WAAS and Garmin 430/530

Actually what you are referring to is Chrysler and Garmin did not lose the
business.. The system bought by Chrysler from Alpine was at a higher price
(~$1600) point than the one being developed by Garmin for Chrysler. The
stock was ready to take a hit, having run from $20 to $50 with no real
pullbacks. Automotive is indeed going to be the largest market but the
margins are going to be the lowest.

Mike
MU-2


"Mark T. Mueller" wrote in message
news
I believe it was GM. It was reported back in June. Garmin's stock took a
hit
after the announcement, since the auto sector represents the greatest
revenue growth potential for GPS equipment makers...

Aviation, as we all know, is a very small, niche market compared to the
auto
sector.


"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
link.net...

"Mark T. Mueller" wrote in message
...
The 430/530 do not meet the WAAS TSO (146a, I believe). They were
designed
long before this TSO went final. Garmin always said the 430/530 would
be
"upgradeable", but I think the final TSO caught them by surprise.

You WILL need a hardware upgrade in the boxes to provide the 1 Hz
refresh
rate required by the TSO. Garmin reps at OSH this year stated the
upgrade
should be available early next year, but based upon Garmin's typical
schedule challenges, it will probably be more like late 04 before they
can
provide good turn-around, and that's assuming they don't find any
"issues"
with the hardware upgrade...

There will be a significant software upgrade as well.

Seeing as there are only a handfull of LNAV/VNAV approaches published,
I
don't see the hurry in finding the que. I will wait a bit until the
hardware
upgrade is on the street for a couple months and any inevitable
problems
are
worked out...

In the meantime, were I to buy right now, I would probably go for the
CNX80,
but I would be concerned that Garmin has just bought UPSAT and future
product support. The "gist" I got from the Garmin reps at OSH was
their
entire engineering staff is focused on rolling out the high dollar
G-1000,
and everything else is taking a back seat at the moment. Kind of
disappointing, since I was hoping they would come out with an
interface
for
the 530 with WxWorx instead of that pathetic EchoFlight...

Garmin lost a major auto contract recently because of their high
pricing
structure. Don't know how that's going to effect their business model,
but
I
hope they refocus on their core aviation market.

I'm waiting.

DB

What auto maker was that?

Mike
MU-2