minutes. I do not know of any that are real time.

If the XM weather did update more often than 6 minutes and it was guaranteed to do so I would prefer it to radar, but the real world is that it is a six minute update in good weather and when it really gets nasty out the updates are spaced even further apart. I pick my way through the close stuff with radar and use the Strikefinder and XM for long range planning only.

ATC is no help whatsoever, and I learned a long time ago to never rely on them. I think their weather depiction is a worked over composite and is not real time also.

Jon, if you recall I have the 480 and had the MX20( which I recently replaced with the MX 200) I have found now that the resolution,range and download speeds have increased exponentially ( without changing the receiver) so I am going to assume it is in the MFD

Gran, I don't know if the download speeds are the problem as much as the fact that it does not update with each sweep of the radar antenna. The data is downloaded once every time period on every weather depiction I have seen.

Mine shows a small legend in the lower LH corner showing the age of the weather. It is depicted as 00:00 wx

When I see the legend reading 00:01 wx I know it is a reasonable representation of the real weather, but as it ages its value diminishes. In my 396 when the weather downloads there is a barely perceptible blink of the screen and the depiction alters to reflect the latest. It is interesting to see just how much changes in the time interval.

I haven't paid attention to how frequently the MX 200 updates( it was around every 5 minutes with the 20) but I will look next time I fly. Of course I am always VFR and use it more as a flight planner than anything else. It is helpful though when navigating a cell to know what is behind the weather you are seeing. Interestingly the other day I was painting these well formed cells( dark green/yellow) going across the state yet never encountered a thing. Another pilot I know was at my destination and reported getting the same returns. Wasn't ground clutter..must have been a glitch in the system.

I think that my 530 updates the same as the 396/496, after all its just a receiver.

The beauty of the XM is that it allows you to avoid something, like a nice solid line, long before it makes an appearance on your radar.

Jon is correct about seeking assistance from ATC unless you are in the High Sectors (above 240) then there is pleanty of chit chat about severe weather. Should you be IMC approaching an airyard with severe weather, especially a big one, say ATL, they are pretty good about keeping you out of the big ones but even a small one in a light aircraft is not too pleasant.

Even more than the weather stuff, that traffic that is available on the 530 is terrific...not sure if the 496 will do that because it needs a feed from the Garmin transponder. I will take a level 5 T-Storm anyday when compared to a 172 (running into me). TCAS (TCAD) would be even better but that's way up there in the price department.

John

I don't know how the different radios receive their weather. The 396 / 496 gets its downloads from XM using a dedicated antenna. I presume the various different radios each have their own way of receiving the data. If I am not mistaken the Honeywell King system uses ground based transmitters and Garmin is based on satellite transmission.

But I believe all use data that has been massaged by the NWS from data it receives from radar sites across the country. After the NWS puts that data into a useable form then the various services transmit it to the receivers.

There is no doubt when the data received is recent and not corrupted that it is a tremendous tool. Back in pre-historic times a pilot would have to translate data such as the lifted index to try to mentally see what he would encounter during his flight between point A and B. When the pilot wanted an update he had to call FSS (when it really worked, and before the current clowns are running it) and ask for an update. The briefer would try to define the area of storms based on lines between VORs or some other points. Only when the pilot got close to the weather could he rely on the Model 20/20 eyeballs, radar and stormscope (in that order).

Today a guy with a 172 can launch towards bad weather with a high degree of confidence and as long as he does not ask too much of his 430/530/396/496/MX20/etc. he can work around weather that he previously could or would never tackle.

My only concern is I see on the various forums that guys that are barely capable of IFR flight are talking like they rely on their handhelds to work through a line.

As a tool to be used to predict when we will get our buses wet I see it as a great device. As a tool solely used to navigate bad stuff I have less enthusiasm for its use without detailed knowledge of its strengths and weaknesses.

I have to think that the time lag has to be a bandwidth problem that will be solved as more people turn to this system and they invest in more capacity.

I also like the ability to look into and behind weather hundreds of miles away so that I can make a slight deviation to get around it. And the sat photo overlay seals the deal. Seeing vastly improving weather can also help you move up to a front and land and know that within an hour or so you will be flying in clear blue sky.

I have the transponder tied to the 430 so the traffic comes up there, so I never thought about running it thru the 496. I do have the 496 linked to the audio panel so that I get the terrain warnings and the XM music thru the intercom.

My weather comes through a dedicated reciever( I believe it is a Garmin GDL 69) and the vendor is Wx Worx. The fact that the overall performance improved led me to believe it was in the MFD...for all I know it could be a continous loop video.