Terrain on iPAQ glide computers

On Apr 26, 5:02*am, stephanevdv wrote:
I don't know about XCSoar, but with WinPilot, the terrain data are
used to calculate final glides, and knowing there is a mountain
between your goal and you can make lots of difference! So I wouldn't
advise to turn the terrain data off. What I do is changing the
settings so that every relief below say 2000 ft doesn't show up on the
screen. I still get roads and streams. If XCSoar can do the same, I
suggest you experiment with the settings for relief.

XCSoar just tuns of the display of the terrain. All terrain warnings
remain functional. I know, because I hear them all the time!

I've been flying with SeeYou Mobile for a couple of seasons now -
switched from WinPilot due to the greater customizeability (?) of
SYM.

I also turn off terrain most of the time (in Illinois, not much need
for it!) but used it when racing at Newcastle - really useful on the
ridge. Trick is to set the colors to only show terrain you are
interested in, leave the rest of the map nice and white for contrast.

I'm using a couple of old iPaq 3950s, set up identically. I turn off
most info on the PDA - I just show turnpoints, L/d to all landable
fields, task, track, wind, AGL, etc. It's easy to display way too
much nice-to-know but distracting info on a PDA!

So I use my SN10 for tactics, and PDA for big picture navigation and
alternates.

I also run PocketPC DOS emulator on the PDA to download my logger
files from my Themi and SN10 into the PDA after the flight - takes a
little tweaking, but works just fine.

All this being said - I haven't had any lockups that were not user
induced. I have had the problem of SYM not showing the correct
altitude (don't know why they can't just default to GPS altitude), but
it's easy to fix inflight - as long as you know the local terrain
elevation - but it's not very intuitive.

Kirk
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