"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
news:0c9eb7ec245c44683f14df2697f2042c@TeraNews...
"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

What, in your opinion, makes this system superior to Bendix/King's KMD
250,
KDR 510 uplink system? Both are transmission systems, one satellite, one
ground, how do they compare otherwise?

One of the main problems with the Bendix/King system is that since it is
ground-based, in many situations you cannot use it to get a weather
picture
before takeoff or at "low" altitude ("low" depending on how near a
transmission station is to where you are flying, of course). So it might
not be available when you really want to use it.

Another nice feature of the WSI system is that the data is the same as
what
you see on the Internet at www.intellicast.com and it is also the same
data
most of us see at FBOs across the country -- please correct me if I am
wrong, but I do not think there is an Internet site to view the data in
the
Bendix/King system. This is important because there is a learning curve
in
any radar or Nexrad system to learn how to interpret the graphics from the
perspective of "Am I willing to fly thorugh that?"

How is it (Nexrad) different?

Most of us are already
quite familiar with radar images from Intellicast or from WSI computers at
FBOs. With the Bendix/King system, you may not even be able to turn on
your avionics on the ground to work through this learning curve.

I suspect the Garmin 400/500 series with a GDL49 uplink and a subscription
to EchoFlight would be more expensive?? Or EchoFlight with their Flight
Cheetah?

http://www.garmin.com/products/gdl49/
http://www.echoflight.com/data_link.html