I have had the opportunity to test out the new XMRadio Satellite
Weather system (www.wxworx.com) enroute to Oshkosh... The unit is a
demo unit which has been somewhat delayed from the initial planned
production date of July 1 -- I am planning a Forums talk Wednesday
7/30 at Oshkosh on portable weather datalink and I wanted to include
the XMRadio system in the discussion. Due to the production delay, I
have been able to review the unit "cross-country" in a motorhome
enroute to Oshkosh although not yet in the airplane (yes, I know, it
should be illegal to arrive at OSH other than in an airplane, but the
motorhome turns out to be a lot more "family friendly" for camping).

Anyway, as a brief initial reaction I would say I am favorably
impressed. The final price is $629 for the hardware (plus a laptop
computer or PDA) and $49/month for unlimited weather datalink, which
is much cheaper than Echoflight or Controlvision. There is a bit of
"wire clutter" but much less than satellite phone systems I have seen
(i.e. Echoflight or Controlvision) and the portable nature of the
system is a big plus to renters.

The biggest plus of all is that weather download is automated -- no
need to keep requesting weather updates or fiddle with the computer...
while it takes a bit of hardware and software setup, once it is
configured you can let it do its thing automatically.

The digital signal processing produces images which have similar
resolution to Intellicast but seem less "sensitive" -- that is, the
location of storms well matches that on Intellicast but a lot of the
light areas on Intellicast which turn out to be virgia or minimal
precip aloft do not show up on the WxWorx system. I am not sure yet
which graphical presentation of weather I prefer (Intellicast vs.
WxWorx) but in the end they both give the critical information. The
WxWorx system also displays lightning strikes, graphical cloud tops,
and some text weather.

These are basically initial impressions...I will play with the system
a bit more over the coming weeks. For those who are attending Oshkosh
and want to get a look at the physical hardware and some screen
snapshots, my Forums presentation will be Wednesday 7/30 and a link to
the scheduling details of the presentation is on my web page at
www.flyimc.com


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com