PIREP Lowrance 600c

PIREP Lowrance 600c

The trip up the central valley (see PIREP SCK, posted earlier today)
was the first time I had occasion to make use of the Lowrance 600c I
bought a few months back.

It works. That's the good news. With the external antenna sitting on
the glare shield, it pretty much instantaneously locked onto some
satellites and never lost lock. It's much faster than the Garmin
handheld hiker's model (no aviation database) I also have used.

I don't think I got all that close to the advertised six hours from
the batteries. The first pair died after not much more than an hour
into the flight, though I don't have an accurate figure on how long I
used them before takeoff. However, after I replaced them on the ground
at SCK and used them for another three hours, the unit reports it
still has half charge left, so maybe it does get an honest six hours
per pair of AAs.

The screens are generally too cluttered and there are too many menus
with too small type to effectively make use of all the power it has.
Maybe if I had a dedicated electronics officer in the right seat it
would have worked better. As is, it seems to me that the only
practical way to use it is to set it on the ground and stick with
whatever destination and display is chosen there.

The display is all but invisible without the backlight on. Using the
backlight, of course, chews up the battery at a great rate. I left it
at the default setting of turning the light off after 30 seconds use.
It is usable that way, but not ideal.

And that's my general feeling about the unit. It's usable, but not
ideal. It's a lot of processing power and features for the buck. It
is, however, something of a compromise in cockpit utility.